Project Management in the Public Sector of

Pakistan
By Syed Qaiser Abbas Rizvi

June 2, 2010

Pleasure with satisfaction for tomorrow can only be earned through today’s visionary
struggle – Pakistan, being the developing country, has been striving to improve her
economic condition and social services. In this regard, thousands of projects have been
undertaken in public sector in the last few decades to achieve the required results in the
infrastructure and social sectors. Mr. Mohtadullah in 1987 wrote:” In Pakistan elaborate
machinery for the planning of development projects exists but its performance has been far
from satisfactory. If one has to write the project history of Pakistan, one will come across
numerous examples of projects that have failed due to the inefficient functioning of this
machinery”.

Currently, more than two thousand projects are running under PSDP (Public Sector
Development Program) that are stretched all over Pakistan across various socioeconomic
sectors. International organizations like UN, ADB, WB, CIDA, USAID, GTZ etc. are providing
financial and technical support and special resources to manage these projects in an
efficient manner.

Pakistan’s human development indices indicate that most of the development projects have
not resulted in improvement towards a better standard of living. Ultimately it has become a
burning question “why projects fail to deliver the pre-decided outputs and outcomes not
only in the long run but in the short run as well”. Instead of adding value to the society over
the years, projects are increasing the burden of debts and loans on future generations.

The tax payer has no access to the information on projects whether running or completed.
Ultimately there is no awareness created by the concerned bodies among masses about the
short term and long term benefits of development schemes. Project management as a
discipline has neither been promoted by the responsible institutions (to advance and
research this area to produce a skilled human resource to better handle the projects) nor
has been advocated amongst the primary stakeholders (Planning Commission, Line
ministries, Contractors, Consultant firms) created awareness among private organizations to
adopt it and train their personnel in this field. There are very few instances of literature
written in this field in the context of Pakistan and no significant research has done by the
academia to explain the fundamental reasons of development failure in the country. Out of
many fatal reasons, an intense reason is lack of “project management expertise” that is still
not given as much importance as it deserves. In this era of globalization when distances
have shrunk and communication channels are highly effective, lack of project management
expertise is still not a burning issue for the complete hierarchy of agencies starting from the
Planning Commission of Pakistan to the line ministries, contractor and consultant firms.

The conceptual underpinnings of project management are not only ignored in the
implementation phase of the project but throughout the project life cycle i.e. Feasibility,
approval, implementation, monitoring and control, evaluation and post completion
evaluation. There is no doubt that each agency whether sponsoring or executing or
consulting firm, has deployed its own set of governing principles which are incoherent and
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not in line with international best practices. As a matter of fact, ultimately all the
direct/primary stakeholders never work as a single team due to which projects are not only
mishandled during the execution phase but also are misaligned at initiation while defining
vision, goals and objectives.

In an economic and business review by Shamim A. sahibzada in 1991, the author

observed:”If Project Management has to be effective and efficient, radical changes in the
thinking, attitude and procedure, will have to be brought about. The awareness of the need
for and development of Project Management has to be brought about through
comprehensive training of project managers”. The most serious problem in development
facing developing countries, in the words of a former World Bank Official, Mr. Albert
Waterston, are reflected by the following; “In one country after another, it has been
discovered that a major limitation in implementing projects and programs, and in operating
them after completion is not financial resources but administrative and management
capacity”.

Few government institutions like PIDE, PPMI are striving to train government officials in the
field of project management by offering various short courses that focus on different areas
i.e. Project Quality Management, Implementation & Governance, and Monitoring and
Evaluation etc. But this minimal effort does not fulfill the needs of the project managers as
there are more than two thousand projects running under PSDP at the moment that entails
many agencies, consultant firms, land contractors. Therefore, there is a great need that
public and private universities play their role not only to educate the experienced and
professional people but also to create awareness among people about project management
as a unit comprised of number of knowledge areas that are integrated with each other.

In this regard, it is good to see that COMSATS institute, Islamabad campus has been offering
an MPM (Masters of Project Management) degree program to the experienced professionals
from the different industries. CASE institute has also been doing its job for the last few years
through offering Engineering Management degree program. Now some other universities
like SBAZIST and FAST have also started degrees or courses of short term nature. Though it
is an initiative but this will definitely help Pakistan to meet its requirement of skilled
professionals in the field of project management. It will also motivate students to research in
this discipline to bring about better change in Pakistan to manage Projects and also to
contribute to the literature on Project Management.

In the coming years, Project Management as a disciple and as a professional field in Pakistan
will have to be nurtured. The factors aiding this argument include globalization which now
requires professionals to be multi-dimensional and multi-tasking simultaneously through
grasping up-to-date tools and techniques, certifications, expertise, and broad-based
knowledge of their fields.

One important point that needs to be kept in mind while approaching towards the
development of Project Management discipline in Pakistan is the risk of losing the direction
and ultimate goal which has already happened to others fields like Engineering, Medical. In
other words it can be said that there is a greater need of defining a legislative body above
all the institutions to formulate a strategy of developing Project Management, its objectives,
parameters, stakeholders so that the industry-academia nexus would be established and
maintained on firm basis and this field would be developed and advanced in a strategic
manner.

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Finally, it can be said that Focus on Project Management methods is a vital step towards
efficient and effective project administration in Pakistan. It is not yet realized by the leading
institutions on a large scale but pioneer step by few institutions have been initiated and its
effects will be evident in the next few years. In this regard, universities, government
institutions and private firms will have to play a vigorous role not only in attracting people
towards this field and better managing projects but also to bring maturity in the project
management methods with the passage of time through continuous research and
contribution in project management literature. Everything in this material realm can only
give maximum when it is monitored, evaluated and controlled at every stage of its process.

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