Barriers of Project Management in Public Property Development Projects in the Niger Delta Region

Public projects have huge differences from other types of projects, which these differences have an implication on the existing methods used in managing these projects. Often times, in the Niger Delta region, the development of public projects are faced with some project management difficulties. At the same time there is evidence of uncompleted projects, abandonment of projects, time overrun, and cost overrun by the government in the Niger Delta. These have become a continuous challenges faced by the developers, populace and government, as stated in previous studies. Therefore, the aim of the study is to examine these difficulties that arise during the development of public projects in the Niger Delta region. However, focus was given to government initiated funded projects in the Niger Delta region. The research has taken an interpretative philosophy with multiple case study approach of explanatory and exploratory case studies in project management of public property development. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected using ten (10Nr) semi-structured interviews, and one hundred and thirty (130Nr) questionnaires. The data was analysed using interpretative content analysis techniques and Statistical Package of Social Science (SPSS) version 2021. Further, the study highlighted eleven difficulties of project management in public property development. The study further recommends that the identification of nine difficulties of project management would improve the delivery of public projects and sustain the contemporary public property development projects.