When Design Review Becomes Redesign: Why a 4-Month Scope Keeps Turning Into a Year on African Infrastructure Projects

 ​By AECTenderlink Research | June 2026

​Across African infrastructure procurement, one phrase appears in tender after tender for the same family of assignments: "Design Review and Construction Supervision."

​It sounds like a clean, sequential scope—review what the design consultant produced, confirm it is fit to build, then supervise construction. Terms of reference typically allocate a tight, defined window for this review stage—commonly around three to four months—before construction supervision begins in earnest.

​In practice, on a recurring and well-documented pattern across the continent, that three-to-four-month design review does not stay a review. It becomes a second design process—sometimes lasting the better part of a year—conducted by a consultant who was never paid, staffed, or contracted to redesign the project, but who cannot certify drawings for construction without first fixing them.

​This article explains exactly why this happens, what it costs the consultant who inherits it, and what can be done to stop a review scope from quietly becoming a redesign scope.

​What "Design Review" Is Actually Supposed to Be

​In the standard structure used across World Bank, AfDB, and Islamic Development Bank-financed infrastructure assignments in Africa, design review and construction supervision are bundled into a single consultancy contract, but they are intended to be sequential and distinct in scope and duration.

​Take, for example, a recent Islamic Development Bank-financed bridge and access road project in Uganda. The 51-month consultancy contract was explicitly broken down as follows:

• ​Design Review and Update: 3 Months (~6% of the total contract)
• ​Construction Supervision: 36 Months (~70%)
• ​Defects Notification Period: 12 Months (~24%)

​The design review component, in other words, was meant to occupy less than 6% of the total contract duration.

​This is the intended model across the sector: the design review consultant inherits drawings produced by a separate design consultant, checks them for completeness, buildability, and compliance, updates them where necessary, and then formally issues them "for construction."

​The "Incidental Designs" Trap:Terms of reference typically describe the consultant's responsibilities as "reviewing methodology" and undertaking "incidental designs." This phrase is meant to cover minor gaps—a missed detail, a connection needing clarity. It is not meant to describe redesigning structural elements, redoing geotechnical assumptions, or reworking drainage calculations from first principles.

​Why the Drawings Arriving for Review Are Often Not Construction-Ready

​To understand why review keeps becoming redesign, it helps to understand what a genuinely construction-ready drawing set is supposed to look like.

​An "Issued for Construction" (IFC) drawing set is meant to represent the final stage of the design process: a 2D drawing package, fully coordinated across disciplines, from which a contractor can price, procure, and build with minimal need for interpretation. International practice typically develops these drawings through a structured 30-60-90 process, moving from early concepts to 100% completion. A high-quality IFC set reduces guesswork rather than creating it on site.

​The well-documented problem in African infrastructure procurement is that design consultants are frequently contracted, resourced, and paid in ways that do not support reaching genuine 100% IFC quality before handover. Contributing factors include:

• ​Internal workload pressures on design firms.
• ​Schedule variances and compressed timelines.
• ​Fee competition that shrinks design budgets.
• ​A lack of quality control during the design phase itself.

​This is the structural starting point of the trap: the design review consultant is handed a set of drawings labeled "final" or "issued for construction" that does not actually meet the standard that label is supposed to guarantee.

​How a Review Scope Turns Into a Redesign Scope, Step by Step

​The escalation from review to redesign follows a remarkably consistent pattern across documented African infrastructure projects.

1. ​The review uncovers gaps that go well beyond checking. Within weeks, the review consistently surfaces structural gaps—unresolved interfaces, missing geotechnical verification, and drainage designs that ignore actual site topography.
2. ​The "incidental designs" clause stretches to cover major work. With no alternative mechanism to formally reject the entire design package back to the original consultant, the review team has little choice but to substantively redesign failing elements under a scope priced for minor corrections.
3. ​The original design consultant is no longer engaged. By the time the scale of the problem is identified, the original designer's contract has closed and final payment is made. The financial and professional burden transfers entirely to the review consultant.
4. ​Each fix triggers a cascade of further review. Infrastructure is interconnected. A corrected geotechnical assumption affects foundation design across an entire structure. Each correction generates downstream checking in a cycle that does not resolve quickly.
5. ​The 3-to-4-month window quietly disappears. Because there is rarely a clean, contractual moment at which "review" is declared to have become "redesign," schedule erosion happens gradually until the better part of a year is consumed.

​Why This Specifically Traps the Consultant Financially

​The financial exposure created by this pattern is structurally different from an ordinary project delay.

• ​Cash Flow and Margin Compression: The review fee is priced for a compact technical team over three to four months. When this stretches to a year, the consultant sustains technical costs for triple the anticipated time, while the lucrative construction supervision phase remains stalled behind it.
• ​Difficulty in Claiming Variations: Unlike a site access denial or force majeure, an expanding review phase happens gradually through a sequence of individually reasonable corrections. It rarely produces a single, documentable delay event that strongly supports a variation claim.

​What Firms Can Do to Avoid This Trap

​The pattern is avoidable, but it requires acting before the contract is signed.

• ​Conduct a genuine technical sampling before bidding: Request access to a representative sample of the design drawings before submitting your proposal. If it hasn't reached genuine 100% IFC quality, price, staff, and flag it accordingly in your bid.
• ​Negotiate an explicit distinction between "review" and "incidental design": Push for terms of reference that explicitly define what constitutes a material design deficiency requiring formal escalation, versus what falls under minor incidental design.
• ​Insist on a rejection mechanism: Negotiate a defined process to issue a formal non-conformance report on inadequate design packages, potentially triggering the re-engagement of the original design consultant at their own cost.
• ​Track time and cost from week one: Maintain a contemporaneous log categorizing time spent as either "review and verification" or "design correction." This is essential evidence for a future variation claim.
• ​Set a pre-agreed checkpoint for renegotiation: Build in a contractual trigger (e.g., at 150% of the originally scoped review duration) where both parties must formally review progress and agree on additional time and fees.
• ​Escalate formally and in writing: Do not absorb extra work quietly. The moment review crosses into redesign, raise it clearly and in writing to the client to protect your contractual position.

​Conclusion

​The design review and construction supervision contract is structured, on paper, as a short technical check followed by a long supervision assignment. In practice, the review phase has become the place where the consequences of underdeveloped design work finally surface.

​A three-to-four-month review that quietly becomes a year-long redesign is not bad luck. It is the predictable result of a design package that was never genuinely construction-ready meeting a review consultant with no contractual room to push the problem back to where it originated. Firms that recognize this pattern before bidding, negotiate boundaries explicitly, and document their work properly are the ones who protect themselves from inheriting a design process that was supposed to have already been finished.

​This article draws on published procurement documentation from multilateral development finance institutions and peer-reviewed construction management research relevant to design quality and review practice in Africa. It is intended for informational purposes for professionals in the African AEC sector and does not constitute legal or contractual advice. Firms should seek qualified legal and commercial review when structuring design review and construction supervision contracts.​AECTenderlink tracks design review, construction supervision, and EPC tender opportunities across AfDB, World Bank, Islamic Development Bank, and national procurement portals in 54 African markets.