Evaluating barriers to effective implementation of project monitoring and evaluation in the Ghanaian construction industry

Construction projects monitoring and evaluation is a vital process in project delivery which is aimed at ensuring that major objectives and goals are achieved. However, the implementation of monitoring and evaluation in the Ghanaian construction industry have seen numerous challenges and as a result, the poor performance of the industry. This paper identifies and evaluates the barriers faced by projects in the implementation of monitoring and evaluation in the Ghanaian construction industry. Literature was reviewed and subsequently, a semi-structured questionnaire developed to stimulate the relevant response from the major stakeholders in the Ghanaian construction industry. The collected data were analysed using the one sample t-test. Literature revealed ten (10) challenging factors to the implementation of monitoring and evaluation. Weak institutional capacity, limited resources and budgetary allocations for monitoring & evaluation, weak linkage between planning, budgeting and monitoring & evaluation, weak demand for and utilisation of monitoring and evaluation results and finally, poor data quality, data gaps and inconsistencies were identified as the most significant contributing factors to the implementation of PM&E in Ghana construction projects. The study contributes to the body of knowledge on the challenges to effective monitoring and evaluation of construction projects. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.