This article below is the evidence that SAFETY is everyone’s responsibility and everyone is accountable to the charges.

Please ensure there is a proper Risk Assessment identified, reviewed, approved and communicated to the site personnel / workers BEFORE carrying out the work / activity (obtain the signatures after briefing !!)

Read on below.

A lifting supervisor has been sentenced to 4 weeks imprisonment for performing a reckless act that resulted in the death of a worker in October 2007.

Ong Choon Wah was directly in charge of 20 workers who were involved in demolition and structural works.

At the time of the accident, Ong instructed 2 other workers, including the deceased, to help in the lifting of a timber formwork using a mobile crane.

During the lifting, the wire rope used to help in the lifting gave way.

The formwork fell 9 metres and hit one of the workers.

Investigations found that Ong, despite being a trained lifting supervisor, failed to ensure that the two workers involved were trained riggers properly briefed to perform the lifting activity.

He also endangered the safety of the workers involved by exposing them to falling hazards during the lifting.

Ong could have been fined a maximum 200 thousand dollars and jailed for up to two years.

The commissioner for Workplace Safety and Health, Ho Siong Hin, said the the 4-week jail term passed by the Court drives home the gravity of the offence and the onus on supervisors to uphold workplace safety.