Developing Plant and Equipment Policy for Indigenous Construction Firms in Nigeria

Plant and equipment play an increasing role in building/engineering operations in such a way that both time and money can be saved by their efficient use. The paper therefore discussed the general plant policy in the construction industry and went further to develop a plant/equipment policy for indigenous construction firms in Nigeria. Using a stratified sampling technique, the opinions of ninety indigenous contractors were randomly sampled from three commercial nerve centres ofthe country (Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt). The paper revealed that the indigenous construction firms invest little or nothing on plant/equipment purchase and therefore have no policy in place. It then concluded that for the plant policy to be efficiently executed, it is desirable to install a recording and costing system which should include, among other things, an asset register comprising an inventory of each plant item in the fleet with information on the date of purchase, registration/code number, location and the hours operated