The construction industry is widening in its share in the service industry of the economy ,rnconstruction is contributing around 3.5% to the growth of real GDP, and Ethiopianrngovernment have been increasingly investing in public social services, grand national projectsrnand infrastructures that demand high capital and high project management skills and most ofrntheses projects are construction related projects. The construction projects are traditionallyrnprone to different types of risks that are leading to delays, cost overruns and compromisedrnquality, and this has become common observation in many projects. However little is knownrnand documented on the prominent risks, perception of impact and likelihood of theses risks andrnwhat the project risk management practice looks like by the project actors. There fore thisrnresearch or assessment intended to identify key risks in the construction sector, perceptionrnof theses risks and common practice of risk management systems by project actors. Thernresearch methodology approach of this study was qualitative, multiple case study backed uprnliterature review. The assessment has looked in to six construction projects as case study; fourrnof the cases are building construction projects and two of them are road construction projects.rnThe case study projects are undergoing and are located in four different regions of Ethiopia.rnThe cases were thoroughly reviewed and analyzed based on the key informant in-depthrninterview, physical observation and relevant literatures. Accordingly the assessment foundrnout that there are several prominent risks in the construction industry and the most commonrnrisks in both road and building construction were many but the top five of each projects werernanalyzed and found out to be ; cash flow, availability of row materials, absence of skilled manrnpower, project management and technical skills, corruption, design completeness, inflation,rnright off, environmental and safety, limited contract administration skills from the client side,rnoutdated building design codes, payment modality, political stability, safety and security (siternlocation), and tender preparation. More over in order to understand the perception of risksrnand their impacts and likelihoods by the project actors, the likelihood impact assessmentrnmatrix was independently analyzed using 5 point Likert measurement. The result analysisrnshowed that in building constructions risk of cash flow shortage is most certain to likelyrnhappen with high negative impact on the projects, and risk of price inflation was almost certainrnand with moderate negative impact, followed by availability of raw materials with likely tornhappen and to moderately affect the project objective negatively. In the road constriction casesrnagain cashflow was most certain to happen with high negative impact and availability of skilledrnmanpower and row materials are both likely to happen with moderate impact. It also foundrnout that the risk management process and common practice of risk management to be mainlyrnintuitive, based on individuals experience and subjective judgments. i.e. the risk managementrnpractice lacks structural (organizational) or systemic approach and it is reactive in mostrncases. (Keywords: risks, likelihood and impact of risks, Project management, project riskrnmanagement, construction projects, project actors )