Accredited safety officers must for Dubai companies

Companies in Dubai will be required to appoint safety officers accredited by the emirate’s municipality to avoid worksite accidents, a senior official said on Sunday.

The municipality’s announcement follows the death of 50 workers and injuries to over 420 others from the construction and industrial sectors last year.

The new regulation will come into effect by this yearend and will specify the number of safety officers mandatory for companies depending on their number of employees and risks involved in their operations, said Raed Al Marzouqi, who heads the Occupational Health and Safety Section at the Department of Public Health and Safety.

“The accredited safety officers will be responsible for overall safety aspects in their companies and they have to take preventive measures to avoid work site accidents and hazards,” said Al Marzouqi.

He said that these officers would be legally held responsible for lapses in safety at their worksites.

The official was speaking on the sidelines of a seminar held to celebrate International Labour Day and the World Day for Safety and Health at Work.

Mean while, Alya Ismail Al Marzouqi, head of the Inspecting Entities’ Accreditation Section of the Accreditation Department at the Dubai Municipality, said the contractors and consultants in the construction sites must also get accreditation certificate from authorised entities.

Alya said this certification is very important as it has a big role in ensuring the safety and security as well as reducing the accidents in construction sites.

She said the decision followed one of the accidents happened in a construction site resulting in big losses and injuries due to the fault in fixing the scaffoldings by labourers.

However, the Director of the Public Health and Safety Department Redha Hassan Salman said the number of workers’ deaths and injuries due to worksite accidents in construction and industrial sectors recorded in 2011 had come down from the figures in 2010.

sajila@khaleejtimes.com