An investigation of health and safety issues in Saudi Arabia's construction projects: challenges and solutions.

Abstract

The construction industry is ranked as a high risk sector because of the activities involved in brings a building to life. Health and safety plays a huge role to safeguard the lives of those involved in construction activities. A number of construction incident have made remarkable headlines in the media which has created a huge buzz in how health and safety is being handled especially in developing countries. Despite huge efforts going into addressing these health and safety challenges, accidents continue to prevail the construction sector. Developing countries tend to ignore safety rules, in addition regulatory authorities responsible for implementation have weak processes and procedures which becomes a challenge to deliver a robust health and safety program .
Saudi Arabia is going through infrastructure development which means construction activities are spread over the whole country. These construction projects have poor health and safety records and any existing health and safety framework is highly disjointed and inadequately enforced which makes the construction sector a health and safety risk .
It can be argued that current health and safety regulations have become unconnected in Saudi Arabia’s construction operations. In this context this research investigates the health and Safety issues in Saudi Arabia’s construction projects with a focus on the challenges. These are then compared to the United Kingdom health and safety practice in the construction sector. Solutions drawn were adopted from the Health and Safety framework used in the United Kingdom.
To reach this objective a review of published academic material was undertaken. Interviews were designed and taken to participants in Saudi Arabia construction sector. Thematic analysis was used to analyse generated data and the results were that management ,organisational culture , communication , employee behaviour ,accountability were the main causes for the compromise in Saudi Arabia Health and Safety in the construction sector.