Investigating Safety Violations on Nigerian Construction Sites

Abstract

The built environment sector is among the leading global fatalities and accidents. Studies showed that implementing health and safety regulations, especially in developing countries, is challenging in the sector. The lax implementation may have increased construction safety violations. There is a paucity of studies concerning the cause and impact of construction safety violations on the built environment in Nigeria. Thus, through an unexplored mechanism, this study investigated the perceived cause and proffered measures to prevent or mitigate safety violations on Nigerian construction sites. The researchers engaged experts across Nigerian cities via qualitative research design. The study used face-to-face interviews and eight construction sites observation to collect data. The research achieved saturation after 30 interviews. A thematic analysis was utilised to analyse the collected data. The study shows construction safety violations are visible threats to integrated project delivery and productivity within the built environment sector. Findings grouped the causes into human, technical, and management/government causes, highlighting the perceived cause of safety violations on Nigerian construction sites. Findings would assist stakeholders in considering the suggested measures to prevent or mitigate construction safety violations and, by extension, promote a safe working environment for construction workers.

Keywords:

• Construction sites
• developing economy
• hazards
• health and safety (H&S)
• Nigeria
• safety violations

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to restrictions and the privacy of research participants.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to the participants for providing scholarly contributions to enhance the findings of this paper. Also, the authors appreciate the comments, suggestions, and recommendations provided by the anonymous reviewers, which helped hone and strengthen the quality of this manuscript during the blind peer-review process.

Additional information

Funding

Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment and CIDB Centre of Excellence (05-35-061890), University of Johannesburg, South Africa.