A Review of Effectiveness of Green Card Programme and Approaches for Improvement of Safety Practices

In Malaysian construction industry, safety and health is undoubtedly one of the most important aspects and issues to be focused and discussed as it is playing a vital role towards the development of the nation. Accidents and fatalities occurrence at construction sites are increasing in Malaysia. The number of industrial accidents reported by Pertubuhan Keselamatan Sosial (PERKESO)’s annual report year by year and the increase of accidents and fatalities rate is affecting the construction industry where it is creating an unsafe image for the industry to the society and nation. Despite the Green Card programme has implemented since 1997 to reduce the accident rate at construction site and develop awareness on safety and health matters among construction workers in Malaysia, the number of industrial accident is still facing continuous increment year by year. The question is, are the objectives or purposes of the Green Card programme has been achieved effectively? In the other hand, there are a lot of safety practices to be practiced at construction site, but are they sufficient and effective? This research is aimed to review the effectiveness of green card programme in reducing the accident occurrence at construction site and to determine the possible approaches to improve the safety practices at construction site. A combine of qualitative research study of observations and individual interview is conducted to observe and interview contractors, site coordinators, safety manager or committees, administrative personnel and employees of construction industry in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. In the findings from the research, Green Card Programme is believed to be not effective in reducing accident occurrence at construction site, mainly because there are no measurement to determine the effectiveness, there are still some weaknesses continue to exist in the programme that causing the poor implementation and less effective way of execution in the programme, and last but not least, the programme is solely an induction programme and not a comprehensive training x programme. In the second objective of the research, the findings have contributed few ideas in suggesting the possible approaches to improve the safety practices and determining the problem exists in the current existing safety practices at construction site. The findings also found out that contractor, employer and management team are the most effective initiating parties which simply because they are the head of the workers who give orders to them, payer and the managers of a construction project. By discovering and understanding the current status of the construction sector in terms of safety and health and current existing programme specifically Green Card Programme regarding to safety and health, the findings of the research are expected to be able to provide a direction, compass and or guideline for the industry. Therefore, decision and policy maker and other related organisation or department can use the information from this research to improve and polish the current existing policies and programme, specifically in turning down the accident occurrence at construction site. In short, the findings are expected to be a guideline and recommendation to the industry in carry out safety practices and setting out of any safety management plan or policy for any construction projects.