Eastern corridor road project is accident free

Multinational Brazilian companies working on the 695.6-kilometre Eastern Corridor Road project, have achieved four million man-hours without any accident, Otavio Schaitza, in charge of Communications for the project has said.

The Odebrecht Engineering and Construction International and Andrade Gutierrez are the consortium with more than over 65 years’ experience in the construction industry working on the national route N2 starting from Tema roundabout to Kulungugu, North-Eastern border with Burkina Faso.

Schaitza said in a statement issued in Accra and copied to the Ghana News Agency said in March this year, the Eastern Corridor Road Project Team realised four million man-hours “without a single accident resulting in grave injury.”

The communication official attributed the outcome to good safety education and practices that resulted in having more than 30,000 man-hours in training sessions.

The companies also uses collective protection equipment that create safe work environment for workers.

“The Joint Venture Partners commit to international best practices in upholding safety of their employees and when they are employed, they are made to go through more than 30 man-hours training sessions in work safety education, best work practices, how to use collective protection equipment and how to create a safe work environment for all workers,” the statement said.

“According to various international safety organisations, falls from height, trench and scaffold collapse, electric shock, arc flash or blast, failure to use proper personal protective equipment and repetitive motion injuries are common causes of accidents recorded on construction sites,” it added.

Benjamin Manu, an employee who operates one of the heavy duty equipment used in the construction of the road was quoted as saying: “We undergo a lot of training on health and safety; our employers are very thorough on that.”

“They teach us how to operate our equipment well, safety procedures for situations like work in heights, use of electricity and use of power tools. The equipment we also use are state-of-the-art and in very good conditions.”

The eastern road is conceived as a north-south trade corridor, providing a shorter access to Tema Port and improving integration between Upper East, Northern and Volta regions also between Ghana and Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.

The Ministry of Roads and Highways awarded the rehabilitation and improvement works of Lots five and six of the Corridor- a 209 km passing through the towns of Damanko, Bimbilla, Yendi, Gushegu and Gbintiri, as well as 63 other communities- to the Joint Venture Eastern Corridor Road.