The Manufacturing Competitiveness Enhancement Programme (MCEP) scheme was specifically designed and developed in order to incentivise industry with various components, ranging from capital investment, green technology, and enterprise level of competitiveness. During the tenure of the incentive programme, there were challenges pertaining to over-commitment, poor turnaround times, and poor customer service management and customer relations management leading to poor project and programme management. These challenges resulted into long turnaround times and over-commitment. There was a lack of a logical relationship between the scheduling and budgetary and scoping analysis, thereby impacting adversely on the industrialists and the economy at large. The study was conducted on how the application of project and programme management could ameliorate the challenges incurred by the scheme. Based on the outcome of the study, there was a general agreement that there was a dearth of project and programme management in the MCEP, and its implementation which would ultimately resolve the inefficiencies in the programme. The study concluded that it is important to designed and developed a programme in order to incentivise the manufacturing industry in South Africa, the core objective of which is to embrace competitiveness enhancement, global competitiveness and export-driven economy, as well as to protect industry during turbulent and volatile economic conditions.