Selorm Ameteywee, a Safety Expert has called on Parliament to pass the Health and Safety Bill currently before the House.
His comments comes weeks after an unfortunate disaster that nearly wiped out a whole community of Appiaste near Bogoso of the Western Region leaving, 14 people dead, and a number of other injured.
Speaking to Spice 91.9 FM, Ameteywee said the passing of the Health and Safety bill will help forestall such occurrences.
He posits that as a matter of priority the government should consolidate all legislation from other industry would help industry players know where to access laws governing occupational Health and Safety.
“Government must look at the bigger picture. That bill that is sitting in Parliament needs to be passed. Some of us have raised concern about the framework of our legal system.
Rather than leaving the legal framework being scattered in the control of various ministries, departments and agencies, we should rather have a single basic legal framework where there’s one authority in charge of Health and Safety in Ghana.
That authority would be enacted by an act of Parliament.” he said.
In April 2019, Ignatius Baffour Awuah, the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations said Parliament will pass the Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Bill into law by the end of the year as part of efforts to promote workplace health and safety.
The bill, among other things in accordance with the Labour Act, will be obligatory on the employer to ensure the health, safety and welfare of persons at the workplace by minimizing the causes of hadzards inherent in the working environment.
Selorm was however quick to add that “the government should use this explosion as a trigger to look at the entire legal framework and ensure that the national system is right, other than that the mining sector would improve at the expense of other industries such as the oil and gas, construction amongst others”.
