Effect of Public Projects Abandonment on Clients and Host Communities: The Case of Dekina Local Government Area of Kogi State, Nigeria

Abstract

This paper is an assessment of the effects of abandonment of public projects on the clients and the supposed beneficiary (the host community). Nigeria has a colossal phenomenon of abandoned public projects scattered all over the federation resulting in the denial of the intended benefit of such projects to Nigerians if completed and functional. Projects are initiated to meet human need, their eventual abandonment would obviously have adverse effect on the client, contractors, consultants, the construction industry and the society at large. Therefore, this paper assessed factors responsible for the abandonment of public project especially building projects and their effect on the client and the communities in Dekina Local Government Area of Kogi State. considering the large size of the population, the study adopts Taro Yamani’s sample size formula to select 1000 respondents out of which 900 respondents completed and returned the questionnaires distributed to them. The data obtained from the questionnaire was statistically analyzed using the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) method. It was discovered among other things that factors such as payment remittance delay, instability in leadership, improper project planning were responsible for project abandonment. It is therefore recommended that to forestall future public project abandonment, there should be an innovative planning and best practices of project management, excellent time phasing and policy of zero tolerance for project abandonment amongst other recommendations.