Excusable Delays Issues - Assignment Example

For instance, in the article written by Edwards (2003) exposing government projects which exhibited exorbitant cost overruns, a root cause analysis of the delays in the identified projects in Table 1 should have been examined. All excusable delays should have likewise been examined in greater detail to determine compliance with reasonable requirements. Any costs which were deemed excessive and unjustified to be paid due to excusable delays should have been immediately questioned and prevented from payment for the reason that the costs were not appropriately incorporated in original cost computations for the completion of the project. As such, one strongly believes that cost contracts should integrate potential causes of delays (excusable) and apportion at least a percentage of projected costs that could be incurred due to these delays. Anything beyond the projected costs should be evaluated using costs-benefits analysis to determine the feasibility of continuing payment, as described.

Upon closer examination of the four transportation construction projects in Table 1, government regulators should have examined the cause of delay subject to the conditions noted under the standard ‘default’ clause (O'Connor, 2007) and the reasonableness requirement. As such, based on the initially projected time frame and cost estimates for Boston ‘Big Dig’ for instance, it was projected that the project would be completed in 1988, three years after the start of the project in 1985 (Edwards, 2003). However, it should have been a cause for urgent examination when the delay in time frame already reached 14 years and the cost of the project ballooned to 461% from the original cost of $2.6 billion to $14.6 billion (Edwards, 2003). As such, there are potential cost components that have not been incorporated in the original cost estimate and could not be justified as reasonable. Therefore, the project should have been re-evaluated for its viability. As recommended by Edwards, these types of projects would have been “better off if Congress scaled back entitlement programs, privatized infrastructure such as airports and energy projects, and let entrepreneurs put up their capital for risky pursuits” (p. 2). Thus, reliance on excusable delay should also be subject to constraints or ceilings in costs. If and when the potential costs due to the delay would not be reasonable, the project should have been awarded to private entrepreneurs to maximize the use of the resources and contain the incurrence of exorbitant costs that drain the public’s funds.