Project Monitoring Units discontinue due to poor performance
Project Monitoring Units (PMUs) of ongoing development projects, located in ministries, are to be discontinued as most of these units failed to ensure that resources allocated for public investment are utilised in an efficient and effective manner, Finance Ministry sources divulged.
These projects will be continued with the existing staff in relevant ministries as the government has taken a decision not to make financial allocations as expenditure for project units in 2021 budget estimates, a circular issued by Treasury Secretary S.R. Attygalle has indicated.
Line ministries and project executing agencies have been advised to manage new projects within their existing institutional set-up.
Strengthening the project management capacity at the executive agency level is vital in this regard to handle multiple projects within the permanent institutional arrangement, a senior Treasury official said.
Secretary of the line ministry is responsible to identify the minimum human resources requirement for project preparatory activities, he disclosed.
The Treasury spends millions of rupees in maintaining 22 project management offices and branches with around 225 executive officers including directors,’ engineers’ administrative officers and accountants.
The previous government has implemented a large number of infrastructure development projects and some of the projects experienced delays, cost overruns and disputes.
This situation resulted in incurring additional costs, prolongation of social and environmental impacts during construction, depriving the general public of the use of infrastructure facilities for years and also under-utilisation of foreign funds, he disclosed.
Insufficient capacity in project management and contract management skills, including skills in dispute resolution processes within PMUs have been identified as a key contributory factor, he added.
In order to remedy the situation, the government has decided to deploy the internal staff of ministries enhancing their project and contract management capacity in the implementation and execution of national infrastructure projects,
All ongoing and in-the-pipeline development and infrastructure projects are to be reviewed and implemented on a priority basis as the progress of some of those have failed to achieve expected targets after spending millions of rupees, according to a Treasury report.
Insufficient capacity in project management and contract management skills, including skills in dispute resolution processes within PMUs have been identified as a key contributory factors for the slow progress of these projects.
Total allocation to implement 1,257on-going projects and programmes as at the end of 2019 was Rs. 893.24 billion; out of this, Rs. 702.84 billion was indicated in the Budget estimate-2019 for 1,096 on-going projects and programmes, Treasury statistics showed.
Some 47 projects and programmes which should have been completed by the end 2019 but achieved less than 25 per cent of cumulative physical progress should be revisited, the report recommended.