INGENIEUR
of funds that are required to
manage and maintain existing
infrastructure assets. Notably,
some of the old infrastructures
are now due to be rehabilitated
or reconstructed to extend
their useful life. This is where
public-private par tnerships
become crucial in ensuring the
sustainability and continuity
in the management of our
infrastructure assets.
Building infrastructure is
relatively easy, however we
fail miserably in maintaining
them to serve their purpose
during their life-cycle and to
further enhance them. The
management of Government
infrastructures and facilities has
long been inadequately or poorly
managed due to limited budgets.
Management was commonly
driven either by short-term
requirements of the operations
or property rather than longterm requirements. The limited
operating and maintenance
budget is always a challenge to
asset owners whose objectives
for maintenance tend to be
related to minimising costs in the
short term rather than assessing
and enhancing the value-add of
the asset to the organisation.
So, it is not surprising that
we tend to focus on ad hoc and
breakdown maintenance. These
run to failure and ad-hoc firefighting actions are reactive in
nature and not cost effective
especially when they involve
assets of high value which affect
the service delivery process.
The real challenge to
implement good asset
management lies on several
factors:
i. lack of standards and
guidelines on asset
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management that can be
used to measure quality
and performance levels;
ii. lack of explicit asset
objectives which lead to
little monitoring on the
performance of an asset
or its management;
iii. lack of, or no awareness
of, the opportunity cost
of the assets;
iv. lack of local expertise
in providing immediate
response to failure; and
v. lack of established
facility management
practitioners in the local
market who can provide
advice or assistance .
These challenges have
increased with the existence
of more complex buildings,
especially those with unique
architecture and buildings
equipped
with
highly
sophisticated state-of-the-art
technologies.
Likewise, frequent mishaps
such as severe leaking and
collapse of ceilings and roofs of
buildings to badly maintained
roads, drains and other public
amenities, call for accountability
and transparency by the
Government in these areas
which have compromised
service deliveries to the public.
The Government is vigilant
on the predicament of her
citizens and has proactively
come out with initiatives to
ensure better management of
its infrastructure assets and
that of the private sector as
well. In general, the road map
in managing the Government’s
assets can be marked with
several milestones as evident
in the formation of National
Committees, the establishment
of policies and strategies, the
development of guidelines
and system applications, the
development of human capital
and competencie s which
are continuously carried out
to ensure sustainability and
effectiveness in this national
imperative.
As such, the first National
Asset and Facility Management
(NAFAM) Convention which was
held in 2007 was a starting
point of the Government’s total
commitment to systematic,
comprehensive and integrated
asset management. Among
the resolutions adopted at
NAFAM 2007 Convention were
to create an Asset Management
Framework; the establish an
application system to record
all assets and monitor the
success of the programme;
improving the process and
procurement of asset of service
providers; and developing a
suitable Government Financial
Model for asset management
and capacity building in asset
management.
Subsequent to this was
the establishment of the
Government Asset Management
Committee with the objective
of ensuring that Government
assets are managed efficiently,
economically and safely in
the practice of Total Asset
Management (TAM) for the
country. The responsibilities
of the committee are to
determine the direction for
t he imp lement at ion and
development of policie s,
strategies, action plan and
guidelines for a comprehensive
and
integrated
asset
management system to produce
Key Performance Indicators in