In ye olde days in Germany, the municipalities had their own construction teams, employed by the municipality. That meant that e.g. road constructions were done by the government - which also means that the "feedback loops" were way shorter, and there was no incentive for the construction teams to delay the construction or similar.
Now, with the privatization trend and "cheapest-bidder-wins", it's a catastrophe. Especially when construction companies from foreign countries are involved (thanks to EU-wide tender crap)... the language barrier is a huge issue.
One thing the article totally leaves out: in ye olde days, there were next to no changes to a project when it was approved. Now replannings in all stages of a project are common - be it due to politicians trying to gain something, NIMBY morons, environmental protection or, the worst case as can be seen at BER, changing technological requirements. Every replanning causes delays and cost overruns.
BER and "changing technological requirements"? BER (primarily) got doomed because they rearranged the layout to be able to sell more shopping space halfway through and didn't properly plan out the consequences of that change.
I didn't mean to allude to this, rather to an article I read half a year ago that when the construction permit expires before the thing is built that they'd have to rip it half apart AGAIN because regulatory frameworks changed :'D
Your point more fits into "politicians and personal gain", imho.
Now, with the privatization trend and "cheapest-bidder-wins", it's a catastrophe. Especially when construction companies from foreign countries are involved (thanks to EU-wide tender crap)... the language barrier is a huge issue.
One thing the article totally leaves out: in ye olde days, there were next to no changes to a project when it was approved. Now replannings in all stages of a project are common - be it due to politicians trying to gain something, NIMBY morons, environmental protection or, the worst case as can be seen at BER, changing technological requirements. Every replanning causes delays and cost overruns.