OHSA lax on construction site inspections, workers’ safety study shows

The National Audit Office has expressed reservations on the Occupational Health and Safety Authority’s practice of not carrying out exhaustive inspection visits on construction sites.

This concern, part of a study released by the NAO, is further compounded by the fact that there is no rigid and comprehensive system to assess the competence of project supervisors assigned to make sure health and safety rules are observed.

Workers engaged in the local construction industry are the most at risk of suffering occupational accidents when compared to others working in other industrial sectors.

A statistical analysis by the NAO tested the number of hours worked, weather variables and age of workers, to study the effects they had on the risk of an occupational accident within the construction industry. Results showed that only heat is strongly correlated with the occurrence of occupational accidents in the construction industry, which factor explains 31.5% variability in accident rates.

The NAO said in its study that there was cultural disregard to occupational health and safety (OHS) and regulatory slack that could only explain the remaining 68.5% of the variability in accident rates.

“While OHSA’s educational function are commended, the authority should tighten and step-up its regulatory function through a thorough change in its operational philosophy, particularly by adopting a more pro-active and meticulous monitoring system together with stronger enforcement. This is key to addressing a local cultural disregard to OHS,” the NAO said.

The OHSA does not even possess a comprehensive electronic data system that keeps its information in a fragmented manner.

“This, in NAO’s opinion, creates gaps in the authority’s knowledge base with negative repercussions to its operational processes. Through the current construction notification system, OHSA only has the potential visibility on projects which exceed a set threshold in terms of duration of works and number of workers deployed simultaneously.”

Apart from the fact that compliance to the current notification obligation is not comprehensively registered by the local industry, the NAO said that this set standard restricted OHSA’s information base, particularly as the local scenario may significantly feature smaller scale projects. 

The NAO also found disproportionality between the fines imposed for occupational health and safety breaches and the significantly higher costs attributed to the implementation of adequate OHS measures

“The level of permissible financial penalties, both in the form of administrative fines as well as the minimum imposable fines should a case be taken to the Courts of Justice, are completely incommensurate to the nature of some of the infringements they are intended to deter,” the NAO said.

“This significant difference between the enforceable fines and OHS related costs, may be incentivising duty holders to forego the implementation of adequate OHS measures and ‘risking’ a relatively minimal fine if detected by OHSA’s inspectorate staff.”

The NAO also acknowledge external factors, such as innate cultural disregard to OHS considerations, legal constraints and other compounding factors – such as the considerable presence of irregular workers within this industry – that were creating a regulatory conundrum which is not easily overcome.

“The significant shortage in the quantity of inspectorate staff (compared to international standards) at OHSA’s disposal, further adds unwarranted pressure on the Authority’s operations and creates gaps in the latter’s potential coverage.”