Browsing by Author "Agbaxode, Peter Kwasi Dodzi"

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    Safety performance of road contractors in Ghana
    (NOVEMBER, 2014) Agbaxode, Peter Kwasi Dodzi
    Occupational safety practice is of utmost importance in the construction industry because the industry is widely regarded as an accident prone one. In many developed countries, there are statutory instruments and legislative frameworks that govern construction operations on site. In the year 2000, the Labour Department reported that the construction industry in Ghana accounted for the highest rate of occupational deaths in comparison to other industrial sectors. There are a lot of researches on occupational health and safety but attention is not drawn to the performance of the road construction industry in terms of safety practices in Ghana. The overall purpose of this study was to empirically evaluate the safety performance of road construction companies in Ghana. In order to collect relevant data for the study, the entire work was clustered into a questionnaire survey and case study. Selected road contractors were evaluated on safety performance using the adapted evaluation tool. The research was conducted in the Greater Accra region of Ghana. The population comprised of all categories of road construction companies and a sample size of 64 road construction companies was selected. The evaluation results indicate that the road construction sector on the average scored forty one percent (41%) for safety performance as measured on the various sites. It was concluded that the most important group factors affecting the safety performance of road contractors were found to be 1) Provision of safety and welfare facilities, 2) Safety Responsibility of management and individuals, 3) Safety Programs and Work Practices, 4) Incident Reporting and Investigation and 5) Management Commitment. It was recommended that since the level of safety performance by road construction companies in Ghana is low there is therefore the need to improve safety performance in the road construction industry. The laws on safety are too scattered in a lot of documents iv hence Government and all regulatory bodies should come out with a well compiled and concise document, regulations and laws on Safety practices for the road construction industry to regulate the activities of the industry players.