No contracts awarded by my Department between 1995 and 2004 over-ran financially as a result of jobs being incorrectly specified.
The practice in my Department is to engage consultants at agreed fixed fees, resulting in fixed price contracts. It sometimes happens, however, that the need arises to perform additional pieces of work, which could not have been anticipated at the outset and which are required for the proper completion of the assignment. This is the reason for any instances where the final cost exceeded the original estimated cost of consultancy projects in my Department. It is my Department's policy to agree to additional work in such cases only where the additional cost is reasonable and there is a clear justification for same.