Contractors’ Capacity Evaluation in Tender Award, Process Monitoring and Performance of Road Construction Infrastructural Projects in Nairobi County, Kenya

Abstract

Kenya has elaborate procedures for vetting contractors even though there is still questionable performance of most of road projects as seen in the cost overruns, delays in completion and compromised quality. In this regard, the selection of the right contractor for road construction infrastructural project is deemed a remedy for poor road infrastructure project performance. The purposeof the study was toestablish how contractors’ capacityevaluation in tender award, and process monitoring influences performance of road construction infrastructural projects in Nairobi County, Kenya. The first objective was to establishthe influence offinancial ability of contractorson performance of road construction infrastructural projects in Nairobi County, Kenya. The second objectivewas to establishthe influence of technical ability of contractors on performance of road construction infrastructural projects in Nairobi County, Kenya. Ththird objective wasto establish the influenceof management ability ofcontractors on performance ofroad construction infrastructural projects in Nairobi, Kenya. The fourthobjective was to determinethe influence of contractors’safety record on performance of road construction infrastructural projects inNairobi, Kenya. Thefifth objective was to establish the influence of combined contractors’ capacity evaluation in tender award onperformance of roadconstruction infrastructural projects inNairobi, Kenya. Th sixth objectivewas to establish themoderating influence ofprocess monitoring on the relationshipbetween contractors’ capacity evaluation in tender award and performance of road construction infrastructural projects in NairobiKenya. Thetudy used descriptivesurvey research design and co rrelational research design, and a ta rget popul ation of 460 comprising all publicservice vehicle (matatu) driversplying eastern bypass, and outer-ringroads in Nairobi, as well asthe engineers from theconstruction firms in NairobiCounty. A sample of 210 was drawn from both categories of respondents, from whom 153 respondents successfullyparticipated in the studyrepresenting 72.8%uestionnaire return. Stratified sampling wasused to divide respondentsinto homogeneous groups. Als, propoiionate sampling and simple random techniques were employed. Pilot study wasconducted to improve on the validity andreliability of thestruments wherebya pre-testwas done and a Cronbalch’sAlpha coeffiecient was applied which was found to be above 0.7. Questionnaires and interview schedules were adminstered to contractors and drivers respectively to collect data. Quantitative data was presented using means and standard deviations. Simple, multiple, and hierarchical regression models were used to test null hypotheses at a significance level of 0.05, and the results for the six hypotheses indicated that apart from second and third hypotheses, the rest were all rejected. Results were: t he first hypothesis, showedR= 0.669, R2= 0.447, β =0.373, t =11.056, F (1,151)=122.235, p= 0.000<0.05; second hypothesis, R=0.157, R2=0.025, β=0.124, t=1.956, F(1,151)=3.827, p=0.052>0.05; third hypothesis, R2=0.003, β=0.049, t=0.701, F(1,151)=0.491, p= 0.485> 0.05; fourthhypothesis, R=0.657, R2=0.431, β=0.359, t=10.703, F (1,151)=114.558, p=0.000< 0.05, fifth hypothesis, in overall R=0.826, adjusted R2=0.673, F(4,148)=79.226, p=0.000,0.05; and finally, thesixth hypothesis results presented showed that in step 1: R=0.826, adjusted R2=0.673, F(4,148)=79.226, p=0.000<0.05 henceF-value statisti cally significant and in step 2: R=0.837,adjusted R2=0.690, F(5,147)=68.520, p=0.000<0.05 hence F-valuestatistically significant. It can therefore be concluded that process monitoring significantly moderates the relationship between combined factors of contractors’ capacity evaluation in tender award and performance of road construction infrastructural projects in Nairobi County, Kenya. The study, however, recommends that further research should be done on building construction projects since that was not within the scope of the current study. It also recommends that further studies should focus on rural contexts since the current focus was on Nairobi County,

which is an urban setting. The study further suggests that the influence of other moderating variable such as construction firm characteristics should also be examined by other researchers. The study is significant since it adds value to knowledge exposition in respect to project management especially during evalution process for selecting effective contractors intended to contribute to per formance o f road construc tion infrastruc tural project s. Hence, special attention should be paid to contractors’ safety record to assess their ability to deliver roads that will not jeopardize the performance of the roads once they have been handed over for public use. Similarly, the Dominotheory of accidents causation should now be incorporated in measuring performance in the post delivery stage and not only for utilization at the construction or project implementation stage. Further, the study is significant in that process monitoring as a moderating variable has been used here for the first time to show the strength and relationshion between the contractors’ capacity evaluation and performance of road construction infrastructural projects. It is evident that process monitoring is still weak within construction industry but its full institutionalizing can leadto an increase in performa nce ofroad s. Lastly, The study has laid sufficient ground to avoid blaming the technical and management abilities of contractors and strongly adduced performance of roads in terms of contractors’ financial and safety record abilities. There istherefore need to improve on these two crucial aspects to so lve perfor mance issues on ourroads.