An Assessment of the Factors Causing Delays on Building Construction Projects in Uganda

Abstract

Building construction projects in Uganda’s construction industry are experiencing a wide spread of delays. The purpose of this study was to assess the factors causing delays and their effects on building construction projects in Uganda. Eighty one (81) project delay attributes were identified through detailed literature review. Structured interviews and questionnaire survey were conducted across stakeholders that included among others; consultants, contractors and clients on four selected building projects to gather their views on causes of delay in delivery of projects. This research categorized the causes of delay under four main groups of consultant related, contractor related, client related and external related and then assessed their impacts on delay using relative importance index (RII) as a basis for analysis. The RII for all delay factors and group of categories was computed so as to rank the factors. The most significant factors of construction delays were identified as: (1) delay in assessing changes in the scope of work by the consultant; (2) financial indiscipline/dishonesty by the contractor; (3) inadequate contractor’s experience; (4) design errors made by designers; (5) inadequate site investigation by the consultant. The study concluded that consultant related category had the highest impact (RII = 0.745), followed by client related (RII = 0.698), then contractor related (RII = 0.697) and external related (RII = 0.615) exhibited the least impact. Identification of the causes of potential delay factors that are likely to affect the timely delivery of projects can help to avoid extra costs through claims and disputes that arise among parties when delays are experienced.