Insights and Recommendations

Abstract

This chapter summarizes the 11 case study observations: it systematically illustrates that the completed projects were superior in their success factors across all 11 cases. This summary directly links the statistical success driver constructs from Chap. 5 with the qualitative characterizations from the case studies.

This chapter then gives examples from three other countries of how government project governance was changed over time. These examples can serve as an inspiration of the ambition to change governance for the better.

Finally, the chapter develops, from the previous analysis, recommendations of how the government might change the governance rules for very large projects in order to achieve more productivity for the country in the future.

12.1 Summary and Discussion of the Findings

Where do we find ourselves after our econometric analysis of the questionnaires and description of the 11 case studies? Have we obtained a coherent picture that allows us to suggest changes in the management of large Nigerian projects for the benefit of the country?

Before we come to the insights from the analysis, we must admit that projects are complicated beasts, and success and failure, and even stalling and completion, are not always clear cut (e.g. is the Lagos Badagry project stalled forever? Could the Mambilla Dam project, although restarted now, also be called a borderline stalled project?) But in spite of the ambiguities and noise, our data analysis identified four aggregate success variables (or factors), plus one individual variable, (corruption) that statistically explain a significant part of the difference in terms of success of the projects: the clarity and inclusiveness of the project goals, the professionalism of supervision and stakeholder management, the contractor selection, and the availability of resources and professionalism of planning (especially risk planning). Corruption stands on its own as an important success driver—this variable is sensitive, but because of the anonymity assured to the questionnaire respondents, we were able to get at least qualitative assessments of the level of corruption.

The econometric analysis showed the size of the economic levers that the success variables represent—making moderate improvements can (as suggested by the project sample) save hundreds of millions of dollars for a single project. Complementing the econometric analysis, the case studies have demonstrated the success drivers “live”—they have shown us what it looks like on the ground when project success variables are missing and how the variables interact. Tables 12.1a and 12.1b provide a summary of the most striking observations.

Table 12.1a Qualitative description of success variables across matched pairs in three sectors (completed projects in green)

Table 12.1b Qualitative description of success variables across matched pairs in two sectors, plus Ajaokuta Steel (completed projects in green)

Tables 12.1a and 12.1b show that all five success variables (the four factors and corruption) identified in the econometric analysis appear prominently in the case studies. First contractor selection and management caused problems in four of the six abandoned projects, but only in two of the five completed projects (and after a re-awarding of the contracts, the situation improved and the projects were completed).

Second, project goals were widely accepted in most projects, but characterized as “overambitious” (and thus changing) in five of the six abandoned projects, while they did not pose problems in the completed projects.

Lack of thorough financial planning connected to a lack of budget continuity is observed in all six abandoned projects, in two of them related to unsuccessful public–private partnership (PPP) schemes. Funding was an issue in two of the five completed projects (Lagos-Ibadan expressway and Egbin power plant), but the projects “got away” with delays rather than catastrophic stalling.

None of the abandoned projects was brought down directly by protests or resistance from external stakeholder groups. However, we have seen the completed Zungeru Hydropower Plant temporarily stopped by protests, causing delays and endangering completion. Three abandoned projects were plagued by disagreements among internal stakeholders (multiple government agencies) that did not agree or collaborate. These stakeholder disagreements go along with spotty supervision, which is mentioned for two abandoned projects but none of the completed projects.

Finally, corruption. Although direct evidence of corruption in the narratives of interviewees is uncomfortable and not easily volunteered, five of the six abandoned projects were clearly affected by corruption, and it is highly likely that one (the Delta State Power Plant) was brought down by corruption. Only one of the five completed projects has indications of possible corruption (although this lack of evidence is probably underestimating the issue, given its pervasiveness). We discussed in the econometrics chapter the evidence of corruption not just adding costs to a project but also poisoning the project with bad decisions, which severely reduces its chances of completion. This was illustrated in the Delta State project.

In summary, the qualitative case analysis strongly suggests that the success factors were systematically different between the abandoned and the completed projects (as the regressions in Chap. 5 already suggest).

