Abstract

The problem of delays in the execution of public projects is a phenomenon which has far-reaching implications on both beneficiaries and the development of affected areas. The current study therefore sought to analyse delays in the execution of public projects and its effects on the population of Fako Division in Cameroon. The study specifically aimed to identify the factors responsible for delays in the execution of projects in Fako Division; describe the procedures for the award and its impact on project execution; investigate the likely socio-economic cost of delays/abandonment of public contracts on government, contractors and beneficiary population. A questionnaire was designed to this effect and targeted clients, stakeholders, and contractors. The Relative Importance Index (RII) was employed as the method of data analysis, chi square, and correlation analysis were used to test the hypothesis. Findings identified inaccurate time estimation, delay in payments to suppliers and subcontractors, poor site management, use of old technology, natural disasters among the main causes for the delays. The main effects of delays observed included time overrun, cost overrun and abandonment. I highlighted some of such public projects that have been delayed or uncompleted in Fako Division such as the elaboration of the Land Use Plan for Buea Municipality and the Sector Plan for Molyko; Construction of two classrooms at GBPS Mabeta New layout Limbe; construction of the emergency building at the Regional Hospital   Limbe; and the Equipment of the Regional Delegation of Agriculture and Rural Development Buea. I recommended that in other to avoid future delays, efforts should be placed on awarding contracts on time, prompt payments by clients to contractors and contractors to subcontractors, change orders and design changes at the middle of the project should be avoided, proper feasibility studies should be done before award of contract. Contracts should not be awarded based mainly on lowest bidder price system and penalties should be given to defaulter contractors amongst others.

CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

In today’s world of globalization, public projects play an important and integral role to enhance the nation’s competitiveness and development. The Cameroon government has moved forward under the growth and employment Strategy (Vision, 2035), which has been formulated with various new approaches towards becoming a high income and high productivity economy, in line with this vision and coupled with her decentralization policy in which power is being handed to local councils, high-impact projects have been identified for implementation. To effectively deliver these projects, the government has recognized the need to improve their capacity and competency. In a construction project, completion on time is extremely important because time is essential and time is money. Although timely completion is seen as one of the important criteria of the project success, late completion is a common problem in construction projects not only in Cameroon but worldwide (Azian&Syuhaida, 2014)

1.1 Background to the Study

Delay gives rise to disruption of work and loss of productivity, late completion of project, increased time related cost, third party claims and abandonment or termination of contract (Tumi, Omran, &Pakir, 2009). In many cases, construction projects which suffer from delay will cause suspension, which means stoppage of work directed to the contractor by a formal form from the client. However, delay when slowing down of work does not mean entire stop to the project.

A schedule is to the successful completion of successful projects but completing projects is often disturbed by inherent risk and uncertainty. Schedule delays are common in project execution and often cause considerable losses in addition to time overruns, such as cost, quality and safety issues. Current construction is characterised with increasing uncertainties, resulting in more unpredictable delays.

In Cameroon as a whole and in Fako Division – South West Region in particular, one of the cardinal problems facing the community is late delivery of projects. The practice of well-organized and timely delivery of projects, be it town planning projects or road construction projects etc., is one of the main issues leading to a good project’s success. Completing projects at the right time leads to profit, growth, increasing customer’s trust, development and increases self as well as team’s confidence.

Several factors contribute to delays on project and analysing the causes of delays is an essential task for ameliorating potential conflicts or claims. There is strong evidence of inconsistent performance of projects awarded by both the public and private institutions in Cameroon and Fako Division in particular. Projects are reported failing across all the key performance measures of cost, time and quality.

Contractors contribute immensely to the development and economic growth of Cameroon. A public contract project is a project with a budget of more than five million cfafrs (Public Contract Regulations). In these projects, there are some problems faced such as delays in the completion or delivery or outright abandonment. The delay in completion of projects is a worldwide problem but it is more pronounced and common in many developing countries. It is therefore imperative to diagnose the major causes of delays in execution of projects in Cameroon and assess the effects or impacts on anticipated beneficiaries.

