Causes and Effects of Delay in Ethiopia’s Public Construction Projects: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach

Abstract

The construction industry plays a great role in the development of any country by transforming the aspirations and needs of its people into reality by implementing various physical structures. However, there are differences in its contribution depending on how well the projects are managed. One of the challenges in construction projects is delay and associated problems with project delays. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the most significant causes and associated effects of delays in public construction projects in Ethiopia, as well as to provide overviews for potential future action. The study is limited to the causes and impacts of delays in public construction works only at randomly selected construction projects. As a result, purposive, snowball sampling techniques were applied. Structural Equation Modeling was applied to examine the relationship between 48 variables [41 factors and 7 effects], previously identified as contributing to public construction delay in the Ethiopian construction industry and their consequences. The results show that the most important element of the contractor-related factor, "shortage of materials on site," is estimated to be 3.405 according to the path analysis with IBM SPPS Amos 23. On the other hand, with a value of 3.132, external-related issues, "environmental factors," had the least impact on construction-related delays. Moreover, this study identified seven consequences of delays on public construction projects in Ethiopia, ranging from the most significant to the least significant: (1) time overrun, (2) cost overrun, (3) disagreement between the parties involved, (4) arbitration, (5) litigation and court case, (6) complete project abandonment, and (7) resource waste and underutilization.