Factors Associated with delayed completion of Community Construction Projects funded using Community Development Fund (CDF) in Chadiza, Chipata and Chipangali Constituency

Abstract

A number of physical community infrastructure construction projects implemented using Constituency Development Funds (CDF) in most Constituencies in Zambia, Chadiza, Chipata and Chipangali inclusive have experienced delays in completion despite most of the projects the expanded Constituency Development fund and timely disbursements. Furthermore, despite the achievements that the Zambian Government has scored in the implementation of the National Decentralisation Policy as well as increasing the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) as was revealed from the reviews literature, it was discovered that much focus was on the utilization and decentralisation of Constituency Development Funds neglecting factors associated to delayed completion of community construction funded projects such as organisational, community/ project related, award of contracts and PESTEL factors which this dissertation explored. When exploring on the factors associated delayed completion of community physical infrastructure projects, a mixed method approach was used namely; qualitative and quantitative methods. Further, the research designs used involved both qualitative and quantitative and to be specific, the types of mixed methods which was deployed was; concurrent triangulation and concurrent nested designs. The research identified two (2) key factors associated with delayed implementation of community construction projects, namely (i) Organisational related factors and (ii) Contractor related factors. The organisation related factors (staffing levels, education, and qualification) were analysed and the results showed that the locality of the projects awarded were significantly associated with delays in the completion of construction project funded using Community Development Fund. Also, Contractor related factors showed a significant association between completing the projects on time and types of contracts awarded to local communities. The full contracts awarded to Contractors with non-false accounts completed very few projects compared to the full contractors awarded to false accounts. This research provided valuable insights into the factors associated with delayed completion of physical community construction projects funded using Constituency Development Fund and the study recommends that an investigation of the size of projects being implemented be done to assess the influence of project sizes and completion time in similar settings and also the study recommends research be conducted using a horizontal approach which focuses on the trends in price changes in lagged form and the completion time of the projects as completing the project on budget was a key success factor in project management.