Health and Safety Regulation and Its Compliance Among Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises Contractors in Ghana

The Ghanaian construction industry has been domination by Small and Medium Sized-Enterprises (SMEs) contractors and this domination has been attributed to the rate of urbanization in the country. Whilst, poor Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) practices by these contracts have resulted in a high rate of occupational accidents. Non-compliance with Health and Safety (H&S) regulations among SMEs contractors’ has led to their inability to manage Occupational Health and Safety (OHS). The purpose of the study was to identify the causes of SMEs contractors’ non-compliance with H&S regulations. An extant review of literature was conducted, that provided the road map to source out information relevant to SMEs contractors’ Health and Safety (H&S) practices in Ghana. The study adopted the Delphi survey method of data collection to investigate the study objective. List of experts (construction professionals and academics) were generated from peered reviewed conference proceedings and journal articles. A structured Delphi technique questionnaires were administered amongst the selected construction experts who consented to participate in the study. The rating of the SMEs non-compliance with H&S regulations were based on either the impact was considered to be high or very high. Data collected were analysed using Microsoft EXCEL, spread-sheet software. The findings reveal that limited knowledge of OHS, unavailabilty of H&S policy and knowledge on H&S policy implementation have high impact on SMEs contractors’ non-compliance with H&S regulations. Other findings were that the SME contractors provided limited training to their employees on H&S regulations and management bottleneck. The study contribute to the body of knowledge on the causes of SMEs contractors’ non-compliance with H&S regulations in the Ghanaian construction industry.