Construction Safety Performance in the United Arab Emirates - Article Example

 ‘Construction Safety Performance in the United Arab Emirates’ Introduction: Al-Kaabi and Hadipriono in their article ‘Construction Safety Performance in the United Arab Emirates’ have discussed and brought out the concerns associated with the safety of the construction industry in the UAE. This is primarily of significant concern since with the rise of the growth in the construction industry; there are several instances of construction accidents being reported. The authors through their study, including survey, tried to determine the different types of accidents that have been reported, the causes that might have led to those accidents, the deficiencies on the part of the companies and the working employees or the violations by foreign workers, which are factors that together made the industry unsafe (Al-Kaabi & Hadipriono, 2003, p.197). The present study would summarize the article and understand the facts obtained in the study conducted by Al-Kaabi and Hadipriono and hence try to determine certain measures that might bring improvement in the system. Construction Safety Performance in the United Arab Emirates: Summary of Article: The primary purpose of the study conducted by Kaabi and Hadipriono has been to determine through their surveys and studies the accidents and their causes that are becoming a regular part of the construction industry. As it has been obtained in the recent years, the services in construction industry have become highly unsafe owing to the swiftly economy on the rise supporting financially a huge number of projects related to construction in a comparatively small period of time, particularly in the countries of the Middle East. The UAE has been considered as the primary concern of the study, a country which is the most developed among the Middle East countries, yet presenting poor conditions of construction projects safety (Al-Kaabi & Hadipriono, 2003, p.197). In order to conduct the study, the authors involved a survey to establish how securely and protected are the operations of the construction companies as could be reflected from the activities in their sites. The survey was done with the help of questionnaires and interviews at the site. More than 120 construction companies have been participants in the survey. In the process, review of previous literatures and several cases of accidents as associated with the industry were also studied by the authors, particularly the recent incidents in the UAE. The reviews of literature comprised of the environment of the construction industry, the practices maintained for local safety, and case studies of accidents in the UAE (Al-Kaabi & Hadipriono, 2003, pp.197-202). Summary of Major Findings and Conclusions from the Study: The findings of the study present certain fundamental knowledge on the condition prevailing in the construction industry as far as safety is concerned. Although UAE might be known to be the most developed among the Middle East countries, yet the safety issues are involved with this country as well. The workers being foreigners and not properly trained, the risks are found to be even more. Considering the strength of the labor force in the country as the study suggests, there has been a significant rise in the labor force strength. There has been consistent growth in the construction workers over the last fifteen years. Most of them are however from other countries. Neither are they properly trained, nor are they capable of speaking the local language. Moreover their salaries being less, the accidents could be expected in the industry quite often (Al-Kaabi & Hadipriono, 2003, pp.197-199). The study reflects on the rates on construction accidents occurring in the UAE, where it has been obtained that the construction accidents represent almost 39.7 percent of all incidents prevailing in the industry, proving the supremacy of such accidents. Moreover all of these incidents are not found to be recorded by several companies that participated in the study. Even if some of them reported, the details have been found to be lacking proving the mere irresponsibility on the part of these companies and not taking the cases of accidents seriously. According to statistics almost 56.7 percent of the companies surveyed did not have the required form for reporting accidents, which they are supposed to do as part of legal activities. Negligence has been found to be one of the major causes supporting such acts (Al-Kaabi & Hadipriono, 2003, pp.199-200). Kaabi and Hadipriono also studied recent accident cases in the industry where they obtained cases like construction collapse from a prominent place in Dubai, leading to severe damages, losses and injuries. The cause of the accident was later found to be exceeding loads than what the elevator could manage to hold. This was also associated with lack of training among the workers, indiscipline as well as ignorance of the company to monitor the proper performance of the workers. In another accident reported in Dubai, some foreign workers lost their lives owing to collapse of a wall, that was later found to be resultant of casually placing the prefabricated wall consisting of two slabs of concrete against each other. However the true cause was never discussed and the contractor was blamed for not providing the workers a safer place to take rest, whereas focus should have been dragged on to the negligence that led placing the wall casually in the place. Heavy use of cranes, the collapse of walls and scaffoldings, and similar causes were mainly obtained to lead to such accidents in the construction industry in the UAE, with little attention been provided to the need for improvement (Al-Kaabi & Hadipriono, 2003, pp.202-203). The authors had performed the survey primarily to study the basic aspects of safety that are followed in these companies. Thus questionnaires were developed to gain knowledge on the safety measures, protection and other programs that the companies might be involved. The companies surveyed were mostly large in terms of their working years and the number of workers involved in their performances. As obtained from the survey, workers in almost all the construction companies are provided with some amounts of insurance, including compensation, life insurance, risk insurance, coverage for accidents and health. However few smaller companies did not bother about the need for such insurances for their workers. Safety education and proper training that is considered to be highly significant for all foreign workers has been found to be lacking in almost 36 percent of the participant companies (Al-Kaabi & Hadipriono, 2003, pp.204-206). Several companies do not provide their workers with the protective equipments, these being highly expensive. The study also found that many workers avoid such protective tools considering their religious values and beliefs. Although such safety measures have been asked to be considered by the law, yet the quality of such measures are not well informed and are ignored by most of the companies. Moreover, the heavy equipments installed in such companies are in most cases not maintained properly. The law also establishes the need for proper health and hygiene on the sites of construction. Cleaning of the sites has been found to be maintained by almost all the companies. However, first aid kit is not maintained by some of the companies. The monitoring of safety measures has also found to be lacking in most of the companies. Although most of the contractors have experienced several cases of accidents in the past, yet there is a significant lack of alterations or improvement in these companies, as the study suggests (Al-Kaabi & Hadipriono, 2003, pp.206-209). Validity of the Article: Comments: The article has been developed by two prominent authors under the support of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Geodetic Science, The Ohio State Univerisity, thereby proving the validity of the study. In regard to the study and its conclusions, it can be said that this is one of the major studies that has its focus particularly on the UAE. Although there has been several studies based on the construction industry and the accidents occurring on the sites, yet a major focus on UAE, being a developed country, was lacking. This particular study completes that and leads a way towards the need for further studies on this country such that some significant measures may be considered in order to ensure safety at the construction sites. Conclusion: From the study of the article, it can be concluded that there is a significant need of understanding the causes leading to the major accidents and fatal incidents at the construction sites. The study also establishes the need for development of some organizations under the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs (Al-Kaabi & Hadipriono, 2003, p.211) such that some effective safety measures may be incorporated in the construction companies that are now proving to be ignorant about the severity of the accident cases as well as the need for improvement. It needs to be understood that lives are being lost and several workers are being injured for negligence that can be successfully overcome through consideration of sincere protective measures, that should follow this particular piece of study. Reference 1) Al-Kaabi, N. & F.C. Hadipriono (2003). Construction Safety Performance in the United Arab Emirates, Civil Engineering and Environmental Systems, 20(3), 197-212 Read More