Affordability of quantity surveying services on construction projects in South Africa

Abstract

It has become a norm in the construction industry in South Africa for quantity surveyors to offer reduced professional fees on construction projects due to the competitiveness of the market. This reduction in fees offered by professionals usually falls somewhere between the recommended fees as published by the Association of South African Quantity Surveyors and a fee that is far below a fair remuneration for the services offered.
Research was done by means of questionnaires to practicing quantity sur veyors, as well as analysing time spent on projects in order to determine how affordable professional services can be rendered and what the most influ encing factors for determining fees are. The current Tariff of Professional fees was also scrutinised to see how it evolved over the years, as it is still used as a basis to calculate the fees on which a discount is offered.
The main findings of the research were that quantity surveying services can be rendered affordable, but the quantity surveyor is more exposed to the risk of not being able to render the service affordable on certain projects types and the risk further increases with a decrease in project value.