9,000 safety and health officers needed
BANGI: At least 9,000 safety and health officers (SHOs) are needed to cater to the increasing workforce and new development projects nationwide.
National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (Niosh) chairman Tan Sri Lee Lam Thye said the Occupational Safety and Health Department’s (Dosh) records showed that only 5,984 SHOs had registered and received their licence from the department as of last year.
He said more than half of them were inactive or had yet to renew their licence this year.
“We must encourage more employers to help groom SHOs as they need to get certified training from Niosh and have at least three years of experience before they can apply for the licence from Dosh,” Lee said at the soft launch of the Conference and Exhibition on Occupational Safety and Health (Cosh) 2017 at Niosh headquarters here yesterday.
It was reported that there were more than 14 million workers in the country last year and the number was expected to increase with the progress of mega projects, such as the Pengerang Integrated Petroleum Complex in Johor and PanBorneo Highway in Sarawak, apart from the proposed East Coast Rail Line and Singapore-KL High Speed Rail.
Lee said SHOs could help reduce the rate of fatal industrial accidents to 2.81 per 100,000 workers in 2020 from 4.84 per 100,000 workers in 2015, as targeted by the Human Resources Ministry.
In 2006, he said, the accident rate at workplaces was 4.77 per 1,000 workers before it dropped to 3.10 per 1,000 workers in 2014 and 2.81 per 1,000 workers in 2015.
“Our achievements in reducing fatal accidents is significant as we recorded 7.24 fatal industrial accidents for every 100,000 workers in 2006.”
Under the OSH Master Plan, the Human Resources Ministry has set the goal to reduce accidents at workplaces to only two cases per 1,000 workers by the year 2020.
On Cosh 2017, themed “OSH Sustainability through Professionalism”, he said about 1,200 local and foreign participants would attend in the two-day event, starting Sept 18 at the Putrajaya International Convention Centre. Bernama