The effect of local crime on construction projects in Padang City

Abstract

Local crimes often target construction sites for some financial gains. Theft, extortion, and vandalism are common forms of crimes that occurred in a construction project. They can disrupt the process and reduces the contractor's profits. The security in a project site is necessary to maintain the expected productivity and profits, and often, crime is not taken into account in the project plan. Due to this problem, it is crucial to conduct a proper management plan to control construction site security. This paper presents a research outcome on the effects of local crime towards the success of a construction project in Padang, Indonesia. A purposive sampling technique was adopted for the study. The process of data collection involved obtaining primary data from the respondents by conducting questionnaire and structured interviews. The questionnaires were filled-out by professionals from two categories of construction firms, i.e., contractor and force-account private sector. Five contractor type of project and thirty-four force account projects by the private sector were randomly selected. The results showed that the theft occurred more frequently in general contract projects that are managed by the contractor than in the force-account projects. However, the gain-loss due to theft was four times higher in the force account projects than the contractor one. The vandalism occurred more frequently in general contract projects than in the force-account projects. The occurrence of extortion is similar between general contract projects and force account projects. The extortion is found to be the most frequent security problem occurring on construction projects in Padang City, and can potentially increase the project cost.