Research works into the effect of economic factors on the construction industry are enormous. But finding the core economic factors is limited in the Ghanaian construction industry. In an attempt to address this research gap, this study articulates the aim of identifying exogenous economic factors influencing the construction industry through a qualitative literature review. The study used secondary data collected from over 50 published journals, conference papers, and dissertations on exogenous factors. Fifty-nine exogenous factors were identified, and the most prevailing ones were GDP, exchange rate, inflation, interest rate, consumer price index, etc. It also revealed that black market is a factor affecting construction industry in Saudi Arabia. The study contributes to the literature by highlighting generic and specific exogenous factors that should be of concern to players in the construction industry including policy makers in their project planning. This will help to reduce the incidence of high failure rate of construction firms. Again, it establishes the need to further study the real impact of these exogenous factors as well as the strategies to mitigate the influence of exogenous factors on the construction industry as this study was limited to qualitative literature review.

Cost estimation is particularly difficult, often leading to considerable deviations. For capital projects, especially transport infrastructure projects, deviations hover around an average of 28% of the estimated cost. There are several factors that cause these deviations between the final accounts and the contract sum. How these factors combine to cause deviations between the contract sum and the final account in recent times has been of great concern to construction managers and researchers alike. This study sought to identify the significant factors that result in deviations between contract sums and the final accounts of capital projects. Using a sample size of 45, comprising contractors, consultants, and clients, the factors identified using Relative Important Indices were “price fluctuations,” “late material delivery,” “changes in the scope of work,” “fluctuations in the market demand,” and “changes in design.” Using Kendall’s coefficient of concordance, a coefficient p value of 0.068 was obtained. As such, the null hypothesis was rejected as there was a level of agreement among the respondents. Again, based on a significance test run, 26 out of the 40 identified factors used for the analysis were seen to be significant in influencing the deviations between contract sums and final accounts figures.

The construction industry in Ghana is becoming efficient in the area of cost and achieving advance technologies. The effective management of cost enables clients, developers, and facilitators to achieve value for money. Concrete is a major component in every construction project. The use of precast concrete technology has been embraced by the construction industry in Ghana. This study seeks to analyze cost estimating of the structural frame (column and slab) by considering cast-in-place and precast concrete slabs and columns, respectively. Relative importance and Kendall’s concordance agreement were used to determine the rankings and agreement of advantages of using precast concrete. The study established that precast concrete slabs were on average 23.22% cheaper than the cast-in-place concrete elements and precast columns were averagely 21.4% less than cast-in-place concrete columns. The study established that professionals prefer the use of precast concrete products because of the life cycle cost.

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Promoting partnership with traditional Authority Project (PPTAP) was designed to translate into reality the vision of having our traditional leaders play pivotal roles in community devel­opment. The project was to test the role that chiefs, queen mothers and other opinion leaders could play in the decentralization of community development. In spite of the presence of some challenges with respect to project implementation such as slow pace in the payment of coun­terpart fund contribution, this novelty achieved spectacular successes. This paper discusses the results of a questionnaire survey that looked at the role played by traditional authorities and community involvement in infrastructure development for 40 selected communities in Ashanti region under the PPTAP, with support from the International Development Agency (IDA) of the World Bank and the Government of Ghana. The paper concludes that the inclusion of tradi­tional authorities in beneficiary communities helped in an accurate identification of community needs, minimization of cost incurred and high-quality workmanship as well as strengthened ownership. For community based development, the paper recommends a Tripartite Partnership (TTP), where Traditional Authorities work in tandem with the Public and Private Sector to ensure sustainable national development. PPTAP presents an excellent framework for such TPP arrangements. Keywords: Traditional Authorities, Community Based Project, Infrastructure, Development