International Journal of Recent Technology and Engineering (IJRTE)

ISSN: 2277-3878 (Online), Volume-8, Issue-1, May 2019

Factors Influencing the Contractor Performance

in Water Supply Projects In Rwanda
Innocent Ndikubwimana, Abednego Gwaya, Titus Kivaa Mbiti

Abstract: Construction industry in Rwanda is facing the poor The contractor performance in water supply projects in
Contractor performance in Water Supply Projects due to Rwanda is influenced by the project scope changes,
different factors. The research presents the results from field technical design, costs estimation, projects funding policies,
surveys conducted to identify and assess relative importance of project planning and procurement processes. (RPPA, 2014)
critical factors influencing the contractor performance in water
To the owner of the water supply projects, the contractor
supply projects in Rwanda. The water supply projects are
heavily affected by the application of the management tools and performance means successful or failure of contractor to
other causes of poor, if anybody does not know which factors accomplish contracting works. (www.wasac.rw, 2016)
may cause the poor performance then he cannot be successful.
In this study the different water projects were investigated based 1. Statement of the Problem
on biggest respondent project in terms of money and complexity. As Rwanda is still developing the problem of insufficient
In this research the questionnaires distributed to projects team portable water faced the development and some people do
members like owners, consultants, contractors, engineers and not have clear water used in daily activities that is why the
other stakeholders to obtain required data for assessing factors government of Rwanda launches different water supply
influencing contractor performance. The research categorized projects throughout the country to improve people wealth
the factors into four main groups such as Client, Contractor, through water and sanitation services. The most water
Consultant and External related factors. But the research was
supply projects face the problem of delay and poor
limited to the client and contractor related factors. Financial
issues, Management Methods, Poor Implementation of project performance of contractors during the execution period.
schedule, Design Errors, Lack of knowledge for new technology, This is known from the observations, contractors’
Importation process, inadequate experience, Under Costing the performance reports and interviewees.
project, Weak Organizational of the company, Staff Capacity, 2. Objectives
Inadequate Labors, Applied Management tools, etc are the 1. To identify the Client and Contractor related factors on
potential factors that are likely to affect the time, cost and quality contractor performance for water supply projects.
of projects and to know them help to avoid extra costs through
2. To assess the effects of Client and Contractor related
claims and disputes when poor performance or failure are
experienced.
factors on the contractor performance.
3. To identify the level of significance to Contractor
Keywords: Construction Project Management, Water Supply Projects, performance.
Contractor Performance, Relative Importance Index. 4. To develop a framework for better contractor
performance.
I. INTRODUCTION
II. LITERATURE REVIEW
The portable water demands are increasing to feed the A. Introduction
required population in Rwanda. In this, the government of This study reviewed the reports of the other researchers on
Rwanda launches water supply projects and related the topics related to the study. Critique of the existing
stakeholders (Engineers, Managers, Leaders, etc) in charge literature and identification of the research gap was also
of water supply Development are responsible to plan, covered.
design, implement and manage them without delays and B. Project Constraints in Project Performance
failure. A constraint could be defined as state, quality or sense of
being restricted in the process of carrying out an action (Lau
& Kong, 2006). In construction projects, constraints are
either internal or external and are likely to affect the project
Revised Manuscript Received on 30 May 2019. performance in one way or another. Constraints affect the
* Correspondence Author contractor performance.
Mr. Innocent ndikubwimana*,Department of Construction Project
Management, JKUAT
a) Technical or Logic Constraints
Dr. Abednego Gwaya: Department of Construction & Management These are constraints related to the logical sequence and
JKUAT. diagram in which project activities occur. These constraints
Dr. Titus Kivaa Mbiti: Department of Bldg Econ, University of deal with the actual construction processes that are tasked to
Nairobi. complete the activities (Gidyelew, 2010).
© The Authors. Published by Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering and
Sciences Publication (BEIESP). This is an open access article under the
CC-BY-NC-ND license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

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Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering
Journal Website: www.ijrte.org
3402 & Sciences Publication
 Factors Influencing the Contractor Performance in Water Supply Projects In Rwanda

b) Physical Constraints were distributed, the 25 questionnaires were received. From

