A Project Manager of Construction Company received Architect Instruction (A.I) from Architect who act as Superintendent Officer Representative under the Contract and duly empowered under the Contract to issue Variation Order Instruction to ensure project objective is met prior to handover to the Client i.e the Government.
As usual, the PM had successfully delivered the addition scope of work as instructed in A.I which constitute a Variation Order to original work and met the acceptance criteria for handover to Client. Unfortunately, while the Project Team was on the Closing of Final Account, the Government through the National Audit Department has intervened the process of Final Account closing due to some findings on this project after their project audit was completed.
National Audit Department raised the most critical finding to the Government which was the earlier issued Variation Order was invalid and cannot be accepted for process of payment. The reason being the amount/value of work of Variation Order issued by Architect has exceeded the financial limit that set in under the Contract and the Government Departmental Policy. A special Variation Order Committer set-up by the Government later buy-in the finding by the National Audit Department and hence the Contractor still could not get paid although additional work has been completed & acceptance criteria of work was met.
If you are the PM of above scenario, what would you do next? Saving Changes...
