This research investigated the impacts of procurement systems on the performance of construction projects in East Malaysia. Construction project outcome may be measured in terms of time, cost and quality achieved. Project clients demand and want best value for their money and they want their projects to be completed on time, within budgeted cost and at appropriate quality or specification. The use of different procurement systems in the construction industry is as a result of meeting and satisfying project clients’ needs and expectations, this is because each procurement system has it own impact on project objectives of time, cost and quality. Each procurement system has it own feature, peculiarity, processes, division of risk between project stakeholders and monitoring control mechanisms and all these will have impact on the project time, cost and quality.

The key findings and conclusions from literature review and the analysis of results of questionnaires issued to project clients, projects managers, consultants and construction workers showed that traditional procurement system benefits cost and quality but at the expense of time. Design and build procurement system benefits cost and quality but at the expense of quality and this implies that the impacts of design and build procurement system on project objectives of cost and time are positive with negative impact on project quality. Construction management and management contracting procurement systems benefit time and quality but at the expense of cost. In other words, use design and build, construction management and management contracting procurement systems if project time is a priority. Use traditional and design and build procurement systems if project cost is a priority and traditional, Construction management and management contracting procurement systems if project quality is a priority.