Under-reporting of construction accidents in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Generally the work environment in the construction industry is more hazardous than in other industries, mainly due to the potential nature for serious accidents and health hazards by heavy use of large equipment, dangerous tools, and hazardous materials. Thus, the number of annual construction accidents are reported high and among them 50-60 are fatal. Moreover, these numbers are under reported and hence the actual number of construction accidents could be several times higher than the reported. Hence, this research attempts to investigate the most significant reasons behind underreported construction accidents and identify the loopholes of the existing reporting systems to recommend efficient mechanisms for occupational accident recording in construction industry. Accordingly, the research problem was approached through a pre study survey and an expert survey which followed by semi structured interviews. Various stakeholders including management, technical staff and workers in construction sites were interviewed. The findings revealed that safety representatives of most of the construction organizations reluctant to report to the Labour Department through the district factory inspecting engineer when incidents occur, due to unawareness of legal provisions and burden of paper work. Moreover, lack of knowledge, awareness, systems, management commitments and other facilities exaggerated the situation. Additionally, a strong leadership towards inculcating occupational safety and health was identified as a deliberating need. Therefore, the study propose to appoint qualified safety representatives for each construction site of construction organisations, continuous monitoring of following up the legal provision on notification of accidents, introduction of a prescribed information sheet for all organisations who are involved in a case of an industrial accident and after an accident or development of an online portal and increase the awareness programmes on importance of maintaining records and reporting of industrial accidents.