Investigation of Health and Safety Practices on Construction Sites in Nigeria

ABSTRACT

Construction Health and Safety (H&S) is of significant importance to the improvement and sustainability of the construction process. This is why at various levels of the construction process, clients, project managers, architects, engineers, contractors, subcontractors, suppliers, and manufacturers have endeavoured to improve H&S management practices in construction. However, the implementation of H&S in construction has not resulted in a commensurate improvement in the industry. Most of the building construction site accidents in Nigeria have been attributed to the fact that building contractors do not provide the required health and safety items on construction sites. This paper is aimed at evaluating the level of health and safety practice on building construction sites, so that their understanding of the situation could be embodied in a framework for improving health and safety practice in Nigeria.
Structured questionnaires were used to elicit the relevant data from building construction operatives on health and safety items provided on building construction sites in Abuja by Contractors. The items were grouped into four, namely provision of health and safety facilities, health and safety incentives, structure for managing health and safety on site and the provision of personal protective equipment. The respondents were asked to indicate by ticking using 5- point rating scale. The findings reveal that the mean level of provision of canteen on site ranked first with the highest mean (3.04) indicating it satisfactory. The second is water supply Site with mean of (2.94) indicating that its provision on site is (1.98) and (1.92) respectively indicating provision to be fair. The findings have implications in as much as it can be embodied in supporting contractors’ safety management strategies, and also policy direction in future safety guidelines for improving health and safety practices on Nigerian construction sites.