| The
Selection and Appointment of Consulting Engineers Summary
of presentation by Hannes Schutte,
Director VIKE Engineers, Mafilkeng
In
the North West Province of South Africa, the SAACE
members also debated this topic for some time and then
decided to organise a symposium.
The
A Re Ageng Forum of the North West Province also
investigated the same issue and requested myself to
prepare an advisory document, and being a member of the
Forum and the immediate past chairman of SAACE North
West, I used the opportunity to help arrange the
symposium.
Mr
Koos Louw of Africon and Eddie van der Heiden of Stewart
Scott told us about a seminar that was held by ACEB in
Gaborone in October 1994. We looked at the proceedings of
that seminar and decided to follow the same procedures in
our symposium.
I am
going to give you a summary of proceedings and will do my
best to convey the message the various presenters tried
to bring to our symposium.
1.
The Chairperson of A Re Ageng, Prof.
Madoda Zibi opened the symposium and said:
This
seminar, is where we will talk about ways of
appointing consultants and it is yet one of those
efforts of A Re Ageng to deliver on crucial issues
pertaining to service delivery mechanisms with a view
to advising government on best practices.
The
name A Re Ageng, itself is highly pregnant with
meaning particularly at this juncture in our country.
It was part of the task team that was given a mandate
by the cabinet committee of the Economic Affairs to
investigate and advise government on the feasibility
of a forum like this one.
Perhaps
in your deliberations you may ponder over the
following issues, when you begin to talk about
criteria on appointment of consultants.
What
specifically the consultant has to deliver, this
means that the person that wants to engage a
consultant has to be specific and state clearly what
has to be done by the consultant. It does not have to
doubt whatsoever. Give clarity of and, specify your
need so that the consultant should know what he has
to do. This entails that you have to know your needs
quite clearly.
Secondly
is the contractor or consultant able to guarantee the
results? This means that he should not waiver or he
should not thumb-suck and once again this boils down
to what 1 have said, results orientation.
Thirdly,
the person that wants to engage a consultant, should
ask this question, is he able to measure the results
against his needs at the end of it? Will he be able
to say he has delivered on what 1 said he should and
against my needs, and if not, one has to go back to
the drawing board.
The
above elements I have considered to be crucial in the
appointment of consultants.
2.
To obtain the provincial Government's perspective,
we invited Prof. J. Mokgoro, the Director General of the
North West Province, to present their view to the
symposium and he said:
Up
to the present, both private and public sector
clients and consultant are familiar with, and have
even grown comfortable with two traditional
approaches to consultation. Either
a)
The client presents the consultant with a problem for
solution and the consultant provides a recommended
solution or a set of alternatives. Or
b)
The client asks the consultant both to define the
problem and to offer recommended solutions. The
latter is the physician's approach. The client
describes a set of symptoms and the consultant first
makes a diagnosis and then prescribes a remedy.
In
both traditional approaches to consultation the
client somewhat passive and placed in a position of
dependency until the point at which the consultant's
recommendations require implementation.
The
great problem is that for most situations,
consultant's recommendations are not always fully
implemented. This represents a serious gap in the
present situation where consultants may go to
extraordinary lengths to devise processes and
technologies for implementation and they are diluted
to the point where they rendered meaningless.
The
critical question is therefore, how to ensure maximum
value from appointing consultants and ensure there is
meaningful implementation where recommendations of
solutions require changes in valued or customary
practices?
An
integrative/systemic approach addresses two central
issues found in any consultation (Argyris, 1970):
a)
How to generate valid information. b) How to ensure
effective implementation.
If
the success of the consultation is to be evaluated in
terms of increased organisational effectiveness, the
only results that count are those that are based on
valid information describing that which has actually
been implemented.
Consultant
Responsibility
In
South Africa, and in the Public Service particularly,
there is the assumption that a consultant will have
all the answers. Some consultants assurne that they
do have all the answers. In an article advising
potential clients how to use consultants, two
practicing nianagement consultants and a company
president accepted this traditional view that it is
"the consultant's plan of action which must fit
your company ... remember, it's the consultant's
solution. He's supposed to know what it takes to get
the job done-especially in terms of judging your
staffs ability to implement his program.
3.
Mr. D. W Schoeman from the Office of the Premier
said:
The
use of consultants should be viewed as the first and
the best-known example of private/public
partnerships. Let us try to develop some solutions
for the future, so that we could actually enter into
a partnership arrangement and an understanding of
what the appointment of consultants is all about so
that we could develop the best possible
public/private partnership regarding consulting
services in Africa
4.
