XN000022-1996-02-08 — Page 5

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However, he added, pressure on completing tasks in the least possible time must not, under any circumstances, be taken as an excuse for compromising construction safety.

"We want to see completion at the least possible cost, not only in monetary term but also in terms of injuries and fatalities during construction," he said.

Also speaking at the award presentation, the Secretary for Works, Mr H S Kwong, said the joint efforts by the Government and ACP contractors in construction safety had produced positive results but more needed to be done.

Looking ahead, he said the Government was taking action to step up the various effective safety measures that were already in place to maintain the improving trend and to achieve the safety targets. These include:

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Distributing souvenirs bearing the "safety first" message to workers at ACP sites to improve their safety awareness;

Introducing a new report on contractors' performance which will highlight the importance of safety among other contract requirements. Contractors with a poor safety performance will be given ratings which will lead to suspension in tendering Government contracts; and

Introducing in new Public Works Programme contracts a Pay for Safety Scheme to reward those contractors who comply with safety requirements, and to punish those who do not.

He said the fatal and non-fatal accident rates of ACP contracts in 1995 were 0.6 fatalities per thousand workers per year and 62 accidents per thousand workers per year respectively.

The rates were five per cent and 33 per cent respectively lower than the rates of ACP contracts in 1994.

"The improvements were achieved despite a more than 50 per cent increase in the labour force. For comparison, the corresponding fatal and non-fatal accident rates for the construction industry as a whole were 0.85 and 274 in 1994," he said.

Despite the improvement, Mr Kwong said, the overall ACP accident rates were still higher than the target of zero fatality and less than 60 reportable accidents per thousand workers per year.