Delay Factors and Time-Cost Performance of Construction Projects in Gaborone City Council, Botswana

The problem of delays in the construction industry is a global phenomenon and the construction industry in Botswana is not an exception. The objectives of this study were to confirm the presence of significant delay in GCC projects; to identify and rank the perceived delay causes; and construct a Bromilow-type time-cost model for the council’s projects. The study made use of archival data and questionnaire survey soliciting the perceived causes and effects of delay from the clients, consultants, and contractors that are associated with GCC projects. Chi-square statistical method was employed to prove the presence of statistically significant delay in the council’s project. About 150 respondents drawn from three client organizations, five consulting firms and 23 construction contracting companies participated in the survey to rank the perceived causes of delay. The study identified 10 most important causes of delay from a list of twenty eight different causes and six different effects of delay. The ten most important causes are: contractor’s improper planning, contractor's poor site management, inadequate contractor experience, inadequate client's finance and payments for completed work, problems with subcontractors, shortage in material, labor supply, equipment availability and failure, lack of communication between parties, and mistakes during the construction stage. The six main effects of delay were: time overrun cost overrun, disputes, arbitration, litigation and total abandonment. In addition, archival data were used to establish the time-cost relationship of the council’s projects using Bromilow’s model. The derived relationship was given by Time = 1.18Cost0.361861. The adjusted R2 of the model was 0.817812 showing that the model had high predictability. It was concluded that the results of this study can be of immense assistance to the stakeholders of GCC projects in terms of planning future projects and better understanding of the dynamics of project management as lessons for reducing the incidences of project delay and high cost.