1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE
STUDY: The Advanced Learners Dictionary defines
maintenance as the process of protecting or preserving someone or something, or
the process of keeping something in good condition. Culture, on the other hand,
is a way of life, a lifestyle, customs, traditions, habits that portray the
attributes of a person/people.
Maintenance
culture is an attitude which is sadly lacking in Nigeria, whether in the
home, office, school or factory. Mbamali (2003) added that poor maintenance
culture has become a widely recognized problem in Nigeria which has poorly
affected the quality of public properties. Public property is property that is
dedicated to public use and is a subset of state property. The term may be used
either to describe the use to which the property is put, or to describe the
character of its ownership (owned collectively by the population of a state).
This is in contrast to private property, owned by an individual person or
artificial entities that represent the financial interests of persons, such as
corporations. State ownership, also called public ownership, government
ownership or state property, are property interests that are vested in the
state, rather than an individual or communities (Wikipedia, 2015).
Maintenance
culture in Nigeria is one of the lowest around the world, especially, in
our principal towns and cities where the majority of public properties are
located. In the rural areas, the story is different and pleasant to hear. The
traditional practice of communal clearing of community owned places such as
market playground is in almost every village and in private homes. Also, it is
customary to refurbish building interiors with mixtures of cow dung or natural
red clay. The end result is attractive and totally indigenous. According to
Wahab (1995) the nation accords low priority to property management leading to
neglect of public properties. Mbamali (2003) asserted that we have no
maintenance policy and therefore no such culture exists. Neglect of maintenance
has accumulated consequences in rapid increase in the deterioration of the
fabric and finishes of a building, accompanied by a harmful effect on the
contents occupants Seeley, (1987). Inadequate maintenance
culture is a peculiar feature of almost every public building in Nigeria.
According to Rotimi and Mtallib (1995) is partly due to poor maintenance
culture on one hand and partly due to the absence of an appropriate benchmark.
Gurjit (1990) asserted that lack of proper maintenance culture bring the life
of these public building last before reaching the total obsolescence state. The
declining maintenance
culture in Nigeria and its effect on public buildings and all other
properties has become a major problem to the government at various levels. This
study examines ways of improving maintenance culture and its effect on quality
of public properties
A great portion of a nation wealth
is evident in the total value of its public properties and buildings; it is
also an important factor in the production of the building to be preserved. A
poorly maintained building in a decaying environment depresses the quality of
live and contributes in some measures to anti social behaviour which threatens
the socio" political environment it finds itself in According to Stephen
(2002) public properties services rarely perform as well as desired. The causes
emanate from deficiencies in design, construction, commissioning and
maintenance, many researchers have also observed that the generators of
maintenance problems could be looked upon has caused during the design stage or
construction stage or initiated during the usage stage or the user’s carefree
attitudes (Bad maintenance culture) which will eventually deteriorate the
condition of the property. He further said that all these could be planned for
during the design stage. Maintenance problems though do manifest during the use
of the building, their causes might be during the design stage. These made
Dekker (2002) to assert that thinking on the maintenance should start in the
design phase. According to Speight (2000), it is at the design stage that the
maintenance burden can be positively influenced for better or for worse. Where
the designer fails to make adequate consideration for minimizing maintenance
problems, it always turns out to be a big problem when the building is
eventually occupied for usage, the consideration for effective maintenance as
one of the parameters for the building design. Seeley (1997) also said that a
skilful design can reduce the amount of maintenance work and also make it
easier to perform, since good maintenance begins on the drawing board.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE
PROBLEM: Oladimeji (1996) further described maintenance
of public properties as the combination of any continuous actions carried out
to retain a property in or restore it to an acceptable condition. Onwuka (1989)
stated that maintenance
culture is concerned with the planning and control of construction
resources to ensure that necessary repairs and renewal are carried out with
maximum efficiency and economy to enhance the quality of the property. However,
the researcher is examining the ways of improving maintenance
culture and quality of public properties in Nigeria.
1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE
STUDY: The following are the objectives of this
study:
- To examine ways of improving maintenance culture in Nigeria.
- To determine ways of enhancing the quality of public properties through improved maintenance culture.
- To determine the factors affecting maintenance culture in Nigeria.
- What are the ways of improving maintenance culture in Nigeria?
- What are the ways of enhancing the quality of public properties through improved maintenance culture?
- What are the factors affecting maintenance culture in Nigeria.
1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE
STUDY: The following are the significance of this
study:
- The findings from this study will educate the government and policy makers, stakeholders in building and the general public on the need for improvement in maintenance culture as a way of improving the quality of public property.
- This research will also serve as a resource base to other scholars and researchers interested in carrying out further research in this field subsequently, if applied will go to an extent to provide new explanation to the topic
15 SCOPE/LIMITATIONS OF
THE STUDY: This study on improving maintenance
culture and quality of public properties in Nigeria will cover the attitude
of Nigerians to the adequate maintenance of public properties, looking at ways
to improve maintenance
culture with a view to improve the quality of public properties.
1.6 LIMITATION OF
STUDY: Financial constraint-
Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing
for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of
data collection (internet, questionnaire and interview).Time constraint-
The researcher will simultaneously engage in this study with other academic
work. This consequently will cut down on the time devoted for the research
work.
REFERENCES: Dekker, B. (2002).
Application of maintenance optimization models; a review and analysis on
reliability engineering and system safety lsevier science ltd. Northern Ireland
Gurjit, L. (1990). The Surveyor and Establishing a maintenance management
system for cinema building maintenance vol. 3, American business journal
Mbamali, P. (2003). The Impact of accumulation deferred maintenance on selected
buildings of Two Federal Universities in the Northwest zone of Nigeria. Journal
of Environmental Science vol 3 (17) . Oladimeji, A.B. 1996. ‘Budgeting, Costing
and Cost Control in Maintenance Engineering and Management”, being a paper
delivered at a 3-Day Course organized by the Nigerian Society of Engineers,
Osogbo Branch at the Federal Polytechnic Ede, Osun State, 3rd – 5th July.
Onwuka, E.S. 1989. “Maintenance in Building and Construction Works”. Lagos Q.S.
Digest Journal Vol. 3 No 1, pp 3 - 4 Rotimi, L.A. and Mtallib, M.E. (1995). A
paper title: Economic consideration works, proceedings of the International
conference on maintenance of engineering Facilities in developing countries
8aborne, Botswana. Seeley, T. (1987). Building maintenance. 2nd edition
Macmillan press Ltd, Nothingham. Speight, B. A. (2000). Maintenance of
Buildings - its relationship to design, The chattered surveyor 1-10 166.
Stephen, L. (2012). Building services maintenance - The forgotten Discipline,
Aha management publications www.aha.com.auGenergy1.htm Wahab, J.A. (1995)
Adequate and Affordable Housing for Nigeria in the 21st century housing today.
Journal of the Association of Housing Science and its application, vol. 2,
No comments:
Post a Comment