EVEN though property owners are required to notify the Ministry of Labour (MoL) when construction is ongoing at a site, so that the ministry ensures compliance with Occupational, Health and Safety (OSH) measures, this is rarely ever done. This limits the ability of the MoL to only being able to visit and monitor construction sites that are observed, or have been reported, notes Ministry of Labour, OSH Consultant, Gwendolyn King. “The owner should inform the ministry when they are about to start construction work, but that doesn’t always happen. But when you go out there you would see, because it’s not something to hide,” King noted during an interview with the Guyana Chronicle on Thursday. Nonetheless, she said the OSH Department has, over the past few months, inspected a number of sites, and would have halted work where proper safety measures were not being observed. “Last month we stopped work at a construction site in Charlestown; the employer did not provide the requisite personal protective equipment (PPE),” King said. “It had to do with the scaffolding and workers working there without the harness, so work was stopped, and within two or three days, they provided the necessaries, and the work restarted,” she explained.

She further noted: “In Region One last week, there was a construction site where the [OSH] officer visited, and he made certain recommendations, too. He stopped work in one area, because he needed them to comply with the health and safety requirement.” Lack of proper safety equipment being worn by workers on construction sites is common in Guyana, despite the law requiring that all workers be outfitted before being allowed on the sites. While employers are required to ensure the workers wear the gear, there are complaints of objections from the workers against donning them. In Guyana, to some extent, there is a culture of a lack of safety consciousness on the job.
King’s observation follows the death of 25-year-old construction worker, Lloyd Feroze on Wednesday, after he fell from the fifth floor of a six-storey building being constructed on Regent Street, Georgetown. According to a police report, the building is owned by local businessman and publisher of the Kaieteur News, Mr. Glenn Lall.
King said that to the best of her knowledge, the site was never reported or visited.

NOT WEARING SAFETY EQUIPMENT
Feroze, called “Tony”, of Sisters Village, West Bank Demerara, sustained several puncture wounds to the head and body after he fell through an open space in the floor. According to reports, Feroze was not wearing safety equipment at the time. According to the report, also, Feroze had been working at the site as a labourer, and was employed by one Mr. Peter Ramdoo, a foreman of Skull City, Patentia, West Bank Demerara, who had been contracted by Lall to construct the building. The industrial accident comes just days after the Caribbean Office of the International Labour Organisation held a webinar on Construction Safety. It also occurred as the MoL is concluding it’s celebrations of OSH Month, where Minister of Labour, Joseph Hamilton had highlighted construction sites as one of the areas greatly in need of improved OSH monitoring and enforcement. King said the ministry’s OSH Department has already launched an investigation into Wednesday’s accident. “Our concern,” she said, “is that we must prevent the recurrence of similar accidents, so we do an investigation. The investigation will comprise a visit to the site, taking pictures, interviewing those people who were around and might have heard or seen something.

Then we come up with what might have caused the accident. We are going through that kind of process right now.” The report will tell whether or not Feroze’s death was preventable, and guide the MoL with regards to sanction. King acknowledged, however, that the current penalties stipulated in the law for OSH infractions are insufficient, and that steps are being made to rectify this. “The penalties range from $10,000 to $50,000. We’re reviewing all of those things right now, because we found that the fines are not a deterrent to people to not do what they’re not supposed to do,” she explained. On the issue of compensation, King noted that the ministry’s portfolio does not cover that aspect. “We have no legal authority to deal with compensation; compensation has to do with NIS, if he was a contributor, or the family takes the owner or employer to court, through private action. But we don’t look at that,” King noted.