Projects delay refers to the time overrun in specified completion data or time overrun in the delivery of the project on which all parties agreed (Assaf& Al-Hejji, 2006). For the client, project delay will refer to the loss of revenue, lack of productivity, dependency on existing facilities, lack of rentable facilities etc. For the contractor, project delay means higher costs, longer work duration, increased labour cost, higher material and equipment costs etc. Completion of projects on specified time or time agreed within parties indicates the work and project efficiency.  The delays in projects happen because of various factors or causes with some anticipated negative effects on the project and the economy.

In Cameroon, it is very rare case that large project is completed on the time specified or agreed upon. There are many large projects in Cameroon, which suffered delay or in some cases suffered suspension or abandonment. Examples have been cited by (MINEPAT Directory, problematic projects,2014); like the elaboration of the Land Use Plan for Buea Municipality and the Sector Plan for Molyko, a project that was supposed to have been completed since the month of June 2014 (eight months’ duration), but was still on-going as at December 2014 (MINEPAT Directory, problematic projects,2014). Other projects that have suffered delays and abandonment in Fako division are: Construction of two classrooms at GBPS Mabeta New layout Limbe; Completion, construction of emergency building at Regional Hospital   Limbe; Equipment of the RD of Agriculture and Rural Development Buea (project not completed) etc.

It is obvious that some projects have special features that are not usually encountered in other projects. Usually when conditions in the field turn out to be more complex than what was anticipated in the planning and design phase, additional costs and time are needed. Any extremes can affect productivity level, damage materials and work in place. Moreover, the contractors, most of the time, are custom oriented, meaning that it is difficult to use mass production techniques (Murali, 2006). Because of all these factors and others, it is difficult to predict accurately how much money will be necessary to complete construction projects. Creating a large facility takes a long time and usually involves a large capital investment. Cost overruns, delays and other problems tend to be proportionally monumental (Murali, 2006).

Cost is one of the primary measures of a project’s success. This is true, especially for public projects in developing countries like Cameroon, because public projects in this country are executed with scarce financial resources. Most literature review on projects suggested that the common criteria for project success are generally considered to be cost, time and quality (Arditi, 1997; Frimpong , 2003). Atkinson (1999) called these measures as the ‘iron triangle’. Songer and Molenaar (1997) considered a project successful if it was completed on budget, on schedule, conformed to user expectations, met specifications, attained quality of workmanship and minimized construction aggravation. Generally, a project is considered successful if the project is completed within a stated cost or budget, getting the project into use by a target date, meets the technical specification, and if there is a high level of satisfaction concerning the project outcome among the project participants.

Completion alone does not constitute success for the project owner. For the owner, much of the success of a project depends on many factors, the most important of which is project completion within specified cost parameters (i.e. within a specified budget). The second most important factor affecting success is on time completion that is prompt execution as delays in completion of facilities often directly equate to financial losses due to lack of revenue from facility operation (Darrell, 1995).

The problem of delays in the execution of projects is a global phenomenon. In South Arabia, Assaf and Hejji (2006) found that only 30% of construction projects were completed within the scheduled completion dates and that the average time overrun was between 10% and 30%. In Nigeria, Ajanlekoko (2006) observed that the performance of the construction industry in terms of time was poor. Odeyinka and Aibinu (2006) have shown that seven out of ten projects surveyed in Nigeria suffered delays in the execution of projects. They cited many note worthy causes of delays such as weather conditions, shortage of resources, shortage of materials and equipments, financial difficulties faced by contractors and clients and poor contract management. Al-Momani (1996) carried out quantitative analysis on projects delays in Jordan. The results of this study indicated that the main causes of delay in execution of public projects were related to designers, weather, use changes, site conditions, late deliveries and economic conditions.

