The design, construction and operation of new mega projects in Saudi Arabia must comply with the environmental assessments and green building methodologies in order to reduce ecological footprint and CO2 emission, a recently held summit in Riyadh recommended.
After hours of brainstorming, series of presentations, panel discussions, exhaustive debates and serious deliberations, the delegates came up with a list of recommendations, like all mega projects should have data bank containing statistics, forecast, financial capability and assets of the projects, including their independent management status. This data bank should be accessible and transparent to all stockholders.
Mega projects in Saudi Arabia must have a strategic national vision
Besides, mega projects must have a strategic national vision apart from allowing involvement in planning and development of large projects collectively and maintaining a record of activities learned.
The public and private sectors were also urged to establish a nonprofit institute to manage and keep all the mega records that can be of use to stakeholders like owners, investors, suppliers, etc.
As such, mega projects performance should be measurable, quantifiable and manageable so as to foresee the outcomes of the projects along with their positive and negative indications. The summit think tank also encourages and supports a professional certification institute, such as non-government organizations similar to Mega Projects Association in UK, which has the main function of taking care of industry vision of the mega projects.
Government regulation and guidance tools should be put in place regarding the logistics EPC relationship of mega contractors with sub-contractors
Furthermore, a mandatory national organizational chart should be there toward integrated information of mega project details to middle size and small projects. Such chart would clearly indicate the parametric project information, responsibilities of internal/external publics. There can be a web based on demand accessibility system for this purpose.
The summit participants also called for an independent legal system protecting the investors' interest by providing them guidance related to contractual risk management, aside from a creation of special education department for all mega project managers and implementation of an on-the-job training system.
The Saudi Gazette
23 September
