Costs Of Health And Safety Management In Building Sites

Costs Of Health And Safety Management In Building Sites

Abstract

The construction assiduity is innately dangerous. therefore, there’s a need to make the construction point a safe place to work although the poor safety record remains a concern. The determination of the total costs of health and safety programmes is considered a vault for achieving construction safety in construction design delivery. This study estimated the costs of health and safety programmes in structure design delivery. The study determined among others, cost- related factors affecting health and safety programmes, significant cost rudiments of health and safety programmes and determined the size of contractors ’ expenditure on health and safety programmes. The finding of the study revealed that external monitoring and control conditions, position of education and training, and compass of work- related hazards are significant cost- related factors inhibiting contractors ’ health and safety programmes. The overall costs of health and safety programmes included in tender for erecting work generally amount to0.31. This implies medium and large contractors ’ in Eket allow0.31 of the total design costs for health and safety programmes in erecting contracts. The study concludes that popular vittles for health and safety programmes in structure systems requires significant enhancement in order to ameliorate health and safety performance in structure design delivery.

Chapter One

Preface

Background of the Study

Construction Industry is irrefutable for its overt position in the frugality of any nation. still, the poor safety performance of the construction assiduity has continued to give transnational cause for concern gaping challenge in its trouble to attack the experimental action of numerous nations including Nigeria. Workplace Health and Safety on its own is a global challenge to the sustainable development of our society and civilization. According to the International Labor Office( ILO), work related accidents and illness contribute3.9 percent of all deaths and 25 percent of the world’s population suffers a minor/ major occupational accident or work related complaint in any one time( Smallwood, 2004). Other than the moral enterprises, the profitable cost is huge, this undermines the assiduity’s sweats towards sustainable construction and development.

Health and safety programmes were first introduced in Nigeria during the time of the British Colony( Onyejeji, 2011). These programmes assured that occupational health workers were dispatched to artificial shops and other marketable undertakings, including plans for monitoring. The action led to legislation that produced the Labour Act of 1974, the manufactories Act of 1987, and the Workman’s Compensations Act 1987. Other applicable acts to occupational health and safety in Nigeria are Labour Acts 1990, and Workman’s Compensation Act 2004. Theoretically, the thing of nonsupervisory programs is to insulate incidents where misinformation about health pitfalls leads people to makenon-optimal opinions in order to internalize the situations, where health and safety pitfalls aren’t formerly realized in the request decision. Policy needs to strike a balance between the costs of forestallment, borne by employers, and the costs of injuries and ill health which fall upon the individual and society.

Despite being among the countries that inked the occupational health and safety law in the Geneva Convention of 1981, the pathetic health and safety situation in Nigeria construction assiduity made Idoro( 2008; 2011), to conclude that the contractors ’ operation sweats on occupational health and safety, don’t reflect in their compass of operations and the accident and injury rates of the Nigerian construction assiduity are high, as there are numerous collapse structure and structures far and wide, workers falling off height, because they did n’t wear their body harness,etc.

One factors stand- out clear about the low position of safety performance in the Nigerian construction assiduity, that is, cost affiliated concern( Okoye, 2013). Construction associations decreasingly argued that safety enterprises aren’t well prioritized in the structure sector compared to oil painting and gas assiduity( Onyejeji, 2011).

Now, with increased mindfulness andre-emerging interest to ameliorate safety performance in the structure sector( Idoro, 2011; Okoye, 2013), it’s needful to understand the cost counteraccusations of enforcing safety practices in the Nigerian construction assiduity. According to Idoro( 2011), a better approach to ameliorate safety is to concentrate on visionary sweats dealing with the cost of mitigation. Against this background, this study is targeted at perfecting state of being knowledge about the magnitude of contractor’s cost on safety operation programme.

Statement of Research Problem

There’s a high rate of accidents on construction spots across the globe but the developing countries have peculiar situation that calls for immediate attention. According to Adade- Boateng, Fuhar and Adinyira( 2016), the construction assiduity continues to record high occupational accidents worldwide. The assiduity employs about 7 of the world’s population and yet accounts for 30- 40 of global occupational accidents( ILO 2005). In numerous developing countries, accurate statistics of injuries and losses in the construction assiduity are nearly missing due to poor recording and announcement systems( Adade- Boateng, Fuhar and Adinyira, 2016). Ha ¨ ma ¨ la ¨ inen et al,( 2006) argued that in malignancy of this, numbers attained are still used as a” birth for occupational safety work”. Available data would suggest that accident rates in developing countries are 3 – 6 times lesser than in the developed countries( Jason, 2008). Idoro( 2011) observed that contractor’s operation sweats on occupational Health and Safety doesn’t reflect the compass of operation. Some organisations do n’t give the protection of their pool the precedence it deserves. This is due to the lack of knowledge, chops and provocation, or limited staff coffers( Chapman and Ward, 2003). former exploration also stated that cost is also an important factor responsible for the poor Health and Safety Performance in the construction( Smallwood, 2004). Cost is a critical criterion determining contractor’s decision to invest.