Safety on Construction Sites in Uganda - what needs to be done

I have noted that most of the articles published recently about the collapse of buildings in Kampala concentrated on giving reasons why buildings collapse and who is responsible for the accidents, rather than what we can do to alleviate the situation. Collapse of buildings is not new to Uganda and neither is it only peculiar to Uganda, we should therefore be able to learn from how others have tackled this problem. Construction especially that of buildings is very important to any economy. While some multi-storey buildings like the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur may be constructed to fulfill man’s insatiable ego, others and the biggest number are constructed for commercial reasons. It is therefore unlikely that we will stop the construction of multi-storey buildings but neither do we want to continue losing lives.

First and foremost, the construction industry should be given the attention it deserves. Most developed countries do realise the importance of construction and are actively involved in devising ways and formulating policies that would make the industry better. Figures from the Uganda Bureau of Statistics website indicate that the contribution to the GDP by the construction industry has steadily grown in the previous years from 7.2% to 9.1%. In the UK, the construction industry contributes almost 8% to the GDP and according to the figures by the Department of Trade and Industry; through its products the construction industry is the single largest contributor to gross domestic fixed capital formation. The similarity between the figures of the two industries is quite obvious, yet the two governments don’t seem to accord the industry the same amount of attention. In the last 15 years, the UK government has commissioned three studies and managed to implement reforms and enact laws recommended by these studies. Construction procurement methods like ‘Partnering’ that is now being espoused internationally were introduced as a result of these studies. It has been reported that by implementing most of the reforms recommended by the Egan Report of 1998, the UK construction productivity has improved by close to 30% in the last 8 years. In Singapore and Malaysia, both governments realised at an early stage of their development curve that the construction industry was important for continued growth. Throughout the 1970s and up to now both governments have consistently enacted laws to improve the performance of the construction industry as one of the tools for economic development. When the construction industry started suffering from the strict laws relating to foreign employment, the government in Singapore, moved fast to amend the laws so that the industry could continue to grow.

Secondly, laws relating to construction have to be revised as a matter of urgency. Authors of some of articles published in the previous weeks rightly pointed out that the local authorities have the responsibility of approving and inspecting buildings. What most of them did not point out that most local authorities are using the Town and Country Planning Act of 1969 which is increasingly becoming irrelevant to today’s situation. The local authorities are required by these bye-laws to inspect the construction of these buildings stage by stage and issue certificates for every stage that is successfully completed. Most of these local authorities don’t have Building Inspectors and where they exist like in Kampala City Council, they cannot carry out stage by stage inspection due to lack of logistics. I hope the impending Building Control Bill will address some of these problems and others like health and safety on sites.

Thirdly and most importantly, the population has to be sensitised about using properly qualified consultants and contractors for the construction of their structures. I have argued before that I can prove to most people that did not use qualified personnel that they actually spent more money than they would have spent if they engaged qualified people. Professional associations notably the Uganda Society of Architect have embarked on a crusade to sensitise the population about the importance of using qualified personnel but this is a job that is too enormous to be left to the hardly 200 member association alone. The government through the Ministry of Works should step in and help with the sensitisation of the masses. We can draw experiences from Sir Egan’s Rethinking Construction Report to the UK Government in which it was recommended as a priority to have private developers on board if improvements in construction productivity was to be achieved.