1.0 Introduction
1.1 Background of the Study
Construction is a key sector of the national economy of nations contributing a big portion to their total employment and revenue generation. The problems facing construction are well documented such as low productivity, poor safety, inferior working conditions, insufficient quality, lack of timely communication and coordination amongst project stakeholders and rising litigation (Koskela, 2000 and LePatner, 2007). The UK Government initiated reports such as the Latham Report (1994) and the Egan Report (1998), both of which recommended the improvement of the construction industry‘s business performance.
The Nigerian construction industry suffers from all the above mentioned problems. It has severally been characterized as inefficient with low productivity and lack of capacity to deliver and satisfy its clients. Oyewobi et al. (2011) attributed the drop in the Nigerian construction industry‘s contribution to GDP between 1980 and 2007 to poor performance and low productivity. Similarly, Idrus and Sodangi (2007) asserted that the Nigerian construction industry produces nearly 70% of the nation‘s fixed capital formation yet its performance within the economy has been, and continues to be, very low. Other criticisms facing the industry are time and cost overruns (Kuroshi and Okoli, 2010; Ameh and Osegbo, 2011; Ogwueleka 2011), inadequate planning and budgetary provisions, contract sums inflation, inefficient and poor service delivery (Kolo and Ibrahim, 2010).
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