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AN EVALUATION OF THE CAUSES OF ABANDONED PUBLIC DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS

ABSTRACT

Abandonment of development projects (ACP) is considered one of the most common and serious problems plaguing the Abuja development industry given the number and the value of the projects involved. It affects not only the immediate purchasers but also other project players and the general public. Sometimes it also involves expending public fund to revive abandoned projects. Yet, research is scarce on this issue; hence this research was conducted to investigate  the problems.  Firstly  the  issues  surrounding  the  problem  and existing literature on the causes of ACP are reviewed. Then, potential causes of ACP are also reviewed and summarized into 41 items to be rated in an industry wide questionnaire survey. The questionnaire also includes an open-ended question on suggestions to solve ACP. 225 questionnaire responses were received. Subsequently, a series of ten semi-structured interviews were conducted to obtain detailed opinions from experienced players in the industry concerning  the  causes  of  ACP  and  how  to  solve  the  problems.  The interviewees include architects, developers, property consultants, the honorary secretary general of the National House Buyers Association etc. to ensure a comprehensive view was obtained. Quantitative analyses include ranking of the 41 potential causes of ACP with Spearman‟s ranking correlation between different groups of respondents, and factor analysis with Cronbach’s α reliability analysis. Qualitative analyses include organizing into themes the results of the open ended question on solving ACP and the results of the semi- structured interviews. Discussions include interpreting the underlying factors extracted from factor analysis in light of the qualitative results. The results show the owner to be mainly responsible for ACP (i.e. cash flow problems, incompetence,  siphoning  out  of  money,  etc.),  followed  by  the  role  of government regulations. A risk management expert system module within BIM, a middle ground solution between the sell-then-build and build-then-sell schemes, and others are proposed.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1   Background of the Study

Only little portion of government projects are executed by direct labour, while most of the development projects are awarded to contractions. Public structures have been known to be abandoned in the cause of construction or left to dilapidate after being practically completed. Incidents of abandoned projects are rampant all over the country e.g. from Enugu to ILorin, port Harcourt to sokoto and Lagos to Maidugwi. Projects of high capital cost. Such as residential buildings, office buildings and even road, The federal capital territory Abuja was created in 1976 by Decree No6 of that year which was established the federal capital development agency responsible for the design, construction and administration of the territory. The decree also vested ownership and control for all land in the territory in the federal government of Nigeria. The territory which is located at the centre of the country covers an areas of 8000sqkm.

It is therefore more than twice the land area of Lagos state (93535sq.km) about two-thirds the size of Imo state (13032sq. km). The federal capital territory itself is designed to cover an area of 256sq. Km or 3% of the total land area of the territory and at full development the city is expected to have a total population of 3.2 million. In the FCT the duration of sunshine range from 6-8 hours per day in the south and 8-10 hours per day in the North from January to April / may. There is however a steep drop to a mean of about 4 hours per day in the month of July / August largely due to increase in cloud cover it starts again in the month of September.

Abuja, a virgin land with virtually no amenities of any sort before 1976 even where the pioneer civil servants would stay became a test case. Therefore Civil Servants had to stay in scattered level hotels in Suleja for residential accommodation and a borrowed Niger State Housing Estate had to be used as the Head Quarters of the FCDA.

The only road from Suleja to the Linther land of the territory was a colonial narrow tarred road. FCDA is a parastatals under the Ministry for the Federal Capital Territory (MFCT) responsible for the physical development f the territory. Under FCDA is the Development of Public Building and Engineering. The development of Public Building is in charges of designing and supervising f buildings while the Engineering Development, takes charge of road, dams and Electrical Services and bridges. Most projects are executed through contractors while little is done by direct labour.

1.2   STATEMENT OF RESEARCH PROBLEMS

It has been observed that in spite of the effort put by government to bring to actualization the conception of its projects, public projects are still massively abandoned at different stages of construction. What are the factors responsible for the abandonment of public projects? This study is therefore geared towards examining the factors that cause abandonment of public sector development especially FCDA projects.