Maintenance culture of public buildings in Ghana a case study of selected institutions within the Sunyani municipality of the Brong-Ahafo region

Abstract

This study assessed the role of maintenance culture of public buildings using selected institutions within the Sunyani Municipality. Simple random sampling technique was used to sample 100 staffs of the institutions that were administered with questionnaires and their top managers also interviewed. Out of the sample size of 100 respondents, 96 of them responded to the questionnaire constituting a response rate of 96%. On the maintenance culture and state of respondent’s buildings, it emerged that planned maintenance was based on the life of the building, the financial implications and age of the building. Again unplanned maintenance was a common practice but preventive maintenance was not carried out at predetermined intervals due to lack of funds. As a result, the current state of the occupants building verandas, floor tiles, septic tanks and staircases were bad and needed urgent maintenance. The second objective examined whether there were maintenance policies of public buildings and it revealed that most of the institutions do not have maintenance policies, and do not undertake regular inspection and maintenance of buildings. The third objective examined the deficiencies associated with the maintenance of public buildings and shows that lack of concern shown by clients, poor design habits, insufficient resources and policies for occupants to maintain their buildings were some of the deficiencies. The forth objective assessed the appropriate maintenance culture or codes for the maintenance departments of the institutions. The results show that there are no appropriate maintenance rules or codes. The study recommended that, there should be more education and enactment and enforcement of policies or laws for occupants of public buildings to perform certain maintenance works of their buildings, adopt appropriate maintenance culture and resource the maintenance departments of public institutions to fully discharge their duties.