Abstract
The complexity, uncertainty, long-duration and the involvement of the sequential tasks and relationships
of participants in/of the construction projects render this category of projects prone to variations along
their progress. Variations create extra work, time, and money for the construction projects and they vary
from one project to another. This paper investigates the impacts of variation orders on public sector
projects in South Africa. To achieve the objectives of the study, a critical review of literature was done
coupled with questionnaire survey to collect information on possible impacts of variations on the public
projects in SA. Through the review of literature 7 major possible impacts of variation orders were
identified which provided the basis for the formulation of the questionnaire. The questionnaire was
distributed to professionals who work for companies that undertake public construction projects in South
Africa. Targeted number of respondents was 50; however a total number of 70 questionnaires were sent
out to make up for the cases were respondents did not return questionnaires. Overall, 50 questionnaires
were returned and after a careful examination of the received questionnaires only 39 were usable. These
formed the basis of the analysis for the study, since it accounts for 78% of the initial sample. Findings
revealed that variation orders have major impact on i) time overruns, ii) cost overruns, iii) quality
standard enhanced, iv) disputes amongst parties to the contract, and v) productivity degradation, iv)
complaints of one or more parties to the contract. It was further noted from the results that variation
orders rarely affected health and safety aspect of the public construction projects since all the factors
relating to health and safety were the lowest ranked; health and safety degradation, additional health and
safety officials, additional health and safety equipment. However, this results are in disagreement with the
results on the critical determinants of variation orders on SA public sector construction projects because
health and safety conditions was ranked the highest reason for variation orders under other related reasons
for variation orders. What these findings mean is that safety considerations may be the reason to cause
variation orders but variation orders do not affect health and safety on the construction project.