These are constraints related to physical properties of the these received questionnaires the analysis was made to
site and the work. According to (Jackson, 2010), they calculate the Relative Importance Index.
include constraints such as space, technological dependency, Relative Importance Index Technique is used to determine
safety, and environment the relative importance of various factors and effects on the
c) Resource Constraints performance.
A project resource constraint is any limitation or restraint The same method was adopted in this study and the likert
placed on resource usage and the amount of a given resource scale ranged from 1 (Very little degree affect) to 5(Very
available during a specified time frame (Tarek & Wail, high degree affect) was used and transformed to relative
2010). importance indices (RII) for each factor as follows:
RII = W / (A*N)
C. Financial Funds Where,
The financial adequacy is strongly and positively W is the weight given to each factor by the respondents
influencing contractor performance. (Rwanda, 2012) (ranging from 1 to 5)
D. Adequate Equipment Availability A is the highest weight (i.e. 5 in this case)
The adequate quality and availability of equipment had a N is the total number of respondents. Higher the value of
significant positive relationship with contractor RII, more important was the effect of the factors.
performance. It had significant but weak relationship with
project quality (Kanda, August 2016). IV. RESEARCH RESULTS AND FINDINGS
E. Decision Making Ability
By the length of time taken by the client to approve design The relative importance index, RII was computed for each
documents and variation orders determined the decision factor to identify the most impacting and significant factors.
making ability. The majority (70%) of respondents
From obtained RII values, the factors were ranked
disagreed to the question as to whether the client approves accordingly.
design documents and variation orders on time. (Kanda,
Objective 1: To identify the Client and Contractor-
August 2016)
related factors on contractor performance in water
F. Discussion
supply projects
This chapter begins by discussing the concepts of factors
Base on the ranking, the 12 most important factors on
influencing contractor performance and the techniques
Contractor performance by RII were:
employed by different Project Managers in management of
their projects. The various issues discussed under this
literature include Financial, resource planning, applied Table 1: Critical Client related Factors on Contractor
managerial methods, time management, risk management, performance. Source: (Author, 2019)
cost management .Other aspects discussed under project
planning include the various project constraints such as No. Client Related Factors RII Ranking
resources, technical, physical economic, legal, social and 1 Contract Duration is too short 0.920 1
2 Financing Institutions 0.912 2
environmental. The impact of these constraints on the
3 Weak Organizational of 0.904 3
contractor performance was discussed under each section. Institutions
The different types of project management problems were 4 Financial preparation 0.864 4
identified as the Resource constraint, quality constraint and 5 Poor Feasibility Study 0.840 5
time constraint. A number of factors influencing contractor 6 Procurement Process 0.816 6
performance and their effects on the project were discussed 7 Administration Process 0.792 7
in this section. Other topical issues discussed in this chapter 8 Project Scope Management 0.792 7
9 Planning Control 0.776 9
include challenges experienced in implementation of water
10 Staff Capacity 0.736 10
supply projects. 11 Payment Process 0.712 11
12 Project Stakeholders 0.696 12
III. METHODOLOGY
The data collected through the distributed survey
questionnaires to respondent involved in daily activities of
construction firms, consultants and semi-government
institution in various regions in Rwanda. To identify the key
stakeholders in water supply projects in Rwanda a sample
size of 5 contractors, 5 projects, 2 consultants firms and 1
semi-government institution was used. The total number of
25 respondents out of 30 which were 83.3% of distributed
questionnaires participated in the survey and provided data
analyzed using SPSS and Microsoft Excel. The analysis of
these data was done by a method of relative importance
index (RII).
Data Collection
The target populations were civil engineers, architects,
Hydraulic Engineers, Managers and other stakeholders in
water supply projects in Rwanda. Over 30 questionnaires

Published By:
Retrieval Number A3452058119/19©BEIESP Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering
Journal Website: www.ijrte.org 3403 & Sciences Publication
 International Journal of Recent Technology and Engineering (IJRTE)
ISSN: 2277-3878 (Online), Volume-8, Issue-1, May 2019

Graph 1: Critical Client related Factors on Contractor performance. Source: (Author, 2019)

Client related Factors by RII

1.000
0.800
0.600
RII

0.400
0.200
0.000
Cont Fina Wea Fina Poor Proc Adm Proj Plan Staff Pay Proj
ract ncin k ncial Feas ure inist ect ning Capa men ect
Dura g Orga prep ibilit men ratio Scop Cont city t Stak
tion Insti nizat arati y t n e rol Proc ehol
whic tutio ional on Stud Proc Proc Man ess ders
h is ns of y ess ess age
too Insti men
shor tutio t
t ns
RII 0.920 0.912 0.904 0.864 0.840 0.816 0.792 0.792 0.776 0.736 0.712 0.696

