In what was considered to be, perhaps, the worst year for on-the-job fatalities in living memory, 2015 saw the loss of 23 lives in workplace accidents, most if not all of which were widely believed to have been avoidable.
And in a year when intensified gold-mining activities were believed to have witnessed a reduced focus on mine site safety, more than half of those fatalities occurred in the mining sector.
Statistics compiled by the Ministry of Social Protection and seen by this newspaper indicate that the single biggest of these tragedies occurred on May 17 last year when a pit caved in at the Imran Khan Mining Camp at Mowsie Backdam in Region Eight claimed the lives of ten mining sector employees. Two weeks later, on May 31, another miner died in a separate pit cave in at the same mining operation. Four more fatalities in the mining sector resulting from pit cave ins were recorded in separate incidents last year.
According to the ministry’s record of workplace fatalities in 2015, one fatality each was recorded at Gafoor Industries, Caricom Rice Mills, Arjun Trucking Services, GTM, Golden Grove Rice Mills and China Harbour.
Under the previous political administration, the then Ministry of Labour had come under fire for what was felt to be official indifference to enforcing workplace safety and health rules and protocols. The mining sector, particularly, had come under fire over allegations that ‘gold fever’ had led to an absence of mindfulness of workers’ safety among mines managers, a point which was restated by Minister in the Ministry of Natural Resources Simona Broomes during her tenure at the Ministry of Social Protection.
Interestingly, Broomes’ reassignment to the Natural Resources Ministry means that while mining falls under the portfolio of Natural Resources and Environment Minister Raphael Trotman, she keeps much of the responsibility for safety in the mining sector. A few weeks ago, following a visit to Mahdia, Broomes restated her intention to work with the sector to improve safety and health standards.
The ministry’s report, meanwhile, makes no mention of the status of the various reports that ought, correctly, to come out of workplace accidents, including matters of causes and compensation. Stabroek Business understands that official investigations into many of these accidents and the settlement of compensation issues, where applicable, remain incomplete and that the settlement of most workplace accidents eventually end up being bilateral matters.
