EVALUATION OF STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT PRACTICES FOR ENHANCED PERFORMANCE OF PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURAL PROJECTS IN ESCRAVOS POWER PROJECT, WARRI NIGERIA

The study evaluates stakeholder management practices for enhanced project performance of public infrastructure project using the ESCRAVOS Environs Power Supply Project (EEPSP) as a case study to achieve better performance of Infrastructure projects and ameliorate the living condition in oil host communities in the Niger Delta. The following specific objectives shall be pursued to examine the critical success factors for managing stakeholder engagement in Public Infrastructural Project delivery and to evaluate the impact of the identified critical success factors for managing stakeholder engagement on success of Public Infrastructure projects in Oil host communities. A survey research design was adopted for the study. A structure questionnaire design with a five-point Liker scale was used to collect data for the study. The data collected was analyzed using Relative Importance Index (RII), Microsoft Excel and ANOVA using SPSS version 26.0 providing a robust statistical foundation for the findings. The result revealed that there is a significant relationship between the identified CSFs for managing Stakeholder engagement and successful delivery of public infrastructural projects in oil host communities, and there is a significant relationship between Stakeholder engagement and achievement of project sustainability. The study concluded that the results of this study have sufficiently established unarguably that the effective deployment of Stakeholder management practices is imperative and has the propensity to enhance the performance of Public Infrastructure projects with implications on sustainability, schedule performance, and cost performance. The study recommended that Project participants should pay attention to all the critical success factors for managing stakeholder engagement in Public Infrastructural project delivery and pay closer attention to formulating a clear statement of project missions, Stakeholder Participation, Stakeholder Profiling, Stakeholder Risk, Stakeholder Environment, Stakeholder Identification, Stakeholder Communication and Stakeholder Classification when planning and executing Infrastructure projects in oil host communities