Mr G. S. Pirie - Executive director of the South African
Association of Consulting Engineers (SAACE), then
presented the SAACE PERSPECTIVE and
stated:
The
SAACE will continue to develop its constructive
partnership with government at all levels. Sharing in
the vision of an African Renaissance, SAACE members
can offer the technological and management know-how
and commitment to find African solutions to African
problems, thus ensuring that prosperity and
technological advancement are provided to all South
Africans, as well as to our SADC neighbours and the
wider sub-Saharan Africa.
And
then addressed the SELECTION AND APPOINTMENT OF
CONSULTANTS as follows:
There
are many ways one can appoint consultants:
By
means of referral: which is mainly used by the
private sector,
When
your are talking about an appointment from the public
sector you are probably talking about a roster
system. You normally do that in the context of
standard fee scales and one would use it for routine
appointments. It is important to bear in mind that
there are two sets of selection procedures, namely:
- appointment to a roster,
and
- appointment from a roster
With
the last mentioned we are probably talking about
quality based selection. As the day progresses we
will tell you from our side why a quality-based
selection is far more practical method and the
world's best practice, as far as we are concerned.
5. THE
CLIENT'S PERSPECTIVE was presented by H van
Wamelen - Chief Director of Department of Transport,
Roads & Public Works. He stated:
The
idea of consultants being appointed by means of open,
or selected, tendering comes up quite often. I am not
in favour of this idea and for the following reasons:
Registered
professionals must provide the services of
Engineering, Architecture and Quantity Surveying.
These professions are regulated by the various acts
and this should remain to be the case. If
professionals are required to tender for work they
will become contractors and this will change the
whole approach. The levels of honesty and ethics
required from a professional have no place in the
competitive world of contracting.
The
client / agent relationship that exists in the
current model of appointment will disappear in a
contracting environment. The client and consultant
are no longer on the same side of the fence, with the
contractor.
0n
the other side. The consultant now joins the
contractor on the other side, and the client is now
alone. The client will have to control the consultant
more closely because the trust relationship has
disappeared. The professional service provider will
become another sub-contractor on the project and will
have to look out after his/her own interests instead
of after the interest of the client.
When
work is scarce, like now, the tenderers will have to
cut their fees and this will inevitably affect the
quality of service. Likewise, when work is plentiful
the fees will be high to make up for the lean years.
6.
We also requested the SABTACO's perspective
from Mr A Sebego (Chairman SABTACO North West). He said:
We
at SABTACO regard this seminar as a milestone in
terms of bringing together all that is role-players
in the built environment, in order to chart a way
forward in the transformation of the procurement
system. We believe this coming together of all
role-players is long over due and we will be very
happy to participate in the process as it unfolds.
Our
concerns in SABTACO is that most of our members that
are emerging, most clients especially at provincial
district level, do not seem to realize what risk is
there for emerging firms who have so much external
forces acting against them. We believe if we are
serious about black economic empowerment, the
emerging sector, making sure that the APSP share in
the cake of the budget on a yearly basis, then we
really need to focus on policies, which are
promulgated from national and make sure that they
reach the furthest level and that is the third tie of
government.
Allow
me to talk about the Joint Venture System as per the
APP document. We believe it's a beautiful piece of
paper, which, if followed to the letter, will give
good results, but at the moment, we have a problem in
the implementation of that document. The problem is,
a document is there, you'll be ?ppointed in a joint
venture, the client will make sure that he appoints
in a joint venture for a particular big firm, what
happens is, the big firm will be notified about the
joint venture, maybe as an emerging guy you'll be
notified, and if you are, during the currency of the
project, you don't have equal access to the client
like the big firm.
And
yet as an APSP, we believe you are a corporate entity
just like the big firm. However, we recognise the
fact that it has to be tested on how it performs. We
still think that other stakeholders, like all
government departments and Local Councils, should
adopt it. We believe it is a good tool, which should
be perfected as it performs.
SECOND
SESSION: Current Trends
During
the second session we focussed on: CURRENT TRENDS IN THE
APPOINTMENT OF CONSULTANTS IN SOUTH AFRICA
7.
Mr T Marshall (VKE Engineers and vice president of SAAC)
informed the symposium on THE WORK OF THE CONSTRUCTION
INDUSTRY DEVELOPMENT BOARD (CIDB) in
South Africa.
The CIDB's role is to enhance:
Delivery
and performance to meet the needs of the SA population. Now that again, if you think about it is
very wide. It talks about increasing efficiency, it
talks about best practice, in all aspects of
construction, not just construction, building or big
earth moving plants, but procurement of materials,
procurement of professional services, the whole
construction industry.
Role
of industry in economic& social development of
the country. Increasing capacity in the industry,
developing new skills and benchmarking performance.
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