We can make this “counting differences among the cases” quantitative by running a statistical test that compares each matched pair of one abandoned and one completed project per sector. We show this “counting differences” analysis in Table 12.2. The table contains the variable values for the five success factors from the questionnaires (averaged for each project over the three respondents), for each of the ten projects in the case study pairs. Running your eyes over these numbers will give you the impression that the variable values are higher (and the corruption values lower) for the completed projects as compared to the abandoned projects. This is measured statistically with the chi-square tests for each matched project pair, which is highly significant: for each pair, the probability that the difference might arise accidentally is lower than 1%. This quantitatively supports the impression from Tables 12.1a and 12.1b, that each completed project had better management assessments on the success factors than its matched abandoned counterpart.

Table 12.2 Statistical comparison of success factor values across each matched project pair

A common theme that runs across the case studies alongside the success factors is centralized decision-making (for which we had not developed a variable because this feature had not been separately pointed out in previous work). Centralized decision-making (by the president or governor, or a small group of people with special interests), with projects emerging from the president or governor’s desk, is connected to the variables that we do measure in the questionnaire, by posing the risk of inconsistent decision-making and responding to current pressures (or special interests) rather than following a thought-through, long-term plan, even if the intention is to help the country. Moreover, “big-man decision-making” encourages a lack of continuity in project goals when the government changes—it seemed to be systematically the case that a new administration would tend to question, “investigate” or cancel project decisions and commitments made by the previous government. Even today, it is critical for a very large project that the president be involved, such that the idea for the project appears to come from the president directly as a directive or executive order. If described like this, the centralized big-man decision-making could be seen as one underlying issue that favours all the problems that we have measured and analysed. This is, of course, an oversimplifying catch-phrase because not all the problems would go away if the “big men” were not to make the decisions alone (although, if the decisions were also made transparently, significant improvements might already result!).

At the project approval point, the project rests in the hands of the president alone. He (so far it has always been a “he”) influences even the choice of contractor and directs the project’s commencement and payment. Even to the present day, the Bureau of Public Procurement does not have a mechanism to change, alter or stop any project undertaken by the president in this fashion. Conversely, during any subsequent administration, if that president has no interest in the project, it can lay dormant because of a lack of interest and funding, whether it is half done or 99% complete. Processes are not sufficiently mature to produce an irrevocable commitment irrespective of the government that started it.

This lack of continuity was enabled and exacerbated by the fact that project budgets were mostly made available for one or two years only, but rarely for the entire project duration. (This may be justifiable if there are critical milestones and future budgets are made conditional on meeting progress milestones. However, this was not the case here—budgets were not secured for political, or simply a lack of planning, reasons). For some projects, allocated funds were “fictitious” and ultimately evaporated (which led to accusations of using projects as campaign tools with insincere intentions). In any case, the lack of goal continuity and funding instability led to non-payment of contractors and therefore delays.

When the project is badly set up in this way, negative events tend to happen that undermine the trust of the participating parties. There is no evidence that the projects in our sample suffered from incompetent contractors, and yet contractors did behave badly—the evidence suggests that they responded to the context. When the contractor sees opportunistic behaviour on the part of the supervising government parties and struggles to get paid, the contractor can be tempted to “play games” to ensure profitability (and to protect itself from bad behaviour from the other party); this might include pretending services, for example, by renegotiating, billing for unnecessary (or even fake) services or padding out budgets (as we saw in the Abuja National Library project). In the words of one of our anonymous interviewees, “If you repeatedly see that an administration ‘empties the coffers’ before it steps down, so you anticipate that you will not get paid after the change in administration, you are forced to take countermeasures.” Our final conclusion is not that Nigeria needs to completely change its existing large project contractors. Actually, there is much experience and expertise in evidence among contractors. The conclusion we have drawn is that the contractors need to be better guided and led by the government, project owners and supervisors.

