A study on the Selection of an Appropriate Contract Strategy for Projects within Local Government Authorities:Case Study Dar es Salaam Municipal Councils

Abstract

Contract strategy is considered as a process of selecting organizational and contractual policies required for the execution of a specific project. The main objective of this study was to examine various contract strategies which are being used by the Dar es Salaam Municipal Councils in the execution of its civil and building construction projects. The specific objectives were to identify various contract strategies used in the execution of construction projects by Dar es Salaam Municipal Councils, to establish the criteria used in selecting contract strategies, to find out the challenges faced in selecting contract strategies and to propose a framework for the best contract strategy for various projects in Dar es Salaam Municipal Councils In the process of examining the contract strategies for projects used in Local Government, Dar es Salaam Municipal Councils, including Temeke, Ilala and Kinondoni were selected as the case study. Questionnaires were distributed to the workers of the three Municipal Council’s works departments, including engineers, quantity surveyors, architects and senior technicians. Data analysis was succeeded by data collection whereby it was conducted by using the SPSS program in which 46 questionnaires out of 60 distributed questionnaires were returned. The findings of this study shows project management contract strategy is commonly used in most of the projects within these Municipalities followed by design and build and traditional contract strategies and the other contract strategies were very rarely utilized. In recommendations; the Municipalities must be providing and supporting regular training to its contract management team to update their staff to newly introduced technologies and apparently selection of the contract strategy shall be depending on the characteristics of the individual project and not to be generalized