Cost of Implementing Health and Safety Measures in Construction Projects in Abuja, Nigeria

Abstract

The high rates of construction accidents as well as increase in construction cost due to accidents have been an issue of concern. The cost of health and safety during forecasting the construction cost is given little or no emphasis. This has become a threat to both contractors and their clients and has also posed great challenges in project executions with its multiplying effect on incurring additional cost in completing the project, and as such certain contractors and sub-contractors pay little or no attention in implementing health and safety measures. Hence, the aim of this study is to determine the cost of implementing health and safety measures in construction projects. The study is a criteria – based study, in which certain criteria were outline for the selection of the construction firms. The study largely derives quantitative measure in order to determine the cost of implementing health and safety measures on construction projects. Quantity surveyors with vast knowledge of health and safety in the construction firms were considered for this research. Correlation analysis was conducted in order to determine the relationship between cost of implementing health and safety measures and cost of construction projects and the result was found to be significant (P < 0.005). This relationship was modeled using simple linear regression and from the model the result shows that the cost of implementing of health and safety measures have little or no effect on the total cost of construction project. The findings recommend the need for contractors to implement an effective and efficient health and safety cost management system in the Nigeria construction industry, as this will help them in achieving an improvement on construction site safety performance.