The traditional contract procurement has been widely criticized as an ineffective procurement method because
it often involves time and cost overrun on construction projects. Yet the method is still being widely used in
Nigeria most especially for the procurement of housing projects. It is suspected that this procurement method
may not be ineffective in all cost categories of housing projects. Therefore time and cost performances of the
procurement method on 57 housing projects of varying cost categories initiated by the Nigerian government
between 1993 and 1999 were studied. The category of one to five million naira (US$1.00 ≈ 92 Nigerian Naira
in 1999) showed the least time overrun of 18.98% while the highest time overrun of 99.64 % was shown in the
five to ten million naira. The over ten million naira category had the least cost overrun of 9.13% while the
highest cost overrun of 34.55 % was shown in the less than one million naira. The one to five million naira cost
category exhibited weak correlation between time and cost overruns but the five million naira and above
categories showed strong correlation. It was concluded that one to five million naira cost category is quite
suitable for traditional contract procurement on housing projects in Nigeria