still remains that injuries and accidents occurs in these factories daily and in many cases they are never recorded. The quest to know the extent to which safety legislations and regulations are enforced and how effectively safety inspections are carried out prompted the need to examine the role and activities of the Department of Factories Inspectorate (DFI) in the Tema Industrial Are. The efficiency and effectiveness of any safety regimes in industry depends to a large extent on how effective the statutory agencies responsible for inspection and enforcement perform their function in promoting workplace safety and health. The critical issue for this paper therefore is to examine the role of the Department of Factories Inspectorate, which is mandated by law (the Factories Act) to inspect and enforce safety legislations and regulations in Ghanaian workplaces. What is the role of the DFI in promoting workplace safety and health in Ghanaian factories? What goes into the inspection and enforcement functions of the DFI? What are some of the challenges faced by the DFI in its operations? How effective is the DFI in its activities and how does it affect workplace safety and accidents? Answers to these questions constitute the thrust of this paper.
METHODOLOGY
The field work on which this paper is based was conducted at the Department of Factories Inspectorate in the Tema Industrial Area. To enhance and enrich the quality of data, both the qualitative and the quantitative methods were used. The instruments of data collection included semi-structured questionnaires that were administered to the employees of the Pioneer Food cannery, key informant interviews with supervisors of the company and officials of Department of Factories Inspectorate in Tema and a two-day non-participant observation in the factory. Key informant interview was conducted with officials of the Factories Inspectorate Division in Tema