A Comparative Assessment of Causes of Delay in Public and Private Building Projects in Lagos State, Nigeria

Delay in the execution of construction projects is a major problem confronting the Nigerian construction industry. If unchecked, it will constitute a setback to the realisation of the infrastructure development component of the sustainable development agenda of the United Nations. This paper compared the causes of delay in public and private building projects in Lagos State, Nigeria with a view to enhancing project time performance. The study was conducted using a random sample of 87 Architectural firms and 88 contracting firms out of a population of 289 and 293, respectively in the study area. These represent 30% of the population of Architectural and contracting firms, in the study area. Data were retrieved from 47 Architectural and 48 contracting firms and analysed using mean score and student t-test. Results from the study indicated that delay in public building projects was mostly due to contractor’s financial difficulties with mean score (MS) of 2.84, rise in materials prices (MS = 2.80) and variations (MS = 2.72). On the other hand, client’s interference (MS = 2.92), rise in materials prices (MS = 2.83) and slow decision by clients (MS = 2.74) were the major causes of delay in private projects. T-test also revealed that the respondents were significantly different in opinion on 12 out of the 30 causes of delay in both project types in the study area.