The scope of project maturity issues in Cameroon

Abstract

Cameroon, located in Central Africa, plays a leading role in terms of trade, with about half of the GDP of the Central African Economic and Monetary Commission area. Yet, the quality of public expenditure in Cameroon is said to be one of the grievances plaguing its economic growth. This underperformance is generally linked to project management, an essential lever for the country's development. The construction of infrastructure is one of the challenges of Cameroon's development policy. This lack of stakeholders in the knowledge and practice of maturation has an enormous impact in the votes consumption and the execution of projects that inevitably leads to the abandonment of projects, the multiplication of amendments, poor workmanship and the lack of satisfaction on the part of the beneficiaries. Hence, this study, after performing a SWOT analysis on project management maturity in Cameroon public projects, explores 17 projects undertaken over the past decade, in order to probe the impact of problems caused by the immaturity of projects on schedule and costs. The results revealed that the general maturity level for this study was 68%. Out of the ten hypotheses stated, seven were accepted. It was also found that the level of maturity of a public investment project in Cameroon positively affects its delivery whereas, some of the maturity variables do not significantly explain the costs with its parameters but impact others. Recommendations for a better project management in the country are thrown.