Impact of Construction Claims on Public Building Projects Performance in Abuja

Abstract

Building construction projects in Nigeria are characterized by contractual claims, which remain a challenge in terms of time and cost performance, thereby triggering the need for effective construction claims management in the construction industry. The study is aimed at assessing the impact of contractual claims on the performance of public building projects with the view to establishing strategies for effective management of contractual claims in public building construction projects. A pro forma was used to collect archival data on the impact of contractual claims while a self-administered structured questionnaire was used to gather information on the strategies for managing contractual claims. A total of 122 respondents were considered and the questionnaire was self-administered, of which 105 were retrieved. The data was analysed using paired sample t-test, mean item score, correlation and exploratory factor analysis. The results showed that contractual claims have significant impact on cost and time performance of construction projects with a cost overrun of 16.8% and time overrun ranging between 31% - 866% with p-value of 0.037. The study concluded that improved projects performance can only be achieved if contractual claims are eliminated. It is therefore recommended that stakeholders should improve on contractual procedures in order to eliminate avoidable omissions or changes during construction through effective communication and application of new technologies.