Cause of Delay in Medium Town Water Supply Projects: the Case of Ethiopian One WASH National Program

Abstract

Construction delays are common problems in water supply projects in Ethiopia. The delays in construction projects are the major causes of project failure. Construction delays are caused by many factors. The aim of this paper is to identify delay factors on construction projects and analyze these factors with the relative importance index method. For this purpose, 57 different delay factors were identified, categorized into eight major groups. The relative importance of these delay factors were quantified by the relative importance index method. The ranking of the factors and groups were demonstrated according to their importance level on delay. The findings show that the main critical factors that cause construction delays in water supply project of One Nation Program in Ethiopia are: (1) fluctuation of price/rising cost of material , (2) late material supply, (3) scarcity of material in the market, (4) delay payment to the contractor, (5) ineffective planning and scheduling, (6) less emphasis to planning, (7) client’s finance shortage, (8) unrealistic contract duration (9) delay payment to the suppliers and subcontractors and, (10) underestimating the complexity of the project. In addition, cost revision; effective planning and scheduling; estimating realistic project duration; on time delivery of material and plan for payment of contractors are some recommendations made to minimize and control delays in construction projects.