Determinants of Delay in Construction Projects (The Case of Dire Dawa Administration)

A construction project usually involves different actors, namely owners or clients, consultants, contractors and other stakeholders. All parties have diverse interest, but they all pursue to ensure project performance on the required cost, time and quality. However, nowadays construction project delays has become a universal phenomenon which has prompted several empirical researches to come to fore. Yet, most of these researches were based on the rankings by respondents, and they were seldom verified. Accordingly, the purpose of this research is to explore the causes of delay in public construction industry, where there has been little explicit attention has been given to this subject in recent decades. A questionnaire survey based on a literature review provided 27 key process factors which were divided into four categories. A total of 335 interviews were conducted based on the responses collected from the respondents. The factors were tested for significant contribution each party’s entails for the delay of construction projects. Logit regression model was used to analyze the data with the help of SPSS version 20. The finding shows that determinants of public construction project such as, client related factors, contractor related factors, consultant related factors and external related factors respectively are found to be determinant of public construction project delay. That is to say, all the variables tested were determinants of construction project delay having strong impact on the delay of public construction projects in Dire Dawa Administration. Therefore, in order to avoid major challenges of public construction projects on the one hand and enhance better project performance on the other hand, Dire Dawa Administration should adopt scientific project management principles.