Part of the problem is weak government oversight during project execution. This did not become apparent in our high-level case summaries, but it emerged clearly in a couple of interviews (the only case study where a positive statement was made about governance and oversight was the Zungeru Hydropower Plant project). Our anonymous contractor interviewee commented, “The government overseers on the project get from us cars and computers to do their work, but then we don’t see them anymore, and we certainly never see the cars and computers ever again. Government officials appear in large numbers when something has gone wrong, and then they demand that the problems are made to go away.” The depth and quality of governance scrutiny is insufficient; in particular, there is little sophisticated risk planning by the overseeing bodies.

12.2 Developing Solutions: Inspiration from Other Countries

Before we jump to solution proposals, it is worthwhile looking at what other developing countries have done. We are not attempting any kind of a “benchmarking” exercise—making such an exercise worthwhile would require detailed studies that go beyond the scope of this book. Even more fundamentally, “benchmarking” assumes comparability: it rests on the compared situation being sufficiently similar to the “benchmarked” situation so that decisions made in the other contexts carry over to the context of interest. We discussed in Chap. 2 that there are important local differences, and the nature of the problem, as well as suggested solution approaches, are specific to the structure of government and public sector in Nigeria. We cannot, therefore, see any solutions that one could simply “transport” to Nigeria. However, we can still learn a lot from the challenges faced by the other countries and the solution approaches that they chose. We can take inspiration from the fact that other countries have been able to considerably improve their large government project capabilities.

We conducted interviews with one high-level public project decision-maker from each of three countries, namely, India, Thailand and Indonesia. Again, we are not looking for a precise and “provable” benchmarking here; we are merely looking for ideas that might arise from a broad look at what other countries have broadly done. It turns out that all three countries faced challenges of large public project success in the past, and they have developed improvements over the last 20–30 years. The insights from the interviews are summarized in Table 12.3.

Table 12.3 Large g overnment project management approaches in three developing countries

All three countries initiated and led major projects through government entities up until 20–30 years ago, facing similar problems to Nigeria, such as a lack of continuity, slow decision-making and corruption, causing delays and budget overruns (although a smaller fraction of projects seemed to be abandoned than in Nigeria). However, the three countries did not all choose the same remedies.

Two of the countries (India and Thailand) heavily emphasized public–private partnerships (PPP), essentially outsourcing the capital provision and the associated risk–reward equation to the private sector, which gained 30–50-year profitable concessions from their investments.

In both cases the government needed to enact reforms that accompanied and enabled the PPP: for example, an explicit long-term investment plan with robust priorities was achieved through debate and consultation, which reduced the possibility of projects being created in order to “line specific pockets”. This also required the development of a competent, accountable and business-savvy cadre of (civil servant) representatives who could negotiate with private partners, to achieve fair deals on concessions and oversee project completion in a way that prevented the partner from demanding extras later, and could represent the state’s interests during operation of the asset. Moreover, side conditions that aligned the asset’s operation with the public interest (rather than running them for profit only) also required a high degree of sophistication and planning on the government’s part.

Indonesia chose a different approach to India and Thailand, creating state-owned enterprises (SOEs) that bridged a commercial outlook (and access to private capital) with the safeguarding of public goals. SOEs pursued profitable commercial projects and obtained subsidies for, or they cross-subsidized, “public goods” projects that were not viable on a purely for-profit basis. In other words, Indonesia struck a different balance of commercial discipline versus alignment with public goals. This approach tapped into the skills of the existing pool of professional managers of large enterprises, who could move over and run SOEs that were similar in their management challenges, especially as the SOEs were under commercial pressure to not only pursue public goals but also earn returns for the government via the commercial opportunities of the projects. The commercial nature of the SOEs also came with public scrutiny of account—and therefore a degree of transparency. This approach was also successful, in terms of achieving project execution speed and success and improving public outcomes for commercial projects.

