Enforcement of legal remedies against construction projects time overrun in Ethiopia: A critical appraisal

Abstract

Construction time overrun is one of the common inefficiencies of public construction projects in Ethiopia. Laws and standard construction contracts stipulate different legal remedies against project time overrun. This paper is meant to unravel these legal remedies and their application to construction project time overrun in public construction projects in Ethiopia. To this end, the magnitude of time overrun, its common causes, and the practical implementation of legal remedies against it is exposed through literature review, primary data obtained from 18 roads and 10 public building projects, and interviews of 10 key informants. The result showed, although time is not the essence of construction contract in international standard conditions of contracts, it is a fundamental obligation the breach of which would give rise to termination of the contract under the laws and standard conditions of contracts applicable to public works in Ethiopia. However, the paper established that the practical implantation of these legal remedies against time overrun in public construction projects is very erratic although time overrun is a rampant challenge of the construction industry of the country in general and public construction projects in particular.

Keywords

• Construction time overrun
• Extension of time
• Liquidated damages
• Termination
• Time at large
• Civil engineering