Local government project risk management maturity measurement model for leveraging effectiveness of local government project risk management

Abstract

Project risk measurement is a critical driver of local government project implementation. It aids identification of the level of the effectiveness and maturity of project risk management to bolster the seamless process of local government project implementation. Unfortunately, empirical facts imply local government project risk measurement is not yet well developed to the extent of leveraging successful local government project implementation. As these explain why some local government projects are often marred by risks to only fail as others fail to get completed, this research evaluates the level of local government project risk measurement maturity in the South African local government. To accomplish that, the study used interpretivist research paradigm, exploratory research design and qualitative research method entailing the usage of content analysis. Content analysis was used to evaluate the existing information and data in the local government repositories about the process used for measuring and mitigating local government project risks as well as their associated limitations. Findings that were thematically analysed revealed the effectiveness of the process of risk identification and mitigation is often still marred by poor risk management culture, poor governance and lack of proactive initiatives to identify and mitigate all forms of risks. Failure to proactively identify and mitigate all risks was found to have caused late interventions that affect identification and mitigation of all risks in their early stages. Such risks were found to include poor governance, corruption and fraud that affect optimisation of the limited financial resources as well as supply chain risks, ecological and health and occupational risks. Given the fact that a model for measuring project risk measurement was also found to be a challenge, the study extracted and suggested the local government project risk management maturity measurement model (LoG-PRiMMM-Model) as one of the new insights and contribution of the study that can be replicated for leveraging project risk measurement and mitigation in the contemporary local government sphere