Muhammad Shakeel Munir, Acting President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry has called upon the government to ensure timely completion of developmental projects to avoid unnecessary wastage of taxpayers’ money. He was addressing as Chief Guest the concluding ceremony of a 5 days training workshop on Project Management Professionals organized by Institute of Cost and Management Accountants of Pakistan.

 

He said many mega projects in Pakistan have often overrun their initial costs due to the fact that the fundamental principles of project management are ignored while planning projects. This approach puts negative impact on the overall economy as it drains the national exchequer and brings more problems to the taxpayers who have to pay more for unprofessional handling of projects while the government has to resort to external resources to meet its financial needs putting more debt burden on the country. This state of affairs necessitates that the policymakers and planners should ensure timely completion of projects by timely execution of planned activities with strict monitoring of projects. 

 

He said the trend of launching high profile projects without taking stakeholders on board also creates many difficulties and incurs huge extra costs. He stressed that all important projects should be planned and executed after thorough consultation with stakeholders and extensive planning to avoid any hiccups. This approach would facilitate the timely completion of projects within cost and yield desired outcomes for the economy.

 

He said trade and industry was suffering badly due to energy crisis and government should speed up the process of building small, medium and mega projects to get rid of load shedding. He said there was a need to produce and engage more project management professionals to handle projects in a professional manner which will pave way for putting the country on the path of sustainable development. He hoped that the participants must have gained useful knowledge from the 5-day workshop of ICMA which would help them in running projects in a professional way.