Causes and Impacts of Delays in Ethiopian Public Construction Projects (Case on Debre Markos University Construction Projects)

The construction project is regarded successful when it is given over to the owner within the time, cost, and standards necessary while minimizing delays in public construction projects. Debre Markos University (DMU) is one of the public universities undergoing massive development projects that are experiencing significant delays. This article evaluates the most prevalent delay issues encountered by Ethiopian government-funded construction projects, particularly those using DMU, analyzes their impacts, and suggests a delay management system. The study applied qualitative as well as quantitative techniques to evaluate primary and secondary data. Per the entirety statistics, the top five most important and highly ranked factors are erroneous time estimates, force majeure, lowest bid, procurement policy, and volatile markets, as well as frequent design changes. Nearly every DMU project schedule overruns up to 268.67% of its contract duration. As a result, the institution suffered from poor public relations and a high cost of supervision and contract administration (6.87% of the overall project cost). Conducting a thorough and accurate project feasibility study, awarding bids to experienced contractors, avoiding drawing discrepancies, preparing an accurate initial time and cost estimate, and strict schedule monitoring were discovered to be effective techniques for reducing delays in public construction projects.