Both the discipline and commercial oversight of the private sector in PPP agreements and the professional SOE management significantly improved project outcomes. However, both approaches created their own new challenges—there is no panacea or perfect solution. Very large government projects inherently contain temptations to engage in selfish behaviour, especially in the context of a complex management challenge that always offers some ambiguity to hide behind. This is also visible in the qualified success of the new project management approaches in the three countries (see Table 12.4—this needs, of course, to be taken merely as a first “hypothesis” given that this comparison is based on a small number of interviews so that biases cannot be excluded).

Table 12.4 Strengths and weaknesses of the three countries’ new project management approaches

The advantages of the PPP approach were bought with the challenge of aligning the running of concessions with the profit goal, which was not always pointing in the same direction as the public interest that triggered the projects in the first place. Moreover, the PPP construct did not eliminate corruption—opaque deals continued to exist (indeed, a second interviewee who had promised to speak with us in India was unable to attend because he had to appear in court in relation to a corruption charge against his company). The indicated direct costs of corruption are consistent with what we were told in Nigeria.

A different challenge arose from the SOE structure in Indonesia: the cross-subsidization option (of being assigned a lucrative commercial project in order to finance a “public-good” project that achieved a public benefit but could not make money) created an incentive for SOEs to “widen their empires”. The resulting opacity of complex activities with non-trivial (but officially sanctioned) cross-subsidies gradually eroded transparency over time and made them hard to control. This, in turn, created its own sources of corruption (or internal misappropriation of funds), also leading to a deviation of resources and project objectives from public goals. Moreover, success still depended on the competence and alignment among government entities themselves (several examples indicated how conflict between federal and local government damaged projects). This reminds us that very large government projects are so vital and complex that they can never simply be “outsourced” (even to SOEs); government must still live up to its accountability in terms of initiating, overseeing and supporting the success of large public projects. A debate about the future privatization of SOEs in Indonesia is underway.

An observation common to all three countries is that corruption has not been fully eliminated. This is disappointing, of course, but certainly not unique to these countries. In the complexity of large government initiatives with multiple goals, there is always ambiguity within which corruption can hide. Eradicating it is extremely difficult, which all countries have found, including the most developed leaders. Reducing corruption must be a constant priority everywhere, because of its deeply corrosive effects, which we have seen in our econometric chapter and in the case example. The level of corruption that we have seen in Nigeria must be reduced, but eradicating corruption is rarely achieved.

We have now seen from the discussion of the developments in three other countries that there is no universal and uniform answer to the challenging problem of large public-sector project management. The three countries chose different solutions, reflecting differing situations in their local conditions and posing slightly different trade-offs in each country. Therefore, there is no “right solution” that we can derive from these countries. However, there is some hope, because the three countries have been able to make significant improvements. Therefore, the goal for Nigeria must be to find its own solutions to its devastating large-project problem, while respecting the local Nigerian strengths, weaknesses and challenges.

12.3 Recommendations

While we have seen weaknesses across all measured variables, the root of the project completion problem has been centralized decision-making in the creation of the projects. While this has been a weakness, it could also offer a strength. The weakness has been that presidential egos have been too involved, and competition among presidents about who did what has ultimately not been constructive. The emphasis should be on a project succeeding, rather than it being successful because a certain president did it; the money spent on the project is Nigerian public money, not the president’s money. On the other hand, the president is respected and has power—and therefore he can ensure execution. This power needs to be harnessed in the direction of a widely accepted plan. If presidential thinking were to change from “I created projects A, B and C”, to “I made sure that projects A, B and C from a consensus priority list actually came to fruition”, or to “We created projects A, B, C”, the effect of the president’s power could help large public projects.

There is certainly some awareness of the problems of decision centralization. In one interview the authors asked (former) President Obasanjo what he thought should be changed. In response, he referred to a former German chancellor: “I asked my friend Helmut Schmidt what he discusses in cabinet meetings. He said, ‘We discuss policies and budgets and outcomes, but not individual initiatives.’ So, take the individual projects away from the government!”

