Abstract

This paper analyses the factors responsible for the failure of municipal projects because municipal projects play an essential role in shaping basic service delivery needs and infrastructure requirements for communities that reside in those municipal areas. As much as municipal projects are crucial, many South African municipalities encounter failure, leading to compromised service delivery, resource wastage, and deteriorating or lack of infrastructure. This paper delves into several factors responsible for the failure of municipal projects, assimilating insights from academic literature and exploring responses from respondents' perceptions. Data was collected from 151 respondents using a questionnaire adapted from a similar study. The respondents who took part in the study were employees and service providers/ contractors working in the project management environment. The study identified the top 10 factors out of the 29 factors that are responsible for the failure of municipal projects, namely poor plans and planning process, inadequate monitoring, selection of inexperienced project managers, inadequate human resources, lack of communication, poor leadership at all levels; lack of supervision; political interference; high level of corruption; change in government and inadequate capacity building of project managers. Over and above project management theory, this study contributes to the broader management literature.