Assessments of Performance of Lowest Bid Awarding System on Public Building Projects In Case of Adama City

Abstract

The lowest bid price award system is the typical method for project awarding procurement for public projects in Ethiopia. The key characteristics of public building construction projects awarded through lowest bid price now include determined issues with poor quality facilities, frequent cost and time overruns, and a high incidence of claims and litigation. This study aimed to analyses the assessment of the performance of public building projects awarded through the lowest bidder bidding selection and awarding system. For the collection of information on the necessary points, a literature review, document analysis, and desk study projects were used to carry out this study. A total of 31 projects were chosen purposefully, and data on the projects was gathered from public clients and consultants managing public construction projects in the city. All of the projects that were evaluated had contract sums that were exceeded, and the primary reasons for this were claims, changes made to the initial design, changes to the specification, and price fluctuations. The relative importance index of the parameters were evaluated for the study. The selection of ineffective contractors (RII = 0.97) was the study's top negative consequence, followed by time overruns (RII = 0.95), the suspension or cancellation of contracts for work (RII = 0.94), low quality (RII = 0.92), cost overruns (RII = 0.91). A rise in disputes and claims, a rise in operating and maintenance costs, and a rise in change requests are also significant impacts the lowest bid award system has on the project's performance. On the other hand, respondents gave the study's other alternative bidding procedures high scores for their favorable impacts on these traits. Many of the construction industry professionals who took part in the study supported the researcher's recommendation that the bid award method should depend on the type and complexity of the project and the average bid.