Building safeguards
ming under scrutiny in recent years, the relevant authorities are ices that are deemed dangerous.
Measures are already under way to bring about a strong culture of safety that will minimise accidents in the construction industry.
ow to properly conduct a lifting operaraining centre. lifting is one of the highs. quite often senior managers of the construction industry fail to understand the benefits of OSH programmes, and how it could increase productivity, thus leading to inadequate provision during budgeting and unclear specifications on OSH requirements at construction sites.
In this regard, the government is cognisant that change would have to begin from the highest levels of the industry, as it has been said that “a project starts well before ground is broken”.
MRT leads the way
Some good news is emerging as far as major infrastructure projects are concerned. For example, the country’s largest infrastructure project at the moment, the Klang Valley MRT (KVMRT) project, is being turned into an example of how to do things right, especially for Line 2, which is also known as the Sungai Buloh-Serdang-Putrajaya (SSP) line.
The project owner is Finance Ministry-owned Mass Rapid Transit Corporation Sdn Bhd (MRTC), which has appointed MMC-Gamuda KVMRT PDP SSP Sdn Bhd (MGJV PDP-SSP) as the project delivery partner (PDP) to oversee at least 91 tenders for the Sungai Buloh-Kajang line alone, while 21 tenders had already been awarded for the SSP Line.
MRTC’s SSP project director Datuk Amiruddin Ma’aris said the safety initiatives were important as the construction work is mainly in populated areas.
“The construction of this huge infrastructure project will involve heavy work in an extremely challenging urban environment where there is concern over safety. This is why MRTC and our Project Delivery Partner have designed initiatives to address these worries,” he said at a media briefing at KVMRT’s purpose built construction competency and safety training centre at Sungai Buloh, Selangor recently.
The training centre was completed last year at a cost of RM10mil, and is accredited by CIDB and the National Institute of Occupation Safety and Health (Niosh) to conduct training for construction workers as well as supervisors.
Areas of training cover OSH matters as well as imparting skills for specific high-risk jobs, such as operating a mobile crane.
Experience from building Line 1 or the Sungai Buloh-Kajang line of the KVMRT has shown that the majority of construction accidents tend to happen during lifting operations, or workers falling from heights (anything more than two metres).
Following the opening of the training centre, contractors for KVMRT projects must send their workers for safety induction courses.
Workers without the “entry level” certification, also known as the Green Card, will sit for classroom lessons to qualify for one.
However, as it is known that there are quite a number of fake Green Cards in circulation, a deed committed by irresponsible contractors who hire cheap labour.
To counter this, MRTC and MGJV PDP-SSP are upping the game by demanding that those who enter its sites must carry a Safety Passport. To be eligible for a Safety Passport, the candidate must have a valid Green Card, which has a hologram embedded into it.
The “entry level” passport is known as the Blue Card, which is a new requirement for anyone who enters any KVMRT site.
“The Blue Card system bypasses the problem of undocumented workers or those with fake Green Cards. During inspections, those without the Safety Passport can be immediately identified and removed,” said Amiruddin.
Arrangements have also been made to ensure that subcontractors, crane companies, transporters and suppliers also receive adequate training.
For example, the training centre offers free courses for crane operators to ensure they are totally competent to manoeuvre a crane during lifting, considered as one of the most high-risk activity in construction.
“This is on top of the basic requirement of having the public service vehicle licence,” said Amiruddin, adding that his goal is to train more than 400 crane operators who will be working at the height the KVMRT construction.
There is also transformation at the highest levels of project management with MRTC and MGJV PDPSSP imposing higher safety-related requirements on those intending to bid for contracts for the SSP line.
For example, the use of tubular scaffolding will no longer be percover > TURN TO PAGE 10