Effect of Environmental Impact Assessment On Project Performance of China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC) Nigeria Limited (Published)
Large-scale infrastructure projects in Nigeria—particularly mega-projects managed by multinational firms like China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC) Nigeria Limited—regularly suffer from severe cost escalations, critical schedule delays, structural failures, and intense social conflict. Despite the statutory mandate of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Act of 1992, a major operational disconnect persists between formal EIA documentation and its practical integration into real-world project execution. Empirical reviews reveal that current EIA practices rely on weak baseline data, exclude long-term cumulative climate risks like flash flooding, and utilize exclusionary stakeholder engagement strategies that trigger hostile local protests. Because these assessments are treated as isolated bureaucratic hurdles rather than adaptive operational guides, projects face immediate environmental degradation, unexpected site remediation costs, and severe regulatory fines. For CHEC Nigeria, these operational risks are heavily concentrated across high-profile, sensitive assets such as the Lekki Deep Sea Port and the Abuja-Keffi highway corridor. While existing literature focuses broadly on legal compliance or descriptive ecology, there is a distinct lack of empirical data linking systematic EIA integration to concrete project management metrics. This study addresses this gap by establishing a structured, data-driven framework to examine exactly how core dimensions of EIA practice—such as analytical comprehensiveness and execution timeliness—influence measurable performance indicators like budget adherence, schedule control, quality assurance, and stakeholder satisfaction within CHEC Nigeria Limited.
Keywords: Cost Efficiency, Project Performance, Stakeholder Satisfaction, china harbour engineering company., environmental impact assessment, schedule adherence