a small article about construction safety in Afghanistan

1. Ikhtiar Gul Bakhtiar Istanbul Technical University Civil Engineering Faculty Civil Eng. Department
Occupational Safety and Health Management in Afghanistan’s
Construction Industry
Abstract
Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) in the construction industry plays a
vital role during execution of any kind of project worldwide. Indeed, most of the
companies which are involved in the construction industry, just focus on the basic
parts of OHS; but it is a reality that in Afghanistan, OHS regulations (such as
OHSAS-18001) are not commonly adopted in the industries. The findings reveal
that safety knowledge of construction managers and engineers is poor, observance
of OHS principles is not compulsory, there is no safety in private projects and it is
weak too in governmental projects, there is no any subject in engineering
university education about construction OHS and more than 2/3 of the
construction’s operators have not attended in OHS training workshops.
INTRODUCTION
There are many different descriptions of the construction industry, drawn
from different specialist disciplines. This vagueness is compounded by the fact that
the construction involves such a wide range of activity that the industry's external
boundaries are also unclear. The construction industry is among the most
hazardous, as measured by work-related mortality, injury rates, and worker’s
compensation payment. Past research shows that workers exposed to occupational
accidents are different in industries. The construction industry is known one of the
most dangerous industries around the world. Now occupational accident is known
as the third cause of death around the world, every year occupational accident
causes three hundred thousand deaths and injured more than 300 million people
worldwide. For example, in some of developed countries such as United States
according to OSHA report in 2014 from 4251 mortal occupational accident that
happened in private industries 874 case of them are related to the construction
industry. In Australia, the number of deaths in the construction industry was 17 in
2013 and increased to 24 in 2014, even though, these amounts are so small related
to undeveloped countries. It should be noted that these numbers are sky rocketing
in third world countries. In Afghanistan, as an emerging undeveloped country, the
number of construction projects were relatively low before 2002. After 2002 and
fall of Taliban regime, number and volume of construction projects rapidly
increased. This change was due to flood of foreign countries‟ funded project,
government’s developmental projects and small private projects by people.
Starting that time, there was no any standard or regulation about work safety and

2. Ikhtiar Gul Bakhtiar Istanbul Technical University Civil Engineering Faculty Civil Eng. Department
occupational health to enforce all parties involved in the industry to follow.
Foreign countries usually use their own regulation in projects funded by them, but
there is no or very rare safety regulation being followed in both government and
people’s projects. The majority of Afghanistan’s construction firms are small
businesses. Small businesses are characterized by poor management skills and
authoritarian management styles. Small businesses are poorer at implementing
OHS programs than larger businesses.
RESULTS
After 2001 and past three decades of war, reconstruction of Afghanistan
started directly by different foreign donors and also by Afghanistan’s government
and people. More than 40 countries around the world cooperated in reconstruction
of Afghanistan and a lot of foreign construction companies started the construction
projects. Lack of any national OHS regulation caused each donor and company to
work according to its own country’s laws and regulations. Moreover, there are a lot
of military construction projects in Afghanistan that have been completed by the
US army force whom has special stringent OHS regulations. By the authors‟
experience in cooperating with the five above mentioned groups of owners and
donor, and also visiting the projects and investigating related contracts in these
projects, it was found out that:
In the US government funded projects, OHS regulations are very stringent.
Furthermore, observance of safety regulations is compulsory in these projects and
safety is a rule from start to end for everyone and every party without any
exception. It was also observed that in some circumstances clients had considered
liquidated damages for those contractors who failed to follow these OHS
regulations completely.
PRT which are usually from the European countries, were not strict about OHS
in work. In this regard, it should be noted that these projects were mostly small
projects.
The government of Afghanistan and charity organizations also did not pay
attention to OHS issues.
In those projects that are constructed by the private sector OHS regulations are
not commonly considered. Although the volume of construction in this part is very
high, the owner, contractors and the intermediate parties did not follow OHS
regulations. This was because their main intent is to complete the project in a very
economical state and to save the time and more money. That is why the rate of
casualties and injuries in the private sector projects is very high. Generally

3. Ikhtiar Gul Bakhtiar Istanbul Technical University Civil Engineering Faculty Civil Eng. Department
speaking, construction companies in Afghanistan only are aware of Personal
Protective Equipment (PPE) and its usage in their projects.
Finally, after analyzing the status of OHS in the Afghanistan’s construction
projects, the following recommendations are presented:
A course wholly devoted to OHS should be inserted in in the civil Engineering
program of Afghanistan’s universities.
An OHS regulation should be prepared for industries using international codes
and Afghan experts and by conducting more research.
Obeisance of OHS regulations during construction of any kind of projects
should be mandatory and it should be addressed in all project contracts as a non-
waived item.
Historical OHS records of companies should play a major role in the ranking of
their overall performance. Companies should be ranked based on their performance
and also their OHS records (containing the number of incidents or casualties
occurred in the project they completed).
Defense Base Act (DBA) insurance for manpower of projects should be
compulsory. The reimbursement system of DBA for the injured or affected
individuals should be applied as well.
Passing sufficient number of OHS workshops and courses before the project’s
start should be mandatory for all construction managers and employers.
Construction jobsites should benefit from safety professionals with high
competency level in the OHS field. Here, construction executors should be in
harmony with them prior to each activity commencement.
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