RISK ALLOCATION MECHANISM FOR BUILDING PROJECTS BASED ON THE RIBA PLAN OF WORK

摘要

The Zambian construction industry, like many other construction industries in developing countries, is characterized with frequent project failure evidenced by quality shortfalls, cost overruns, time overruns and, on occasion, abandonment of projects. Various construction industries, particularly developed ones, have mechanisms in place to alleviate the aforementioned risks. Moreover, it has been reported that construction organizations in developing countries, approach risk management implied risk allocation in construction projects by using a set of practices that are normally insufficient, often produce poor results, and limit the success of project outcome. It is from this background that a risk allocation mechanism tailored to the Zambian building sector is proposed, based on the RIBA plan of work for new large to medium sized projects. Various mechanisms and processes are documented in the existing literature, all developed for particular jurisdictions, project types and modes of procurement. Though beneficial, the crafting of most of these mechanisms does not focus on curtailing sources of inappropriate risk allocation, but rather focuses on who, between the client and contractor, should be allocated a particular risk. This paper documents a mechanism for risk allocation after establishing the causes of risk misallocation through a questionnaire survey, interviews, and document analysis. The mechanism integrates contract practice and risk management to make it robust for alleviating both contractual and non-contractual risks. However, its utility, to an extent, is dependent on the risk perceptions of the user as it is driven by decisionmaking.