The head of occupational health and safety in Bahrain’s Labour Ministry has conceded that penalties for breaking safety regulations in the Kingdom are not stiff enough.
In an exclusive interview with Construction Week, safety head Ali Abdulla Makki said the maximum penalty a contractor can face for poor safety is US $795 (BHD 300) per worker injured.
“This is one of the biggest vague areas in the labour law for the time being because they will not deal with an accident as a criminal case,” he said.
“The amount of penalties we have now is not fair. It is not fair at all.
“If a contractor knows they are not complying with safety laws and there is a high risk to allow people to go up dangerous scaffolding and the labourer could be killed then this is criminal.”
Makki said the Labour Ministry’s subcommittee for occupational safety has made a proposal to the Minister to have the laws reviewed to include harsher penalties for rogue contractors including imprisonment.
In October two workers from India and one from Bangladesh died after unsafe scaffolding they were working on collapsed from the 7th floor of the building.
The contractor, Al Hidaya Construction Company, had their worksite temporarily closed but did not face any criminal charges under Bahrain’s current legislation.
Makki said a total of 37 construction workers have died in work-related accidents in Bahrain this year and he hopes harsher penalties for safety breeches would bring numbers down.
He said the government has already helped reduce construction casualties through the strict enforcement of the midday summer work ban. The ban was brought in during 2007 and ensures workers take a four hour break from noon to 4pm during the hottest two months of summer.
“Before the ban was introduced we would get between 12 to 18 cases (deaths) during this period because workers at height with heat stress will fall,” Makki said.
“In 2007 we only reported four cases. In 2008 we started a safety awareness campaign to go parallel with the heat ban with around 12 or 13 weekly workshops on different sites.
“I think this made a big difference because this year we had zero record of fatalities, before the work ban there was one case and directly after that period, cases started again.”
Makki said the success of the educational campaign has encouraged them to make it a focus for 2009 with plans to hold monthly awareness campaigns throughout the year.
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