Factors Influencing Cost of Road Construction Projects Within Selected Urban Areas in Kenya

Abstract

In Kenya the number of construction projects is increasing radically. However, majority of these Projects are not completed within allocated cost and time. Controlling cost of road construction has become one of the major challenges in Kenya Construction Industry. The main objectives of this study was to investigate factors influencing cost of Road construction projects within selected urban areas in Kenya with a specific reference to construction projects in the three Cities namely Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu. The study determine the extent to which contract management influence cost of road construction projects within urban areas, assessed how project schedule influence cost of road construction projects within urban areas and examined the level at which design and documentation influence cost of road construction projects within urban areas. The study also determined the extent to which financial control systems influence cost of road construction projects within urban areas and assessed how government policies influences cost of road construction projects within urban areas. The study adopted descriptive research with a study population of 200 staff from KURA, KeNHA, Construction and Consultancy firms who have been involved in the supervision of large road construction projects within the three urban areas completed between the years 2000 to 2019. The study employed purposive sampling design by using a stratified random sampling technique to select a sample size of 134 respondents. The main data collection instrument was questionnaires containing both open and close ended questions. Descriptive statistics data analysis method was applied to analyze data aided by Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) to compute response frequencies, mean, standard deviation and covariance. Finally linear regression model was used to establish the significance of the independent variables on the dependent variable. The study findings indicated that contract management explains 28.6% of changes in cost of road construction projects when other factors are constant while project schedule accounts for 22.5% of changes in cost of road construction projects when other factors are held constant. The study also established that Project Design accounted for 33.7% of changes in cost of road construction projects, financial control systems accounted for 27.9% of changes in cost of road construction projects and Government’s policies accounted for 7.1% of cost of road construction projects when all the other factors are kept constant. The combined effect of all the five factors contributed to 65.8% of changes in cost of road construction projects within selected urban areas in Kenya.