The conclusion is that the Nigerian government must step up and play a more decisive, long-term and reliable role in leading very large projects, which includes de-emphasizing the politics of very large projects and instead putting the emphasis on competent management by civil service institutions. This implies long-term changes in government processes. However, long before the government bureaucracy can be changed systematically, a number of measures should be taken to rescue some of the huge projects that are in trouble, at great cost to the Nigerian citizen. Therefore, our recommendations have two parts, which we will develop in turn:

• 1. Short-term measures to rescue or revive troubled or stalled projects

• 2. Long-term measures of changed processes and governance

12.3.1 Recommendations Part 1: Short-Term Changes

12.3.1.1 Diagnostic Review of Abandoned or Stalled Projects

The Nigerian government could consider, as a pilot project, currently abandoned or stalled projects (from our list, or beyond) for review and change the aims and objectives of the project to reflect the new reality. For instance, the Abuja National Library might be reassessed to identify a clear and agreed-upon purpose, and its design modified; for example, it could be repurposed as a new formats and technology library, in an age where book collections are migrating online everywhere.

Once diagnosed and endowed with a clear purpose and design, such a project could become a priority for funding in a pilot scheme; for instance, we may take three nationally important projects every five years. The pilot scheme would be led by a ministry with the required expertise and put together the funding (based on a business plan), adjust the design and, where necessary, reactivate stakeholders’ buy-in. One example is the Ajaokuta Steel Project, where the nation has spent over $6B and 40 years on the project site, resulting in abandonment (although no one will admit it). It would be appropriate to ask for the price of an alternative, for instance, the cost of a similarly sized modern greenfield site (which we have already alluded to in Chap. 11). This would need to be benchmarked against the cost of completion of the old project. This needs to be accompanied by carefully balancing political interest, as it seems late in the day to say that we have left Ajaokuta for Lagos to start the same project.

Restarting makes sense for many of the stalled projects that do not really have an alternative, such as the Lagos-Badagry Express Road, which needs to be accomplished one way or another. There should be a clear focus and clean specifications, in addition to resources and accountability, for these projects so that they can fulfil their missions, rather than inventing new ones.

12.3.1.2 Resolving Funding Challenges

One basic argument made by the government is that there is no funding for the completion of abandoned projects. This may be true given the many challenges of government projects and demands for increased security funding. However, we have found that many of the abandoned projects have reasonable business cases that can attract private-sector funding in a partnership between the government and the private sector. In other words, we ask whether it is really (as it seemed from the case studies) impossible to start using private–public partnerships (PPP) in appropriate cases?

A key challenge is the lack of continuity of government attitudes towards PPP, which has blocked PPP agreements that had already been signed (such as the Lagos-Ibadan Express Road or the Second Niger Bridge); moreover, corruption and a lack of stakeholder engagement may scare investors away from participating.

We recommend PPP in the section on long-term measures below, as one of a portfolio of available and mastered funding schemes, subject to an enabling environment and assurances that investors will be able to pursue the agreed-upon goals without government interference. However, in the face of scarce funds, maybe even in the short term, a few projects can be jumpstarted using PPP (and the associated private-sector investment). This might be feasible with the help of experienced outside advisors who have the capability to negotiate good and robust agreements for the government, as well as making it clear to the government where its responsibilities in the success of PPP funding lie.

12.3.1.3 World Bank/IMF Assistance

Financing may well be available in reviving abandoned or stalled projects. The Nigerian government can make the case for funding to international bodies, to complete abandoned projects, particularly projects that significantly affect the standard of living, or projects that can accelerate technology development in the country, for example, the Lagos-Badagry Express Road and the Second Niger Bridge. The special package for Nigeria’s abandoned projects can comprise project invoice financing of 70%, and 30% cash disbursement to a reputed international contractor appointed to complete the project. Bridge finance can be put in place once there is an indication of funding from the IMF. The World Bank may be able to make a new loan subject to a percentage of completion of the abandoned project (and to putting in place functioning governance for the project). This will encourage the government to complete a new project rather than pressing for a new loan for a new project, which will once again pose the risk of abandonment if no changes to project management are made .

