Investigating factors influencing construction project selection within the Nigeria Public sector

Globally, there is increasing interest in project management due to a shortage in infrastructure services
supply capability. Hence, it is of utmost importance that organisations understand that choosing a
particular project over another is an opportunity cost – tying up the organisation’s resources. Devise
constructive ways to bring direction, structure and oversight to the process of project selection has led
to the development of tools and techniques by researchers and practitioners. However, despite the
development of various frameworks to assist in the appraisal and selection of government projects,
failures are still being recorded with government projects. In developing countries, where frameworks
are rarely used, the problems are compounded. To improve the situation this study investigates the
current practice of construction project selection processes within the Nigerian public sector in order to
inform theories of decision making from the perspective of developing nations and project management
practice. Unlike other research around construction projects in Nigeria this paper concentrates on
factors influencing the selection process within the Nigeria public sector, which has received limited
study. The authors report the findings of semi-structured interviews of top management in the Nigerian
public sector and draw conclusions in terms of extant decision-making theory and current practice.
Preliminary results from the data analysis show that groups make project selection decisions and this
forces sub-optimal decision due to pressure on time, clashes of interest, lack of accountability and poor
leadership.