Table 2: Critical Contractor related Factors on Contractor performance. Source: (Author, 2019)
No Contractor Related Factors RII Ranking
1 Importation process 0.994 1
2 Financial issues 0.896 2
3 Management Methods 0.896 2
4 Poor Implementation of project 0.880 4
schedule
5 Inadequate Labors 0.872 5
6 Inadequate experience 0.824 6
7 Weak Organizational of the company 0.824 6
8 Applied Management tools 0.792 8
9 Staff Capacity 0.792 9
10 Design errors 0.784 10
11 Lack of knowledge for new 0.656 11
technology
12 Under Costing the project 0.648 12

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Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering
Journal Website: www.ijrte.org
3404 & Sciences Publication
 Factors Influencing the Contractor Performance in Water Supply Projects In Rwanda

Graph 2: Critical Client related Factors on Contractor performance

Contractor related Factorsby RII

1.200
1.000
0.800
RII
0.600
0.400
0.200
0.000
Poor Wea Lack
Appl Und
Man Impl Inad k of
Imp Inad ied er
Fina age eme equa Orga Desi kno
ortat equa Man Staff Costi
ncial men ntati te nizat gn wled
ion te age Capa ng
issue t on expe ional erro ge
proc Labo men city the
s Met of rienc of rs for
ess rs t proj
hods proj e the new
tools ect
ect… co… tec…
RII 0.99 0.89 0.89 0.88 0.87 0.82 0.82 0.79 0.79 0.78 0.65 0.64

Objective 2: To assess the effects of client and contractor related factors on contractor performance

Table 3: Effects of client and contractor related factors on contractor performance

No Effects of Client and Contractor related RII Ranking
factors
1 Time Delay 0.912 1
2 Scope Changes 0.864 2
3 Cost increase 0.848 3
4 Financial issues 0.832 4
5 Lack of sponsors 0.800 5
6 Penalties 0.792 6
7 Poor Quality 0.656 7
8 Poor Management 0.608 8
9 Claims 0.584 9
10 Disputes among parties 0.568 10

Objective 3: To identify the level of significance to

Contractor performance
The Level of Significance on Contractor Performance
The study categorized the factors into four groups based on
the different projects stakeholders’ views.
From different respondents asked about the significance of
four categories of factors influencing the contractor
performance. The results are shown in graph 3 below.

Graph 3: Significance of factors Source: (Author,

2019)

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 International Journal of Recent Technology and Engineering (IJRTE)
ISSN: 2277-3878 (Online), Volume-8, Issue-1, May 2019

Objective 4: To develop a framework for better performance to success. The respondents ranked measures
contractor performance based on their experiences.
For any organization or institution has to consider the
following measures as shown in table 5 to improve the

