e) The provincial departments of Public Works and Health in the Limpopo, North West and Western Cape provinces had not monitored the time taken to complete the designs. The average design period for six projects in the Western Cape was 21 months, and a comparison with the respective construction periods indicated that for five projects the design period was longer than the construction period. Shortcomings were indentified in the design plans for accommodation at the Khayelitsha and Mitchells Plain district hospitals. Furthermore, in the North West province, standardised design plans that require standardised materials for similar projects were not used during planning and, as a result, hospitals, clinics and health centres were designed individually without considering savings by using standard plans and thereby eliminating some of the design costs.