Pass safety bill – Labour Ministry

The Factories Inspectorate Division of the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations, has called on parliament to pass the Occupational Health and Safety Bill into law to help reduce the spate of industrial accidents.

The call comes days after a factory worker in Tema lost an arm while at work.

The Tema Regional Director of the Factories Inspectorate Division, Dr. Stephen Ankamah-Lomotey, believes factory owners are not adhering to safety regulations due to the laxity of the existing laws.

Speaking to Class News, he said it is important parliament passes the new bill to deal with the problem.

He said: “We’ve been struggling with it since the year 2000, what exactly is holding the whole thing because people are dying in industries. We’re limited in some areas of our mandate.

“If a particular machine is hazardous and you want to prohibit the use of it, we don’t have this prohibition notice in our Act and that makes our Act deficient.

“Apart from the fact that it should be compulsory for every industry to have a safety officer, which is captured in the new bill but not in the old one we are using, what impedes our progress is: we don’t have cars to move out – the necessary monitoring support.

“What is holding the national policy on operational health and safety? Because without that most industries are not complying with the fact that they have to get a safety policy, they have to get a well-structured safety management system and the rest, because there is nothing so binding.”