Thursday, Sep 13, 2012
Abu Dhabi: The Municipality of Abu Dhabi City, Health Safety and Environment Division (HSE), has recently launched inspection campaigns of residential workers’ complexes in both residential and construction sites to verify the implementation of HSE standards and measures.
“We are keen to implement HSE standards at all construction sites and affiliated camps, including workers quarters and mass residential communities to ensure a safe, stable and healthy living environment for workers,” said engineer Salah Awad Al Sarraj, acting executive director of Town Planning. “We have already inspected thousands of sites and facilities in parallel with the ongoing education programmes for workers.
“These campaigns will also raise and reinforce the HSE standards among the consultants and contractors, help creating partnerships with them and encourage their cooperation to deliver lectures, print brochures and include HSE standards in their websites,” he added.
Al Sarraj called on all consultancy offices, contractors and workers at sites to take these inspections seriously in order to realise the highest safety standards and eliminate any hazards.
“Along with these campaigns, we have also launched guideline manuals for workers. The inspection teams made sure that HSE-related offences in these camps were dealt with and they made recommendations to improve the living arrangements,” said engineer Abdul Aziz Zurub, director of health, safety and environment at Abu Dhabi City Municipality.
An official from HSE told Gulf News, on condition of anonymity, that these inspections were also aimed at catching any illegally harboured workers in camps.
“We have noticed lately that workers in groups fall ill with common symptoms. Our investigation revealed they catch it from either a newcomer who didn’t yet have his medical check or from a worker whose residency expired and didn’t run any medical tests so we started to conduct regular and surprise inspections,” he said.
Gulf News reported in mid July that seven workers of a construction contracting company in Al Ruwais in the Western Region fell ill due to a suspected food poisoning incident following dinner in their accommodation.
The incident resulted in two deaths and caused widespread panic among hundreds of workers in the Western Region.
Gulf News also reported on March 28, 2011, that 243 workers fell ill due to food poisoning at a labour accommodation in Madinath Zayed in the Western Region of Abu Dhabi.
Following the incident Abu Dhabi Food Control Authority (ADFCA) inspected all 340 kitchens in worker accommodation in the Western Region and had closed down the unlicensed catering unit at the labour accommodation of the prominent construction company where the two fatalities occurred.
The subsequent inspection campaign conducted by the authority found that kitchens in 67 out of 79 worker accommodation in the Western Region did not have a proper licence.
Only 12 worker accommodation had the kitchens run by licenced catering companies though with some discovered discrepancies.
By Iman Sherif Staff Reporter
Gulf News 2012. All rights reserved.