Table 5: Measures to better Contractor Performance

No. Measures to improve Contractor Performance RII Rank

1 Promote trainings 0.952 2

2 Enough preparation in Planning before implementation of the project 0.976 1

3 Enough preparation of funds 0.920 5

4 Enough preparation in Feasibility Studies and Design 0.856 9

5 Adequate Resources Mobilisation 0.776 13

6 Develop strategic communication 0.728 14

7 Project control, Supervision, Monitoring and Evaluation 0.864 8

8 Better use of available resources 0.944 3

9 Integration of new technology 0.848 10

10 Management of project stakeholders 0.688 15

11 Staff recruitment based competencies 0.944 3

12 Promote Staff Capacity Building 0.872 7

13 Promotion of Professionalism 0.832 12

14 Adequate application of Management tools 0.888 6

15 Hiring of Contract Manager 0.840 11

After analyzing the results from collected data, the factors Management tools(RII=0.792), Staff Capacity(RII=0.792),
with the higher degree of RII values had higher impact on Design errors(RII=0.784), Lack of knowledge for new
the contractor performance. technology(RII=0.656), Under Costing the
The above table shows measures to better contractor project(RII=0.648).
performance. If every team member satisfactorily For contractor related factors the highest RII value was
accomplishes assigned activities, the performance will result 0.994 for importation process and the lowest was 0.648 for
into successful in terms of quality, cost and time. under costing of the project.
The measure which has the highest impact on contractor The mean of RII values for contractor related factors was
performance is enough preparation in Planning before 0.82 and this was greater than 0.81of client related factors. It
implementation of the project with RII value of 0.976 and means that the contractors impacting their performances
the lowest impacting measure is management of project than the clients. But the results from qualitative analysis
stakeholders which has RII value of 0.688. stated that the client related factors were most impacting the
Discussion of the results performance at 48% followed by contractor related factors
The Client Related Factors of 24%.
The client related factors had the following RII values: V. CONCLUSIONS
Contract Duration is too short(RII= 0.920 ), Financing
Institutions(RII=0.912 ), Weak Organizational of No project can be implemented and managed perfectly,
Institutions(RII=0.904), Financial preparation (RII=0.864), however can be planned to the successful performance
Poor Feasibility Study (RII=0.84), Procurement Process before execution.
(RII=0.816 ), Administration Process (RII= 0.792) , Project The main objectives of this study were to assess the factors
Scope Management(RII=0.792 ) , Planning Control influencing the contractor performance, indicate the level of
(RII=0.776), Staff Capacity(RII=0.736 ), Payment Process significance and develop a framework for better contractor
(RII=0.712) , Project Stakeholders (RII= 0.696). The mean performance in water supply projects.
of RII values for client related factors was 0.81.
The above objectives were achieved using a detailed
For client related factors the highest RII value was 0.920 for literature review and field survey data from water supply
Contract Duration which is too short and the lowest was stakeholders in Rwanda.
0.696 for Project Stakeholders.
A total of 25 factors attributes were identified and
The Contractor Related Factors
categorized into four groups of contractor, client, consultant
The factors had the following RII values: Importation
and external related factors. The limitation of this study was
process(RII=0.994), Financial issues(RII=0.896),
client and contractor related
Management Methods(RII=0.896), Poor Implementation of
factors.
project schedule(RII=0.880), Inadequate
Labors(RII=0.872), Inadequate experience(RII=0.824),
Weak Organizational of the company(RII=0.824), Applied

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 Factors Influencing the Contractor Performance in Water Supply Projects In Rwanda

This study indicated that the most affecting group of factors REFERENCES
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5.Integration of new technology has to be considered in AUTHORS PROFILE
system build up
Areas of Further Research Mr. Innocent ndikubwimana: Bachelor of
1. The role of resource planning in Construction industry in Technology (Surveying and Geomatics Engineering),
University of Rwanda. Master of Science,
Rwanda Construction Project Management, JKUAT
2. Factors influencing Technical innovation in Construction (Ongoing).
Industry in Rwanda

VI. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Dr. Abednego Gwaya: B.A

(Bldg.Econ.),U.O.N,MSc. Civil Eng. Makerere,
PhD (Const. Eng. & Mngt).JKUAT. Specialization:
First I would like to thank the Almighty God for his Construction Project Management, Civil
mercies during the preparation of this work. I could not Engineering Construction, Contract
surely be where I am today without his protection and Documentation, Project Management Modeling,
unending grace. I would also like to extend my gratitude to Project Procurement Systems and General Quantity
Surveying.
the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and
Technology for giving me a chance to fulfill my dream of
pursuing this noble course. Dr. Titus Kivaa Mbiti: PhD (RMIT, Australia),
Special gratitude goes to my supervisors Dr. Abednego O. MA (Bldg Mngt, MON) BA (Bldg Econ,
Gwaya and Dr. Titus Kivaa for their support and University Of Nairobi), CIQSK, RQS
Specialization: Quantity Surveying, Construction
academic guidance during the accomplishment of this Management, Project Management & Construction
work. Research
I would also like to thank the following: Dr. Githae
Wanyona, for his insight and advice during the early stages
of preparation of this work. I wish to sincerely thank my
University supervisors, parents, my family, my employer,
Fabrice Nyakayiro Nkurikiyimana, Jean De Dieu
Uwisengeyimana And Turacyayisenga Pierre Celestin.
Special thanks to WASAC Ltd( Semi Government
Institution), CAVICON Consultants( Consultant Firm),
Culligan International EACA and HYGEBAT Ltd
Construction Companies for their provided information and
time. I would also like to sincerely thank all those who
participated in my data collection.

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