12.3.2 Recommendations Part 2: Longer-Term Structural Changes

In order to step up in its role in the longer term, the government must make several institutional changes and develop a number of procedures. Producing the required changes and issuing operational regulations and plans will be complex and involved. Therefore, the authors of this study cannot give detailed prescriptions here, which would go far beyond the scope of this book. However, the results of this study enable the authors to suggest a number of principles that the government may want to consider. Our suggestions consist of six elements.

12.3.2.1 Element 1: High-Level Political Priorities

Rather than initiating specific projects, the president (the executive) should articulate a strategic plan of broad areas of major initiatives with defined priorities (such as power, roads and educational institutions). This would come with a broad budget envelope, not detailed by project but dedicating a certain fraction of the total annual government budget to such infrastructure initiatives (say 15%). The strategic priorities and budget envelope should be debated and approved annually for possible modifications of broad priorities (but in the spirit of adjusting future directions, not touching the specific projects already underway). This forces the legislature and the executive to be disciplined—not every pet project can be fitted into a limited budget. An explicit limit implied by this is that the president and legislative would not propose specific projects but only set broad priorities. The actual projects would be proposed by a ministry (see below). This, again, enforces discipline and, at least somewhat, limits the leeway for political patronage projects (“pork” in US-American language). The equivalent should happen at state level for state-level projects.

12.3.2.2 Element 2: Portfolio Planning and Budgeting

We propose that an agency be created to own and oversee the portfolio of projects, which makes progress towards the strategic planning of major initiatives. For now, let us start with the working title of Large Government Project Strategy and Budgets Office.

This agency has an important role to play by being given the authority, on the one hand, to enforce budget discipline, while, on the other hand, ensuring budget continuity for projects already on the way. Parliaments may sometimes feel non-bound by budget constraints; a ministry of finance that enforces a politically determined maximum budget can ensure that the above-mentioned trade-offs are not ignored.

The Large Government Project Strategy and Budgets Office would generate an actual portfolio of specific projects and be responsible for presenting it to the assembly for their approval in order to make progress towards the assembly’s strategic plan of initiatives, within the given budget limits. Thus, the agency would be responsible for developing competent business plans for all projects that are submitted (including public benefit, economic viability, reasonable cost and time estimates, and funding strategies) and for presenting this portfolio of project summaries to parliament.

The reason for this structure is that we know from the experience of many large companies (and from the public sector) that project portfolios that are articulated without recognition of capacity and budget limits are prone to lead to an overextension of resources and inevitable stalling of projects, which are then underfunded (as we saw in the Ajaokuta case).

The Large Government Project Strategy and Budgets Office would consider multiple approaches for project-delivery “channels”: projects overseen directly by the government; projects “rented out” in PPP agreements with concessionaires; and possibly also the creation of specialized SOEs for the execution of niche projects that require special expertise and have a public good element to them, meaning they cannot be handled by general commercial markets. The negotiation of project contracts and PPP agreements can happen within the agency, but the creation of an SOE for public-good-type projects requires special policy expertise that may necessitate consultation and agreement with other agencies (e.g. the Bureau of Public Enterprise, but this would have to be defined). In both cases, this requires the hiring and retention of highly qualified professional personnel.

12.3.2.3 Element 3: Institutional Changes

The Large Government Project Strategy and Budgets Office could, in principle, be part of the Ministry of Works and Housing (which is the result of the 2019 split into two of the former Ministry of Power, Works and Housing). However, the missions of these two ministries are to “provide social amenities such as power across the country” and, respectively, to “provide adequate and affordable housing for all Nigerians”. (Similar briefs hold for other relevant ministries.) These wider remits are mostly concerned with policy issues and wider budget and legislative priorities, and not with project execution. The ministries do not have the focus and resources to build the specialized expertise for executing large projects, across the fields of general infrastructure—including power stations, dams, roads, housing projects, IT infrastructure projects and social development projects. Since we have seen that the project problems have the same recurring themes across all of these fields, it makes sense to create a “project management and execution specialist” ministry, which would serve the policy priorities that are guided by the various field ministries; it would also be responsible for coordinating project design with them and delivering the projects to the legislative and the president. The field ministries would guide policy, and thus the priorities set in the strategic plans by the executive and the legislative, but it would be the specialist project management ministry to design the projects (in order to contribute to the strategic plans) and deliver them.

