Case study of health and safety in construction projects of the Electricity Supply Commission of South Africa
Date
2016
Authors
Grootboom, Funeka Arthur
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Abstract
Eskom is a state owned enterprise that generates, transmits and distributes electricity to various sectors. Hence, it supports South Africa’s growth and development aspirations by constructing new electricity infrastructure. This can be achieved by adopting safety, health, environmental and quality (SHEQ) management as a business imperative. Presently, there have been a number of incidents and accidents at some construction sites of the Eskom distribution sector in the Mpumalanga province, which are mainly due to non-compliance with construction health and safety.
This research project aims to determine the compliance of contractors servicing Eskom. This is achieved by checking the compliance of the health and safety file of contractors with the Safety, Health and Environmental specification checklist of Eskom. The study aims to investigate if the use of the checklist has improved contractors’ compliance by 2014.
In order to achieve these aims, factors are addressed relating to the current state of construction health and safety legislation; the impact of construction health and safety on the economy; project parameters; roles and responsibilities of parties involved on construction sites; performance of small and emerging contractors.
The study shows that established contractors always achieved higher compliance when compared to the emerging contractors. In 2014, 90% of contractors complied with the checklist, hence in 2015/16 the contractors can be expected to meet the 100% requirement, therefore complying with the Eskom value of “Zero Harm”.
Description
A research report submitted to the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Engineering, 2016
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Citation
Grootboom, Funeka Arthur (2016) Case study of health and safety in construction projects of the Electricity Supply Commission of South Africa, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, <http://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/handle/10539/20994>