Poor performance of public construction project in Malaysia

Abstract

The performance of public projects has always been a frequent topic of discussions. There are many cases of abandoned, delayed, cost overrun and poor quality of construction works. These problems can be observed in the Annual National Audit Reports. This study intends to propose a framework of Poor Performance Management of public construction projects in Malaysia. To achieve this, the study identifies what are the factors leading to poor performance, how these factors affect the performance and what would be the appropriate mitigation measures. A document analysis on the Auditor General Report from year 2003 to 2014 has been carried out to identify factors reported as poor performance factors. The analysis coupled with the literature review, has identified 75 factors and each was classified according to the stages of development and a set of questionnaires was prepared to calibrate these factors. A survey was conducted among 137 respondents who have sufficient experiences in project development. The study discovered that the most occurred or mentioned factors in the audit reports are not perceived as significant contributors to poor performance due to the respondents’ contradicting perceptions. Factors like lack of planning and incompetent team members are among the agreed factors of poor performance and these factors vary from one stage to another. The Statistical Packages for Social Studies (SPSS) is used to analyse the data and findings from the analysis found out that actor, process and institution related factors are equally responsible for poor performance. As a result, a framework for Public Project Performance Management has been suggested and it emphasises the involvement and commitment from all team members of a project. This framework focuses on 5Cs; Competent, Commitment, Communication, Comfort and Collaboration among team members. Since the performance management is in place and supported by good team environment, the performance of the project can be enhanced and improved. Thus, this addresses and helps solve the poor performance issues in public project development.