Strategic leadership challenges in the management of projects in the parastatals

Since South Africa is a developing state, the roles of the parastatals in stimulating economicgrowth and contributing to the alleviation of unemployment and poverty eradication areinevitable. South African parastatals find themselves with numerous initiatives that becomeprojects as part of these initiatives. The projects vary from small to large capital investments.Parastatals are strategic assets that need to account for taxpayers’ funds. This thesisconsiders that the executed projects can add value only if there is a link to the strategicobjectives. The effectiveness of this link can be established by having benefit realisationmetrics. The metrics should have a process of measuring performance of projects based onstrategic objectives. The thesis views projects that are executed outside strategic objectivesas not viable. Without a clear process of using strategic objectives as a guide to measuresuccess of projects, the expenditure in parastatals will remain unaccounted for, resulting inwhat could lead to a PFMA issue.The argument in this thesis, as well as its theoretical concept, is that the lack of strategicleadership has resulted in the challenges facing parastatals with regard to capital expansionand small projects that are executed without linking them to strategic objectives. Aggravatingthis situation is the blind loyalty to the PMBOK framework used by parastatals in executingprojects; yet the framework has a gap regarding the knowledge areas of leadership andchange management. The development of the thesis is through in-depth interviews carriedout in two parastatals, namely, Eskom and Transnet. The interviews were conducted withrespondents who are involved in projects, ranging from senior executives down to projectadministrators.The research was done in order to assess whether the projects executed in parastatals do,indeed, support strategic objectives. The effectiveness of the link between projects andstrategy was based on the premise that when strategic leadership components are practisedby the leadership, an execution process requiring proof of value add to the business througha link to the strategic objectives will be the basis for executing projects.The research found organisational structures that were rigid, and bureaucracy was the norm.The PMBOK framework that had been adopted was inadequate. Major findings were thatmost projects were not linked to strategic objectives and that there was poor strategicleadership at all levels. In view of this, there is a need to get the right leadership and have arigorous process of ensuring that initiatives that become projects are, indeed, linked to thestrategic objectives.13