Ethics In Construction: Examples From Uganda

Over the past ten years, the construction industry in Uganda has been characterized by a spate of fatal accidents on construction sites, and cases of defective designs that fail to preserve the environment. This unwelcome situation has largely been a result of professional negligence and poor construction practices. The industry has recorded cases of corruption especially in the building and road construction tendering process. This paper examines the ethical dilemmas that confront the construction industry in Uganda and makes proposals for improving ethical performance. The need to strengthen codes of professional ethics and to enforce the necessary safety and environmental regulations is recommended as a remedy to improve ethical performance. It is envisaged that the cultivation of ethics amongst construction practitioners has the potential to produce a coherent account of human well-being for guiding construction development policy and thinking.