A Study On The Restricting Maintenance Management Practices On Public Infrastructure

Public Infrastructure accounts for a large portion of every country’s asset which is controlled by the government for public consumption.It can be divided into 3 categories,machinery and equipment;buildings and engineering structures.They include highways,railways,ports,entertainment facilities and stadia.These public infrastructures bring benefits to a large number of users.Stadia are very useful investment,so protecting these infrastructure systems is very important.Sports facilities are infrastructure purposely design for many sporting activities like,football tournament,recreational activities and athletics.Many public stadia in Ghana are in pitiable condition due to restricting maintenance practices.Regards to this,the research aims to assess the restricting maintenance management practice in Ghana mainly focusing on Accra sports stadium,Kumasi sports stadium and Tamale sports stadium.The specific objectives are to determine how restricting maintenance practices such as,absence of maintenance policy(AMP);ignoring maintenance responsibility(IMR)and poor infrastructure design(PID)affect stadia facilities in Ghana.Data was collected through primary and secondary sources based on the requirements of the research.The sample size targeted was 450 but 400 respondents were collected.A Selfadministered questionnaire was used to collect primary data after a pilot test.The data were described using frequency distribution and percentages.Statistics analysis such as reliability test analysis and factor analysis along with correlation analysis was conducted to discover how variables were related and findings were reliable.In order to justify the research objective of this study,multiple regressions were conducted.Findings from multiple regression analysis indicated that there is a positive significant linear relationship between restricting maintenance management practices(absence of maintenance policy(AMP),ignoring maintenance responsibility(IMR)and poor infrastructure design(PID)and poor public infrastructure(stadia)in Ghana due to the fact that restricting maintenance practices affects the betterment of the stadia leading to deterioration.The results derived from the mediating analysis revealed that the complete pathway from the AMP(independent variable)to BR(mediator)and the PPI(dependent variable)is significant with(z = 3.642,p =.000)and IMR with the result(z = 0.74,p =.463).Though the IRM complete pathway to the BR and the dependent variable was insignificant,and the BR which partially mediates the pathway from AMP to the dependent variable was accepted.The outcome specified that the independent variables contribute directly in clarifying the variation in the influence of poor public infrastructure,specifically stadia and indirectly through the budget restriction(BR).The study recommends that,there should be a maintenance policy that compels stakeholders to be accountable for ignoring maintenance responsibility.Also,the policy should outline the necessary measures such as planning of inspection,keeping of records on equipment and regular training session to be abreast of good maintenance practices in facility management.