By Olabisi Olaleye, [email protected] 08094000013, 08111813040
WITH the success story of almost all the sectors in the coiuntry particularly telecommunications industry, many may not be aware that several lives at one time or the other have been lost at elevated positions.
Fall hazards are present in almost every sites and many workers are exposed and prone to danger.
Statistics have it that 20 per cent out of 58 per cent hazards involve people falling from ladders in Lagos. Invariably,a couple of 100 people dying everyday from elevated positions.
Experts noted that the real enemy of safety is neglect and non compliance . They also identified various factors leading to these death toll to include state of the economy,substandard products, lack of training equipments, poor perception by some companies to safety at elevated positions ,lack of information and training.
According to one of such experts, Business Development Manager, West Africa Height Safety Ltd , Mr Andre Van Dyk, concept of safety in Africa especially Nigeria is under developed coupled with the high level of unemplyment, which allows easy replacement of injured site workers.
He however maintained that office safety managers need to enforce safety and that the principlce of training is to train a learner in his workplace.
Another expert, Mr Jude Iorember disclosed that until companies start placing priories on lives and safety will death toll become history.
According to him, many companies and individuals believe in saving cost in buying equipments, which is quite good but not at the detriment of safety.
Van Dyk further stated that the concept of Heightsafety is relatively new and have been able to train over 20,000 people to meet the national qualifications frame work in the last five years.
He hinted that 95 per cent of the time, body recoveries are being done at various sites because of fall hazards that could have been avaoided owing to trainings and retraining of mounting elevated positions. Stressing that working in elevated position is West Africa Height Safety priority and that safety does not come cheap.
Although, the experts said that UK, Dubai and South Africa are known for safety trainings until recently that West Africa Height Safety Ltd came into the country. The company is a member of Institute of Safety Professionals of Nigeria(Ispon),Services Education Training Authority(SETA),Institute of Working for Hights (IWHS) and specialises in the services and product delivery of all aspects of safe workings at height.
