Abstract

Health and safety of the employees is an important aspect of a company's smooth and successful functioning. It is a decisive factor in organizational effectiveness. It ensures an accident-free industrial environment. Companies must attach the same importance towards achieving high OH&S performance as they do to the other key objectives of their business activities. This is because, proper attention to the safety and welfare of the employees can yield valuable returns to a company by improving employee morale, reducing absenteeism and enhancing productivity, minimizing potential of work-related injuries and illnesses and increasing the quality of manufactured products and/ or rendered services (OSHA, 2004). In India, health and safety is enforced through state agencies for instance the government of India through the ministry of health came up with health and safety policy revealed through acts and articles a case to the point Articles i.e. 24, 39(e and f) and 42 and its basic mission is reduce risks of occupational diseases and casualty to persons employed in mines (OSHA, 2004). Considering West Africa and most preferably Nigeria, Literature has it that the health care system of Nigeria is relatively poor and currently undergoing significant reorganization since the Bamako Initiative was implemented in 1987. The World Health Organization (WHO) 2000 report ranked Nigeria's health care system 187 out of 191. The country has one of the lowest life expectancy rate in the world, 20% of the children population die before reaching the age of 5. It is estimated that the Nigerian Ministry of Health spend roughly 70% of its budget in urban regions where only 30% of the population lives. One of the major issues the government is committed to solve is the continuous migration of health professionals specifically to North American and European countries. In 2005, about 2,500 Nigerian doctors leaved for the US and 1,600 for the UK. Retaining these expensive and highly trained health professionals has been one of the