INFORMATION

Five years ago, Modderfontein New City project was announced in South Africa. Billed as a game changer, it was meant to alter the urban footprint of Johannesburg, Africas richest city, forever. Zendai, a Chinese developer, bought a 1600-hectare site north-east of Johannesburg for the development, dubbed as the New York of Africa. Early plans showed it was to include 55,000 housing units, 1,468,000 m2 of office space and all the necessary amenities for a single large-scale urban district. The cost estimate was set at R84 billion. The developers believed that Modderfontein could function as a global business hub and would become Johannesburgs main commercial centre, replacing Sandton. The project would also strengthen relations with Asian corporate interests. But, despite the release of futuristic computer-generated images which led to significant publicity for the project dismally failed due to lack of proper project cost management. Another developer has since begun construction on a much scaled-down project but the project was never completed due to project overruns and now has faded away from the public consciousness.

1)State and explain ANY Three (3) reasons that could have led to project overrun or cost estimates rendered off target at Modderfontein New City project.