One of the country’s leading occupational safety and health specialists has told Stabroek Business that government and the private sector must share the blame for the fact that insofar as local safety and health standards are concerned, “as a country, we are in a bad way”.
Director of Optimum Safety Solutions Dale Beresford said that while well over a decade has gone by since the passage of the 1997 Occupational Safety and Health Act in the National Assembly, the failure of the government to enforce the provisions of the legislation has resulted in an unacceptable indifference to safety and health issues on the part of the private sector.
“At a very basic level we are not even able to ensure that workplaces have safety and health committees in place, which is a requirement under the law,” Beresford said.
“We speak in glowing terms about our construction industry and how well it is doing. What we do not say is that there are construction workers who work without even the most basic safety and protective gear; more than that there are construction sites all across the country that take no account of the safety of people who may have to be in the same area.
“The irony of our situation is that while we aspire to the development associated with building modern, fine-looking structures we have tended to overlook the fact that the bigger, more complex the structures, the more important it is that we pay attention to considerations of safety and health.”
According to Beresford, the chronic indifference to issues of safety and health is across the board.
“The truth is that the government, that is, the Ministry of Labour, lacks the capacity to properly enforce the provisions of the Occupational Health and Safety Act. On the one hand there are simply not enough people to go around. On the other hand many of the people who work in the system are not sufficiently adequately qualified,” he said.
He said that sections of the private sector have long been unmindful of the importance of safety and health issues. “Much of the problem has to do with the fact that many private sector entities have become thoroughly preoccupied with profit so that they have little concern for the safety and health of their workers. When you visit some private sector workplaces you find that the physical conditions of work are harsh, to say the least. We have cases in which women are made to stand and work for hours, or else to occupy uncomfortable seating. More than that you find as well that there are some dangerous workplaces in which there is an absence of even the most basic safety equipment.”
Beresford said that there was particular reason to be concerned over safety and health standards in the agricultural sector where the improper application of chemicals and the application of chemicals by children had become commonplace.
Meanwhile, the Occupational Safety and Health expert told Stabroek Business that while much regulatory work had been done to improve standards in the food vending industry, more work still needed to be done. “There has been some improvement in standards through efforts that have been made to ensure compliance among roadside vendors. As far as restaurants are concerned we still have reason to worry,” he said.
Beresford told Stabroek Business that part of his own concern had to do with the fact the planning associated with the setting up of businesses did not take sufficient account of considerations of safety and health. “After more than a decade of existing legislation we really ought not to find ourselves in a situation where we have to grant business houses more time to get themselves in order. That would be no more than an excuse for our failure to enforce the law,” Beresford said.
On Wednesday, September 26, Occupational Safety Solutions will host a two-day safety and health workshop for middle managers in the public and private sectors. Beresford told Stabroek Business that next week’s workshop was aimed at sensitizing managers to the importance of observing safety and health regulations and to having on-site mechanisms in place to deal with safety and health issues.
