Mega-projects don’t just overrun.

They overrun lives.

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Ask South Africa.

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Medupi and Kusile were supposed to be the big solution.

Two giant coal plants.

Massive capex.

Enough power to stop load-shedding and unlock growth.

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On paper?

Glorious.

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In reality?

A masterclass in how to blow up trust.

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Design issues.

Rework.

Delays measured in years, not months.

Costs ballooning into the tens of billions of rand.

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Every extra year of delay?

More load-shedding.

More diesel.

More businesses dying quietly.

More unemployment.

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Everyone pays.

Except the people who took the decisions.

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Look at the autopsy lists:

Shortage of skilled labour.

Poor planning.

Slow decision-making.

Weak contract management.

Political interference.

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This isn’t bad luck.

It’s bad governance.

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And here’s the part nobody wants to say out loud:

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When mega-projects are run inside the State,

with weak contracts,

soft accountability,

and endless “exceptions” and “variations”,

delay risk is not a risk.

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It’s a lifestyle.

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Because who really takes the hit?

Not the decision-makers.

They move on.

New job. New board. New title.

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The ones who pay are:

Taxpayers.

Ratepayers.

Small businesses that need power to survive.

Families sitting in the dark explaining to their kids why the lights are off again.

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This is why I keep insisting that PPP is not about “bringing private money”.

That’s marketing.

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PPP is about who bleeds when the project goes wrong.

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In a serious PPP, if a mega-project like Medupi or Kusile runs 5+ years late and billions over budget, someone on the private side is in real pain:

Equity wiped.

Penalties.

No dividends for a decade.

Banks breathing down their neck.

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Although you have to do it right...

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In the way these projects were actually delivered?

The system absorbed the pain.

Eskom struggled.

The fiscus bled.

Citizens paid the bill via tariffs and lost growth.

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So here’s the uncomfortable lesson:

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If you don’t define delay risk properly,

if you don’t price it,

if you don’t allocate it to someone who can’t escape it,

you’re not “building a power station”.

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You’re running a social experiment in how much frustration a country can tolerate.

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South Africa is still paying for those experiments.

In cash.

In credibility.

In investor confidence.

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And the next time someone says,

“We don’t need PPPs, the State can deliver mega-projects alone,”

you should calmly ask:

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“Okay.

But when it goes 50% over budget and 7 years late…

who exactly is going to bleed?”

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Because if the answer is “everyone and no one”,

you already know how the story ends.

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For alternatives... take a look below:

​The top 15 Lessons of a successful project​

​The top 15 lessons of a nightmare project​

​Don't be embarrassed. ​

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