Ministry of Manpower to intensify surprise work safety probe

The construction sector had 9 fatalities at work and MoM is immensely worried.

In a release, the Ministry of Manpower’s (MOM) Occupational Safety & Health Inspectorate (OSHI) will be stepping up surprise inspections island-wide at all worksites, while the Workplace Safety & Health (WSH) Council, Singapore Contractors Association Limited (SCAL) and Real Estate Developers’ Association of Singapore (REDAS) have called on the industry to conduct management inspections and a “Safety Time-out” on their sites. This is aimed at addressing the recent spate of 6 serious construction-related accidents over the past month, which have resulted in 5 fatalities and several others injured.

MOM’s preliminary investigations have shown that the lapses that led to these accidents and fatalities were due to the failure to implement control measures and failure to ensure adequate supervision of work. These accidents could have been prevented with proper risk management.

In order to address these worrying lapses, MOM will be stepping up the number of inspections, particularly for the construction sector. MOM’s OSHI officers will be conducting these inspections island-wide to identify workplace safety and health risks. These inspections will focus on 3 main work activities, namely demolition, formwork and working at heights, and will cover other workplace safety and health measures.

MOM’s Director of Occupational Safety and Health Inspectorate Mr Kevin Teoh said, “Based on our preliminary investigations, these recent workplace accidents could have been prevented if each stakeholder had put in greater effort to assess the risks as well as check and review procedures before carrying out work, particularly for the construction industry. What is more worrying is that these accidents over the past month were serious and the number of workers injured or even killed could have been higher."

The recent spate of accidents occurred even as we saw the rate of construction fatalities and accidents decline earlier in the year. In the first half of 2012, the construction sector saw nine workplace deaths, at a rate of 2.2 deaths per 100,000 employed persons, compared to 12 fatalities at a rate of 3.2 deaths per 100,000 employed persons in 2011.