INVESTIGATING HEALTH AND SAFETY PLAN USES IN BUILDING PROJECTS WITHIN THE FEDERAL CAPITAL TERRITORY, ABUJA- NIGERIA

Abstract

The consequence of Safety negation or failure on construction sites is more alarming and pronounced than in any other industry worldwide. The Health and Safety (H&S) management Plan and Act are some of the mechanisms of action to reduce hazards or accidents, thereby ensuring safety and wellbeing of site workers and others coming around. To evaluate the use of H&S Plan by various contractors of building projects in the FCT Abuja, this study adopted the quantitative research approach. 105 questionnaires were served to higher personnel handling building projects in the FCT, plus the personal observation of the sites using checklist to assess level of compliance to H&S plan in practice. The study discovered a good deal of indication to ample awareness of the HASP (with 30.59% responding firms having over 20 years of incorporation experience, while only some 11.75% were of lessthan 5 yrs incorporation). There was however a seeming disregard to HASP since only a 27.06% compliance was recorded from sampled sites indicative of low Performance of H&S Plan in practice. The Study thereby concluded that the predominant sites visited had little regard to H&S Plan Document and the appreciable awareness noticed would be a vain waste with such a disregard (or very low compliance) tolerated. It was therefore recommended that, laws made should be seen to be obeyed and proactively too from the procurement stage. Hence creating job opportunities for citizens to enforce the law.