CAUSES AND EFFECTS OF DELAY IN ETHIOPIAN RAILWAY CONSTRUCTION PROJECT IN CASE OF AWASH- KOMBOLLCHA-HARAGBYIA (AKH) RAILWAY PROJECT

Abstract

Delay is one of the biggest problems often experienced on construction project sites. Delays can instigates negative effects such as increased costs, loss of productivity and revenue, many lawsuits between owners and contractors and contract termination. The aim of this project is to investigate the causes and effects of delay on Ethiopian railway construction project. Purposive (non-probability, deliberate) sampling technique was used in this study. Population sample of 180 was used in this work. From the total sample one hundred thrty one (131) was deployed. A structured questionnaire in Likert scale was used in data collection. Thirty (30) project delay attributes were identified through detailed literature review. This research categorized the causes of delay under eight main groups of client related, consultant related, contractor related, labor and equipment related, material related, contract related, contractual relationship related and external related and then the data obtained were analyzed using the Relative Importance index (RII). Based on RII result, The top five most influential causes of railway construction project delays were identified as: (1) Poor communication and coordination of the owner with other parties (RII=0.898), (2) lack of communication between all parties involved in the project (RII=0.862), (3) Delay caused by subcontractors (RII=0.827), (4) long waiting time for approval of test and inspection (RII=0.815), and (5) mistakes in design documents (RII=0.798). In addition, six effect of delay were identified. the top major effects of delay were; time overrun, cost overrun, dispute, arbitration, litigation and abandonment.