Factors inhibiting the growth of local construction firms in Nigeria

Studies in the past have shown that construction firms in developing countries faces a lot of challenges and difficulties which tend to limit their contracting capabilities. This study sought to identify the difficulties and challenges that are unique to the local construction firms in Nigeria and the measures that will be required to overcome them. The methodology employed is descriptive field survey where questionnaires where physically administered to local construction firms. The list of the firms covered was drawn using systematic sampling. The study identified the significant problems facing the local construction firms and classified these problems into two major categories: government-related problems and firm-related problems. These problems include; unfavourable business environment, weak economy, lack of enabling policies, corruption, and poor government patronage. The study also identified two categories of measures that can be adopted to improve the contracting capacity of the local firms. These are government-related external measures and firm-related internal measures. But the firms roles in their corporate development are also important. Hence a combination of government intervention, industry intervention and firm intervention are required to improve on the contracting capacity of the local construction firms.