Tanzania lacks project management board

East African Business Week

Sunday, 01 July 2012 18:10 Kenan Kalagho

 

 (Managing Director of Tanzania Institute of Project Management, Mr Lwitiko Mwalukasa Photo By Kenan Kalagho)

Tanzania has for long time experienced fewer numbers of expatriates in the field of Project Management that has led most contracts to be either delayed, not being completed in time or losing the value for money. The East African Business Week, KENAN KALAGHO spoke with the Managing Director of Tanzania Institute of Project Management, Mr Lwitiko Mwalukasa to know among others, what the country can benefit from his institution of having professional Project Managers. Here are excerpts:

Qn. What prompted you to open up this institution in Tanzania?

Ans. I launched this institute because I wanted people and especially professionals to know their responsibilities and that it was important to meet the public expectations of ensuring that the quality of work is observed, time for the project is met and that there is a scope of the work as well as cost effective in either assignments and contracts they are undertaking in their capacity of being project management professionals.

Qn. I s your institution accredited?

Ans. Our institution is registered with the National Accreditation Council of Tanzania (NACTE). I realized that the country lacks the board to regulate project managers and this prolonged the registration for our institution because the curricular for the courses were lacking. However with the contacts of different universities around the world we managed to obtain global standards curricular of project management and we were able to secure the registration.

Qn. What are the basic qualifications for admission to your institution?

Ans. Project management is not an independent profession. In most cases it requires someone to have his or her own profession so that he/she integrates it with project management in order to perform well in a specified job. For instance we have engineers who might be managing a big project but without knowledge in Project Management. This might lead the project ending up without beating the time deadline which leads to increase in costs. However we admit from form four leavers. 

Qn. Of what benefit is Project Management to gradaunds?

Ans. It is important to understand that once we have Project Management professional in different fields, that will mean having professionals with responsibility. It is with a professional project manager that the public can be able to build their confidence and expect the quality of work that will beat the deadline as per the scheduled time frame.

Qn. What will be the benefit of this program to the country?

Ans. Any country with professional project personnel will mean creating opportunities in terms of outcome, thus projects will be attained at the right time by considering both the quality, scope, cost effectiveness  and time frame and therefore bringing about change and development the public expects.

Qn. What do you think makes most companies in Tanzania fail to compete on the global market?

Ans. Tanzanian companies are failing to compete on the global market because we haven't invested much in research developments which aims at meeting the demands for customers and consumers of our products. Thus in order for Tanzanians companies to compete on the world market, there is need for them to reconsider, time, quality cost effective and scope of their performances most so that the company is managed to success.