Thus, because of the project execution requirement, we suggest creating a ministry of its own: rather than the above-mentioned Large Government Project Strategy and Budgets Office, our proposed new agency would be the Ministry of Large Government Projects. Its focus on competent project initiation and execution is important given the number of abandoned projects and their economic value, both in monetary terms and in their wider contribution to the economy. This ministry would have to play the role of budget holder (within the assembly-determined envelope), project owner and project supervisor, to work with contractors on projects that are executed as government projects; it would also have to build knowledge and training, as we describe in Element 4.

The proposal that project owner and supervisor sit in one ministry (that the other ministries, such as power or housing, do not serve as owners) is important. If the execution happened outside the owning ministry in a separate government entity, the problem would arise of one agency making plans and the other having to execute them, which is a recipe for mutual finger pointing, with one side claiming that the other side did not deliver, and the other side accusing the first side of having produced unworkable plans. Accountability would be split and therefore compromised.

This institutional reform would tangibly demonstrate an acknowledgement of the huge economic impact of delivering large government infrastructure projects for the development of Nigeria. The Ministry of Large Government Projects would have the responsibility to improve the design and delivery of projects, and it could also be the starting point for returning some of the abandoned projects to completion and success. Where this was not possible, the ministry would turn over the (partial) assets of a stopped project to an appropriate government department responsible for the sale of such assets (e.g. the Bureau of Public Enterprise). The funds realized from such deals could be directed towards completing other projects.

However, the Nigerian president has significant institutional power and may not consent to simply reducing his (maybe in the future, her?) power to have input in a strategic plan and to disengaging from the awarding of large government projects. Therefore, we also recommend that an office of special advisor to the president on large government projects be established, which has a dotted line reporting to the Ministry of Large Government Projects. This advisory office would establish a line of communication between the president and the ministry, with the two complementing each other.

12.3.2.4 Element 4: Project Execution in the New Ministry

The Ministry of Large Government Projects would own and oversee the execution of projects that make up the (legislative) approved portfolio. It would be responsible for the execution of any government project above a certain budget size (perhaps in the order of $500M). The Ministry of Large Government Projects would have the following responsibilities, each of which would need to be supported by matching capabilities:

• Right from the start, the ministry should make a decisive attempt to rescue abandoned projects and lead them to completion, after a general diagnosis of the list of abandoned projects (i.e. after identifying which ones can be rescued). It may be easier to borrow money to complete an abandoned project than to start a new one. It may even be advisable to pass a temporary law that legally requires abandoned projects to be revived if certain economic and technical conditions (of feasibility) are fulfilled.

• Detailed project planning and budgeting (not just at the aggregate level, as for the portfolio agreement with parliament). This includes setting up the project team and infrastructure, detailed and comprehensive risk planning and monitoring, and regular reporting on milestones.

• This includes the negotiation, agreement and monitoring of project contracts with major contractor firms. It also includes the negotiation of concession agreements with PPP partners, as it is probably advisable for the Nigerian government to consider PPP agreements (at least somewhat) more widely than has been done in the past (see the discussion about the apparent dislike of PPP in the Lagos-Ibadan Express Road case). For both types of agreement, the agency should have experienced professionals who can be negotiation counterparts for commercial organizations with great expertise, with whom constructive win–win agreements should be sought (rather than being “pulled over the table” or being overly cautious so as not to be caught making mistakes).

• The ministry needs to build project supervision and monitoring capabilities for projects that are executed as government-owned initiatives through contractors. Professionals who are capable of supervising large projects must have significant project experience and will therefore generally be highly qualified and need to be paid and treated sufficiently well so that they stay.

