Causes of Delay in Building Construction Projects in Egypt

TLDR

Delay in construction projects is a widespread issue that negatively impacts projects and stakeholders. This study seeks to identify the primary causes of construction delay in Egypt from the perspectives of contractors, consultants, and owners. The authors compiled a list of delay causes through a literature review, refined it via seven semi‑structured interviews, and then validated and ranked the causes with a questionnaire survey. The analysis revealed that the most critical causes are contractor financing during construction, owner payment delays, owner‑initiated design changes, partial payments, and lack of professional management, with contractors and owners blaming each other and a joint teamwork approach suggested to reduce delays, while causes differ by project type and size.

Abstract

Delay in construction projects is considered one of the most common problems causing a multitude of negative effects on the project and its participating parties. This paper aims to identify the main causes of delay in construction projects in Egypt from the point of view of contractors, consultants, and owners. A literature review was conducted to compile a list of delay causes that was purged based on appropriateness to Egypt in seven semistructured interviews. The resulting list of delay causes was subjected to a questionnaire survey for quantitative confirmation and identification of the most important causes of delay. The overall results indicated that the most important causes are: financing by contractor during construction, delays in contractor’s payment by owner, design changes by owner or his agent during construction, partial payments during construction, and nonutilization of professional construction/contractual management. The contractor and owner were found to have opposing views, mostly blaming one another for delays, while the consultant was seen as having a more intermediate view. Results’ analyses suggest that in order to significantly reduce delay a joint effort based on teamwork is required. Furthermore, causes of project delay were discussed based on the type and size of the project.