Chan and Kumaraswamy (1997) studied delays in Hong Kong construction industry. They emphasized that timely delivery of projects within budget and to the level of quality standard specified by the client is an index of a successful project delivery. Failure to achieve targeted time, budgeted cost, and specified quality results in various unexpected negative effects on the projects. Normally when the projects are delayed, they are either extended or accelerated and therefore, incur additional cost (Murali, 2006)

Although the contract parties agreed upon the extra time and cost associated with delay, in many cases there were problems between the owner and the contractor as to whether the contractor was entitled to claim the extra cost. According to Murali (2006) said such situations usually involved questioning the facts, causal factors, and contract interpretation. Therefore, delays in execution of projects gives rise to dissatisfaction to all the parties involved and the main role of the project manager is to ensure the projects are executed or completed within the budgeted time and cost.

In Cameroon, the present state of the projects falls short of meeting domestic and international quality standards and the performance demand expected. Projects have problems with planning techniques and management as well as limitation of funds and time. The critical problems are inability to complete the projects on schedule, low quality work and cost overrun. In general, most (if not all), projects experience time overrun and cost overruns during their execution phase.

Delays in execution of projects are considered to affect many players in the entire nation and the division in particular, especially, on government funded projects.  As such, there is the urgency to find out the causes of these delays and alternative remedies which could effectively put an end to project delay problems in our case study.

The motivator for this study is largely due to personal observation and low performance of public projects in terms of cost and time. These include projects owned by the government and the private sectors. However, due to the limitation with regard to accessibility of data on private projects this dissertation will focus on public projects.

1.2 Problem Statement

There have been of late increasing voices against the low execution rate, delays in execution and abandonment of public funded projects in Cameroon. This delay in execution of projects has devastating effects on the community benefiting from these projects. A number of factors are likely to explain this situation and may be linked to both the responsible government departments and the contractors. Many questions have been raised about the irregularity and prompt payment of contractors and the inability of the later to do the job (Songer and Molenaar, 1997).

Projects are awarded or allocated to various sectors depending on their needs assessment (Mansfield and Doran, 1994) and consequently if these projects are not delivered on time, it will affect the beneficiaries negatively. Like in the case of the Basic Education sector where contracts are awarded for the construction of classrooms needed by pupils to study, failure of such projects to be executed is likely to affect the teaching and learning process and consequently the output and performance of both pupils and teachers. Voices had been on the abandonment of these projects. The same failure of projects have been registered in the health sector and this has raised lots of eyebrow from the public, Examples include a contract that was awarded for the construction of an emergency unit at the regional hospital Limbe and equipment of  the blood bank at same hospital, in 2013 and were not completed by the end of 2014 financial year; another important sector where delays or abandonment are common is the road construction sector which statistics show a generally low execution rates(Cameroon calling, 2014)

Since 1990’s economic difficulties led many developing countries worldwide to reform and modernize their project sectors. With the fall of the Berlin wall, liberalization was adopted, and privatization was implemented in many developing nations (World Bank, 1997). Some countries like Cameroon, Ethiopia, Malawi, Kenya, Tanzania and other developing countries in other continents, created road funds to secure stable funding for road projects. They also adopted DesignBid-Build as their project delivery method (World Bank, 1997). Yet project cost over runs and delays (or time overruns) are major factors affecting projects in spite of reforms.

It is within this background that the study investigate someof the causes for these delays in execution of public projects, the effects on the beneficiary in Fako, cost over-run and their mitigation process and strategies for increasing the execution rates of public projects in Cameroon.

1.3 Research Questions

The main research question is: what are the likely causes of the delays in the execution of public projects in Cameroon and how does the delay affect local development?

The Specific Questions:

1. What factors determine delays in the execution of public projects and how does it impact the population of Fako Division?
2. How are the public contracts awarded in the study area and how does this process impact on project execution?
3. What are the likely socio-economic costs of project delays on the population of Fako Division?
4. Are there any effective options and strategies that can be employed by both the government and contractors to address the present situation in Fako Division?