XN000022-1995-03-22 — Page 3

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Govt takes further steps to improve airport site safety

The Government is continuing to introduce new initiatives to further step up safety on the Airport Core Programme (ACP) sites, the Secretary for Works, Mr James Blake, said today (Wednesday).

He was speaking at the award-presentation ceremony of the 1994 ACP Construction Safety Award Scheme organised by the New Airport Projects Co- ordination Office (NAPCO).

Mr Blake said the new arrangements were designed to maintain the improving trend and to achieve the ACP safety targets. These new arrangements include:

project offices to appoint more site staff to manage safety on ACP sites;

Labour Department to assign more factory inspectors to its ACP team;

Works Branch to introduce regulatory action against contractors who have high accident rates.

Mr Blake said considerable effort had been made last year to further enhance safety management and practices on ACP sites.

The safety efforts of all parties concerned had produced positive results and an improving trend was maintained, he said.

JI

The fatal accident rate and non-fatal accident rate for ACP contracts in 1994 was 0.6 fatalities per thousand workers per year and 92 accidents per thousand workers per year, which was 38 per cent and 12 per cent respectively lower than the figures in 1993.

"These improvements were achieved despite an increase in the labour force of about 60 per cent. The corresponding fatal and non-fatal accident rates for the construction industry as a whole were 1.4 and 294 in 1993," he said.

However, despite the improving trend, the ACP safety results were still not good enough, Mr Blake said.

"They are still slightly higher than our targets, and it is clear that these very stringent targets for ACP will only be achieved if everybody involved - contractors, workers, consultants and Government staff alike - increase their safety endeavours still further," he said.