EFFECTIVENESS OF COMMUNICATION PLAN IN SMALL TO MEDIUM ENTERPRISES’ PROJECTS SUPPORTED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORT IN SOUTH AFRICA

Abstract

The South African Government, through the Department of Transport (DoT), offers financial support to various engineering companies to use in their road construction projects to improve the country’s road infrastructure. However, many road projects allocated to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are not completed on schedule. Communication plan was used as a lens to track essential elements involved in ensuring project success. A probability stratified random sampling method was used to select 34 respondents from the DOT who completed questionnaires as part of this quantitative study. Employees of the DoT’s Finance department in KwaZulu-Natal province were chosen because they were well placed to highlight the communication plan followed and challenges experienced in handling financial contracts and monitoring of such between themselves and the SMEs. On the one hand, the respondents generally claimed to have sound measures to monitor the progress of funded projects and apply appropriate techniques to cope with awarded contracts. On the other hand, they conceded that poor planning and poor communication management were the main challenges facing the department. The study calls for regular, open communication to enhance the success of projects which should be monitored in every phase following clear performance indicators. If problems are identified, a communication strategy to resolve them should be established; this strategy should be evaluated against its objectives.