By G. Sharmila
Tiger read with great alarm yesterday that over 90% of construction sites inspected during the first five months of 2015 did not comply with safety regulations. With the construction sector being an important contributor to the nation’s GDP, something must be done about this. And soon.
“As soon as you see a mistake and don’t fix it, it becomes your mistake.” – Author Unknown.
There’s plenty of truth in the above quote and the truth really saddened Tiger when she read yesterday an article from newswire Bernama that 92.5% of 3,021 construction sites inspected by the Department of Occupational Safety and Health (Dosh) in the first five months of this year did not comply with regulations set.
This was revealed by Human Resource Minister Richard Riot Jaem, who also said that within the five months, Dosh had issued 2,797 notices, 72 compounds, and brought 63 cases to court.
Today, a report by The Star Online quoted the minister saying that a total of 198 construction workers were killed between 2013 and June this year. He said that the trend is worrying and the ministry will continue to monitor the 4,682 active construction sites nationwide.
What’s more, according to the minister, 53 fatal worksite accidents were recorded for the first five months of this year alone.
Notable fatal worksite accidents this year include the death of a foreign worker, who was killed while working at the Tun Razak Exchange station site of the Klang Valley Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) in May this year. Earlier, in February, a foreign worker was killed at the MRT’s Semantan site.
Azhar Abdul Hamid
Last August, MRT Corp then-chief Azhar Abdul Hamid resigned after three fatalities at its Kota Damansara site, but the company rejected his resignation and he was allowed to stay on. The question is, why has Putrajaya yet to take stern action against MRT Corp despite so many fatalities?
While Tiger commends the work done by Dosh and the ministry as well as their commitment towards solving the problem, the fault also lies with the ministry itself for letting the safety situation with the construction industry get this far. Clearly, enforcement of the safety regulations is the problem.
Tiger doesn’t dispute that errant construction companies are to blame for not complying with safety regulations. They must be strongly dealt with, and swiftly, or else the domestic construction sector risks tarnishing its own image.
Tiger also wonders what the Construction Industry Development Board or CIDB (a statutory body under the Works Ministry) has been doing in the area of quality control concerning the construction industry. On its website, two of CIDB’s stated roles are “to promote and stimulate the development, improvement, and expansion of the construction industry” and “to promote quality assurance in the construction industry”.
One may wonder why Tiger is kicking up such a fuss over quality control in the construction sector.
But the reality is that the construction sector contributed 3.9% to the country’s gross domestic product last year, according to preliminary numbers from the Department of Statistics Malaysia.
Last year, the sector registered a growth of 11.6%, compared to 10.9% in 2013, according to Bank Negara Malaysia’s (BNM) 2014 annual report.
“In 2015, growth is expected to be sustained by the broad-based expansion in the services, manufacturing, and construction sectors that now account for more than two-thirds of the economy,” the BNM report said.
Furthermore, the construction sector is set to be the “ultimate beneficiary” of the 11th Malaysia Plan (11MP) as most of the development expenditure will be infrastructure-centric, according to HLIB Research in a note on May 5. The total government development expenditure under the 11MP is RM250 billion, which is no small amount.
In light of the above, it is time that CIDB takes its role in maintaining the quality control of the construction industry more seriously. The idea is to act towards prevention, not rush to fix the problem, which is what is happening now. If CIDB had been doing its job well in ensuring quality control of the local construction industry in the past three years, maybe the 198 lives could have been saved.
Shame on you, CIDB. And shame on Putrajaya in general for not enforcing safety regulations much, much earlier.
GRRRRR!!!
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