Abstract:
Nowadays, completion time delay of water project is common problems in our country and other
developing countries. With regard to this the delay of urban water supply projects in Kafa zone is
also common problem. Due to this, the current study was conducted in order to identify the causes
and consequences of delay and to provide recommendation. In order to achieve the objectives of
the study, explanatory research design with mixed research approach was used in this study. To get
appropriate data, 47 respondents were selected by purposive sampling techniques. The data for
this study were collected by questionnaire, interview and document analysis and, finally analyzed
both quantitatively and qualitatively depending up on the nature of data. Based on the finding of
the study, the average delay extent of urban water supply projects in the study area were 372%. In
relation to the causes of delay, the most significant causes for delay of those projects were;
inconstancy of the price of construction materials, unrealistic contract duration, improper project
feasibility study, ineffective planning and scheduling by contractor and lack of particular material
accessibility in market. Additionally, delay in approving design documents and decision-making
process, referral of bid to the lowest price, poor contract management, poor procurement
programming of material and unexpected geological and weather conditions plays a great role in
affecting completion time of water supply projects. Then, the delay of those projects was leads to
the different consequences. So, the main consequences were; time and cost overrun, reduced profit
or total loss and, extended site and general overhead expenses, dissatisfaction by project owners
and consequently by end-users, public grievances were high due to delay of the project and late
service delivery, arbitration, create stress on stakeholders, bad public relation and mistrust of the
client (government) by the people and quality problems on the constructed project. In addition,
challenges in providing clean water access to the community, bad public - government relationship
and raise issue of good governance, loss of competitive advantage and market share to contractors
and negative impact on the contractor's reputation were the other consequences of delay of those
projects. In generally, this all causes and consequences of completion time delay of projects are
more or less related to the project management system of those projects. Therefore, in order to
complete the projects with in planned time and to avoid unnecessary delay, effective project
management system should have to be implemented.
