Causes of Project Failure in Botswana Public Projects: Contractors’ Perspective

Projects have important contributions in the development of the economic landscape of any country. This research study was to identify factors causing project failure in the case of Botswana from the contractors’ perspective. The quantitative survey conducted highlighted how the contractors agreed in ranking these causes. The questionnaire that was used to collect data was subdivided into three sections. The questionnaire was emailed to contractors after gathering their information from the PPADB website. The field survey conducted included 47 contractors of different categories who responded to the questionnaire.

The analysis result indicated that contractors in Botswana identified causes of project failure as: corruption, late payment of project funds, procurement delays, poor work ethics, poor risk management, budget overruns, and lack of resources, poor planning, poor expertise, poor project management and poor communication. When ranking these causes respondents ranked lack of resources as having the strongest effect in causing project failure, followed by poor project management, budget overruns was given the third position followed by poor planning and time overruns. Poor expertise was ranked sixth position followed by poor risk management and project scope. Disputes and poor communication were ranked as having the least effect in causing project failure. Recommendations included among others equipping contractors with skills to run projects, strict monitoring of projects by all stakeholders involved to ensure that personnel with relevant skills are engaged in doing projects and changing procurement procedures of awarding projects to the lowest bidder.