Health and Safety Management Practices in the Building Construction Industry in Akure, Nigeria

Olusoga Olawale Oreoluwa

doi:10.11648/j.ajetm.20180301.12

Abstract

Health and safety of construction workers on building construction sites in Nigeria have become necessary as a result of the hazardous nature of the practice. It is noteworthy to mention that accidents of any kind are bound to happen on these sites resulting into injuries that are sometimes fatal to site workers. Nevertheless, an evaluation of the health and safety management practices put in place by building contractors in the construction industry in Nigeria is the main thrust of this study. This paper discusses the different sources of accidents on construction sites. It also investigates the current state and adherence to health and safety practice in Nigeria. 110 questionnaires were used to extract information from respondents within the Akure metropolis. The safety precautions put in place by contractors for their site workers was also probed. Issues such as the post-accident treatment of site workers were also investigated. Data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics. The study found that construction workers are left to protect themselves in the line of duty and are largely responsible for any occurrence of accidents. As a result, a lot needs to be done to ensure the health and safety of site workers. Recommendations were made on possible solutions yearning for strict actions to be taken against defaulters by the respective site inspectors.

Highlights

The construction industry in Nigeria has since being on a steady rise in recent years owing to the large expanse of undeveloped Land required to provide shelter for the booming population
This paper aims at investigating the compliance of construction managers to health and safety management of their site construction workers in preventing accidents
This is seen from literature as not the only means of mitigating construction site accidents with education and provision of safety signs seeming another possible way out

Summary

Introduction

The construction industry in Nigeria has since being on a steady rise in recent years owing to the large expanse of undeveloped Land required to provide shelter for the booming population. Bala et al [4] cited large number of seasonal migrant as one of the several reason for this growth in population because many of them are ignorant of construction processes. With this increase both in terms of development as well as personnel comes an increase in site accidents. According to Smallwood et al 2008, the construction industry has earned a reputation of being a dangerous or highly hazardous industry because of the disproportionately high accidents and fatalities that occur on the construction sites around the world. The International Training Centre of the International Labour Organization claims that one in six fatal accidents at work occur on a construction site

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