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Dennis Jones is a Jamaican-born international economist, who has lived most of the time in the UK and USA, and latterly in Guinea, west Africa. He moved back to the Caribbean in 2007. This blog contains his observations on life on this small eastern Caribbean island, as well as views on life and issues on a broader landscape, especially the Caribbean and Africa.

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Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Public safety: An ounce of prevention


They say that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. So does anyone know why the workmen on the construction site in the picture (part of the UWI Cave Hill complex) are working without hard hats and harnesses? My understanding is that there is an obligation on the contractor to ensure that these aspect of worksite safety are respected. Should there not be an occupational safety officer supervising the site to ensure that this is done? One hopes that it will not take an accident for such basic aspects of worksite safety to be applied.

2 comments:

Jdid said...

are hardhats and safety shoes actually law though?

Dennis Jones said...

Jdid, it's not clear. The Ministry of Labour's website (http://labour.gov.bb/) does not look it has been updated for several years. I do know that an Occupational Health and Safety at Work Act was passed in August 2005, but I have not seen its provisions. The latest information I read indicated that the Act was still lacking the relevant enabling rules and regulations.