The need for successful Implementation of Health Safety and Environmental (HSE) management system has experienced tremendous attention around the globe. Most private and government establishments have realized that incident free operations are good for business and the ethical approach of completing projects in the 21st century. This phenomenon has resulted in the global decline of accidents rate during project execution.17 Nevertheless, workforces were observed to still experience unhealthy and unsafe working conditions resulting in work related ill-health and accidents.
The unhealthy and unsafe working conditions are more prominent in Africa relative to other continents. The identified phenomenon occurs in Africa where larger percentage of the businesses within the economy is the informal enterprises. Most of these enterprises operate with temporary workforces and majority of who are involved in the high-risk industry sectors. The labour forces continue to expose themselves to hazards associated with these industries because they are saddled with the fear of losing their jobs in the face of very high unemployment rate in Africa.17 This occurrence definitely undermines the successful implementation HSE management system in this part of the world.2
Various sectors have different public and private percentage of semi-skilled workforce in sub-Sahara Africa. A study noted that self-employment represent 70%, 62% and 33% of informal employment in sub-Sahara Africa, North Africa, and non-agriculture sector worldwide respectively. 17 Hence, it can be inferred that majority of these workforces are semi-skilled providing services for infrastructural or construction industry of the economy with no formal understanding and training of health and safety requirements applicable to the area of competency. The construction industry was identified to pose highest risk of exposure and considered as the most hazardous industries with enormous financial implications, costing billions of pounds annually in the UK economy.6
The recent globalization and investments of top performing multinational organizations in Africa have promoted the enactment of laws, policies and improvement on basic working conditions, occupational health and safety standards and procedures. Generally in Africa, there are gaps between the provision and the implementation of these laws and policies. Thus, the monitoring of the identified laws and policies are not effective.18 Because of this gap, motivating small businesses and service providers to embrace HSE management system in their operations is always a difficult task. The implementation of HSE policy is a challenge for organizations that intend to harmonize HSE management processes across its various locations worldwide.
