It was revealed in the study that only three percent of government projects are implemented on time while 80 percent of projects cannot be completed with the allocated fund.

The field study was conducted by Turki Al-Turki, an expert in development and management of projects and member of Saudi Project Management Chapter (PMC), Al-Watan newspaper reported. Taking part in the survey, about 300 project managers and supervisors noted that hundreds of millions of riyals are wasted every year due to the lack of proper vision and impromptu decisions.

They urged the authorities to have a fresh look at the current status of both small and large projects, and strive to achieve high professional outcome by carrying out studies and researches about their effective management. Allocations for implementation of various projects represented more than one-fourth of budgetary funding over the past five years, they pointed out.

The questionnaire, distributed among more than 300 managers and supervisors who are in charge of various government projects, focused mainly on the actual state of affairs regarding project planning and implementation as well as factors caused for their success or failure.

The study gives a red signal to decision makers regarding faulty management of projects, asking them to expedite remedial measures by adopting a systematic, planned and professional methodology. Replying to the questionnaire, 21 percent of project managers noted that they do not have access to effective informative mechanism pertaining to project management, and that resulted in slowing transfer of information as well as in creating big communication gap between decision makers and managers of projects.

Al-Turki noted that individual endeavors without any planning while carrying out project management programs and their follow-up work comprise the main problem with regard to about 57 percent projects.

“In these cases, project managers do not follow any well-planned programs and resort to personal endeavors, contrary to a professional approach toward implementing the projects.

A majority of project managers participated in the study emphasized that the poor follow-up work of project implementation is a major factor resulting in their delay.

“About 55 percent of participants say there are no periodic reports about the status of ongoing projects and in some cases reports are released at irregular intervals.

“If there were no periodic reports, then how is it possible to know the exact status of the project, its progress and percentage of implementation or whether the project is being implemented in line with the plan or not? As those who do not attach any significance to periodic reports, they do not have either any plans or vision about the date of completing the project,” he said.

The study showed that about three percent of projects are completed within their stipulated period of time while implementation of the remaining 97 percent of projects has been delayed.

“The basic factor about the projects is that they are being delayed and not able to complete on time. About 20 percent of projects are completed by making use of the first allotted fund,” Al-Turki said while terming it as a disappointing signal.

He drew attention to the huge loss incurred by the state exchequer when estimates of more than 80 percent of projects exceeded the limit once they are completed.

“The most dangerous aspect of the matter is that most of the project supervisors, who are government officials, do not find any fault with the delay and do not have any worry about the immensity of such a national waste,” he said.

Al-Turki recalled that a government official, who is supervisor of a government project, admonished him following their conversation about this type of waste, saying “this is the wealth of the government.”

The study also showed that about 95 percent of government projects are being completed with fulfillment of all necessary requirements. “Apart from the factors that cause anxiety due to the delay in implementation, this is a good signal,” he added.

Meanwhile, Abdul Rahman Al-Hazza, director of projects at the private sector, said that there are differences between the nature of interaction with regard to government and private projects. “A government contract is based on the general operational contract in line with the government procurement law. If there is any delay in implementation of the project, there would not be any major harm. There would also be absolute power for the government sector, represented by the supervising agency — the project supervisor consultant. With regard to payment of the contract amount in installments, it would be done quickly in the private sector whereas in the public sector, this would not be so because of the involvement of more than one agency,” he said.

According to Al-Hazza, the private sector chooses the best contractor in terms of technical and financial aspects. On the contrary, the procurement law forces the government sector to pick the contractor who quotes the lowest amount.

On his part, Khaleel Al-Oboudi, director of projects at the private sector, cited the major problems faced while implementing the project in the Kingdom’s government sector.

“They include absence of modifications in the government procurement law, inefficiency on the part of the respective government agencies, which are undertaking the management and follow-up of the projects, due to their bigger size, in addition to incompetence of a large number of contractors to implement mega government projects,” he said while proposing some suggestions to solve the frequent problem of delay in implementation of projects within the contract period.

These included project programming within the capacities of the contracting sector in the Kingdom, amendments in the government procurement law and making available of qualified hands in the designing and implementation of projects.