Henry Duncan John, M; Amoah, C and Ayesu-Koranteng, E (2022) Causes of road projects' delays: A case of blantyre, Malawi. Built Environment Project and Asset Management, 12(2), pp. 293-308. ISSN 2044-124X
Abstract
The study aims to find the causes of road projects implementation delays in Blantyre, one of the four city councils (CCs) in Malawi. The study followed a qualitative research approach using a Blantyre City Council (BCC) as a case study. This study combined in-depth, face-to-face interviews with councillors, secretariat staff, consultants, and contractors who worked on the city's road projects. Data gathered were analysed using thematic content analysis. Also, some road project documents were examined. The findings from the case study revealed the primary cause of road project construction delays as the shortage of engineers in conducting detailed proposed projects surveys resulting in incomplete project scope definition before contractor's procurement. Other identified factors were service providers delaying the removal of existing public utility infrastructure from project sites, client funding issues, scope changes, and client delays in issuing instructions to the contractors during project implementation. Another factor was the shortage of construction equipment and construction materials experienced by some appointed contractors. Only road construction projects and stakeholders operating from Blantyre city, Malawi, were contacted for the study; thus, the findings may not be generalizable. There is an urgent need to increase technical employees, especially engineers and other critical technical staff such as quantity surveyors in Blantyre. Employees' conditions of service should be conducive to attract qualified people to undertake effective management and assessment of projects before commencement to identify the feasibility of proposed projects to decrease the rate of road construction project delays. The study has established Blantyre city's core challenges in implementing its road projects seamlessly and has provided mitigation measures for dealing with the shortcomings.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | delays; contractors; Malawi; quantity surveying; construction equipment; construction materials; communication; rural development; content analysis; Iran; South Africa |
| Index terms: | funding, qualitative research, construction delay, construction material, mitigation, road construction, documents, implementation, South Africa, project delay, rural development, Malawi, road project, scope change, interview, quantity surveying, surveying, case study, Blantyre city council, construction equipment, engineer, face, content analysis, project scope definition, survey, public utility |
| Subjects: | Geography, professional development, construction equipment, financial risk, infrastructure engineering, civil engineering, infrastructure and transport systems, land use and regional development, project controls, scope management, data collection methods, profession, research design and methodology, data analysis and analytics, contractual arrangements, economic analysis, health monitoring assessment and metrics, psychology, building materials |
| Topics: | Time Control, Organizational Design, Urban Studies, Procurement, Plant and Equipment, Roles and Professions, Research Practice, Geographical Context, Project Management, Information Management, Engineering Principles, Cost Management, Business Strategy, Health and Safety |
| Descriptive scope: | 5 PCTEA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here