Civil Engineering October 2021 | Vol 29 No 9

24 October 2021 Civil Engineering is considered the most important factor, followed by stakeholders’ appreciation and then time and cost respectively. Based on this finding, it can be understood that built environment professionals in South Africa value delivering quality in projects more than completing the project within the cost and time constraints. From the results presented in Figure 1, it is clear that the findings by Els et al. (2012) correlate with the finding of this research. As presented in Figure 1, quality is observed to be the criterion with the least impact on municipal project failure because it is mostly achieved and not the main cause of project failure. Time and cost, respectively, have the greatest impact as there are usually not achieved in municipal projects. Causes of project failure This study identified many of the main causes of construction project failure, concurring with those found in the literature review. These factors were divided into two groups of eight external and 27 internal causes. In this study, the respondents were required to select from the given list all the factors that had a definite influence on municipal project failure based on their own experience working on such projects. Tables 2 and 3 are presentations of these results. Table 2 indicates that poor planning, corruption, delay in payments, delay in the approval of a change request, poor communication and poor site management were ranked as the top internal factors causing municipal construction project failure. As indicated in Table 3, political interference, strikes by employees, weather conditions, unforeseen ground conditions and the economic environment were ranked as the top external factors causing municipal construction project failure. Based on the frequency counts as indicated in both tables and in order of importance, the overall top factors causing municipal project failure in South Africa were indi- cated as political interference, poor plan- ning, employee strikes, corruption, delay in payments and weather conditions. The findings agree with numerous scholars, such as Eja and Ramegowda (2020) who identified the causes of government project failure in developing countries as inaccurate costing, corruption, poor planning, poor communication, poor contracting, regular scope changes, po- litical interference and poor leadership. Ika and Saint-Macary (2014) found that proj- ects fail in developing countries because of mismanagement, lack of competency or knowledge in project management, corruption, and poor planning and imple- mentation. Damoah et al. (2015) identified the factors that cause government project failure in Nigeria, in order of importance, as: weak monitoring, corruption, political interference, change in government, bu- reaucracy, lack of continuity, fluctuation of prices, planning funds disbursement, and delayed release of payment. CONCLUSION The first objective of the research was to determine the extent of failure in South African municipal projects using different failure criteria. The three main Table 1 Demographic information of research participants Descriptor Participants Percentages Gender Male 82% Female 18% Organisational role during municipal projects Client representatives 11% Project manager 19% Built environment professional 8% Consultant 32% Contractor 21% Subcontractor 2% Supplier 3% Trainee 4% Age distribution 20 to 30 years 63% 31 to 40 years 27% 41 to 50 years 7% Above 50 years 3% Highest qualification Higher Certificate 5% National Diploma 14% Honour’s Degree 35% Bachelor’s Degree 41% Master’s Degree 5% Work experience Less than 5 years 59% 5 to 10 years 21% 10 to 15 years 7% 15 to 20 years 6% 20 to 30 years 4% More than 30 years 3% Professional registration Yes 23% No 31% Candidate 46% Project valuation Less than R10 mil 29% R10 mil to R50 mil 24% Greater than R50 mil 47% Figure 1 The impact of project management criteria on municipal projects Respondents % 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Project management criteria Time Cost Quality 53 36 11