Abstract:
In Ethiopia specially, it is road transport, which allows the ways for the movement of
peoples and agricultural goods from rural areas to urban areas. Road transport also facilitates
a means for usage of land and natural resources, improved agricultural production and
marketing, access to social services, and opportunities for sustainable growth (ERA, 2013).
The Construction contract document error in construction project is one of the major factor in
the construction industry. The final cost and project completion time can significantly differ
from the initial estimated cost and time and also has significant impact because of this error.
The research was conducted first by identification of common contract document error literature
review and desk study on selected road projects and then from the findings questionnaire was
developed and distributed to the client (ERA), contractors and consultants to assess their insight
about the impacts of errors on contract documents. A descriptive and exploratory survey design
was used in this research. This research is exploratory type because it concerned on gaining
ideas and approaching about Impact of errors in contract document, and it is a descriptive type
because it tried to describe types of contract document errors and their impacts in Ethiopian
roads authority road projects.
The research identified 38 types of contract document errors through literature review and desk
study on selected four road projects constructed in central regions. A total of 44 valid
Questionnaires were received back from contractors, consultants and client ERA to carried out
the research. Based on the data gathered from the desk study and analysis of these four road
projects contract document errors ranges from a minimum 11.11% of to a maximum of 121.05%
of the original contract time for single projects and these analyzed projects have an average
additional project time of 61.43% of the original completion date.
Errors and omission in the bills of quantities, Errors in capital cost estimating, Incomplete
drawing / details needed, Ambiguity or Vague statements, Missing or Incorrect notes on the
drawings, CADD (Computer ) related problems, Dimensional errors, Errors in symbols and
abbreviations and Coordination problem were the top ten most important contract document
errors in central region road projects.
Spearman rank correlation coefficient and Relative importance index analysis were used to test
the agreement between different groups of respondents participated in questionnaires survey and
to rank contract document errors based on importance.
