The Public Works Authority ‘Ashghal’ conducted a seminar followed by panel discussion on “Lessons learned from Auditing Previous Infrastructure Projects.” Eng. Jamal Shareeda Al Kaabi, Acting Manger of Design Department (Roads & Drainage - Infrastructure Affairs) at Ashghal, chaired the seminar held at the Ritz Carlton on Tuesday, 16th of March 2010.
Dignitaries who attended the seminar include Dr Mohamed Saif Al Kuwari, Managing Director of Qatar Standards & Specifications, Eng. Nasser Al Mawlawi, Acting General Manager of Ashghal and Mr. Hamad Rashid Al Kuwari, Public Relations Manager of Ashghal.
Three important presentations were made in the seminar attended by auditing professionals, managements and engineers of different contracting and consultant firms involved in Ashghal Projects, apart from the senior management and engineers of Ashghal.
Two of the presentations were made by international audit experts followed by a third presentation by Eng. Jamal Al Kaabi highlighting the current and future highway projects within the scope of Public Works Authority.
Dr Adel Labib, Business Development Manager of the France based consultancy ARCADIS made a presentation on the technical audit of road projects.
Divided into two parts, the first part of the presentation reviewed the technical audit of the concept design of Doha Expressway Project, whereas the second part reviewed the technical audit of major highway projects in the state.
Recommendations made by the auditing expert include augmenting geotechnical survey through geophysical investigation, improvement of Qatar Standards for pavements and improvement of foundations and wall designs in the concept design stage.
On the other hand, Dr. John from FUGRO-PMS Qatar made a presentation on the material testing of pavements and the expert recommended that the state of Qatar may establish its own bitumen production unit in order to meet the current and future requirements.
In his brief presentation, Eng. Jamal Al Kaabi stressed on Ashghal’s initiative to engage a professional Program Management Team for ensuring distinction in implementing Ashghal’s future major projects.
In the panel discussion that followed, Eng. Al Mawlawi, stressed that the importance of such an interactive session lies in highlighting the lessons that have been learned from the technical auditing of projects.
He assured that Ashghal is in the process of reviewing the procedures of contracting and the Authority is interacting with international consultants with the objective of improving the processes.
Participants in the panel discussion highlighted the importance of periodical auditing of the projects during the tenure of their implementation and Ashghal’s Acting General Manager emphasized the management’s keenness on safety audit. He also remarked that in order to determine the real duration of implementation of major projects, better involvement and more works from the part of consultants are required.
Apart from setting up a Program Management Team, outsourcing the Operation and Maintenance services and Pavement QA/QA services, are also proposed, the Ashghal Acting GM clarified.
On their part, participants in the seminar appreciated Ashghal’s management for providing such a unique opportunity to interact with key stakeholders and they hoped that such initiative would result in improved performance in the implementation of Ashghal’s major forthcoming projects.