• We have emphasized the need to retain highly qualified personnel. The entire Ministry of Project Strategy and Budgets, and the Agency of Projects, would need to be given a sufficient budget to employ well-qualified people and pay them enough so they would not be influenced by interested third parties to alter project decisions in the direction of those parties. The ministry would have to be headed by a credible public figure with a track record, who can explain its activities to parliament and the public. If the reader remembers the staggering sums of money at stake from bad project definition and execution (which we demonstrated in Chap. 5), an investment in attracting and retaining qualified personnel, who can raise the standard of project management, would seem to be able to pay itself back several times over.

• In addition to recruiting qualified personnel, the ministry would need to encourage and support knowledge investment in training and retraining. Large government projects do not require the same knowledge that we acquire from handling ordinary (smaller and less political) projects.

• The ministry would need to provide transparent figures on progress and challenges to the audit authority and parliament (and thus the public) every year. Transparency would serve as a first disciplinary device on parliament not to change projects influenced by lobbyists (but additional safeguards against short-term changes may have to be added).

There are more than enough very large government projects in Nigeria to warrant the creation of an Agency of Projects (and its larger ministry). The ministry should be accountable to parliament.

12.3.2.5 Element 5: Audit Bureau

Even government ministries (in all countries) succumb to the ever-present temptations of graft and corruption over time if they are not regularly held accountable, not only by reports to parliament but also by deeper audits. Therefore, this element of our suggestions concerns the creation of an (or use of an existing) Audit Bureau. The Audit Bureau should sit in a separate ministry (to avoid conflicts of interest) and have (or build) sufficient specialized expertise on project reporting to be able to examine the accuracy of the Agency of Project’s reports. The Audit Bureau should issue an annual report that summarizes the state of projects underway to the public, from an external perspective. Transparency creates its own dynamic of discipline.

12.3.2.6 Element 6: Fraud Prosecution

The fact that no one was charged after the Delta State Power Plant project disaster should alarm the entire country. We therefore suggest the creation of a Serious Fraud Office, which could be part of the Ministry of Large Government Projects (it could also be part of the Ministry of Justice, in order to achieve independence and impartiality). The Serious Fraud Office should have the power to take cases to court after investigation and to demand criminal inquiries and the start of proceedings in a criminal court. The Federal High Court may decide to create a Special Judicial Division (a set of dedicated judges), who have at their disposal special procedures for crimes relating to fraud in large government projects.

This will, again, require that the Serious Fraud Office be given a budget to hire an (initially small and focused) cadre of highly qualified investigators specialized in white collar crime in a large project environment. Whenever one asks for a budget, discussions become difficult (everywhere in the world), but we repeat that the sums of money recuperable for the government are so large that hiring a few well-paid specialist professionals seems to be a small price to pay.

In creating the Serious Fraud Office, the Ministry of Large Government Projects could ask for assistance from Nigeria’s Inspector General of Police—the Serious Fraud Office will need well-trained, experienced and senior police officers who are capable of conducting thorough and impartial investigations. The figure of 60% of 11,886 federal government projects having been abandoned over the last 50 years represents a high number of potential cases, and this number does not include any large government projects abandoned in the 36 states and 776 local governments of the Federation of Nigeria.

As long as perpetrators can hope with some realism that they may get away unscathed with the theft of tens of millions of dollars in the chaos of a large government project, the battle for transparent project management will remain arduous.

We conclude this chapter by repeating that our six elements are merely suggestions—although we have taken the Nigerian context into account, we are not sufficiently knowledgeable about the specific pressures in the Nigerian government that would influence the decisions on a management system such as the one that we propose to set up. Our six elements represent “principles” of large project management, the installation of which is well justified by the evidence that we have presented about the failure of large government projects in Nigeria. We believe it is the responsibility of the Nigerian government to put a management system in place, not necessarily verbatim, following our suggestions, but addressing the principles that we have pointed out.