The Effect of Consultant Related and External Factors on Completion of Water Projects in Kakamega County, Kenya

Abstract

Inability to complete projects are among the challenges faced in the course of executing construction projects. The most widely used project success criterion is meeting time, quality and cost requirements. The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of consultant related and external factors on completion of water projects in Kakamega County, Kenya. The instrument of data collection was questionnaires. The target population consisted of 104 employees working for two water projects in Mumias and Lugari both in management and lower levels. Simple random sampling was used to select 90 who formed the sample size out of which, 74 respondents returned the questionnaires representing 82% response rate. Analysis of data was done using descriptive and inferential statistics using correlation and regression. Consultant related factors considered included experience, skilled personnel, co-ordination, site supervision and decision making ability and they had a significantly fairly strong positive relationship with project completion ( r = 0.583, p < 0.05). External factors of political interference, industrial action, regulation, taxation and material unavailability in the market had a weak but significant positive relationship (r = 0.312, p < 0.05) with project completion. The overall regression model gave R2 of 0.409. This showed that that the variations around the means in consultant related and external factors is about 41%.