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Speech at Construction WSH Leadership Summit

Mr Lim Swee Say, Minister for Manpower , Grand Corpthrone Waterfront

Workplace safety and health

Mr Hawazi Daipi, SPS for Manpower and Education

Mr Heng Chiang Gnee, Deputy Chairman, WSHC

Mr Kevin Myers, DG Regulation, Health and Safety, UK & Member of WSH International Advisory Panel

Mr Karthikeyan, VP NTUC

Mr John Ng, VP SNEF

Industry Leaders

Ladies and gentlemen

Good morning. I am happy to join you at this Construction WSH Leadership Summit.

  1. Last November, a 60 year old Singaporean lorry crane operator was lifting a load onto the bed of his lorry, when the load fell and pinned him to his seat. He was crushed to death. He left behind a wife and three children.
  2. Just four months ago, a 44 year old foreign construction worker was doing carpentry works on the third storey of a new building. He slipped and fell 9.6m to his death through an opening in between the table formwork. He left behind his father, his wife and two children.
  3. I can cite more cases. These are just two of the 19 fatalities1 in the construction sector in the last 12 months. In fact, just 3 days ago, a 37 year old Singaporean construction supervisor fell to his death from a height of 7.4 m while supervising a group of workers installing brackets onto a wall. It saddens me whenever I hear of such incidents when these deaths could have been prevented, if we all do our parts.

    More action needed in the Construction sector

  4. In 2010, the WSH Council launched a sectoral plan to reduce construction sector workplace fatality rate to 1.8 per 100,000 employed persons by 2018. Since then, fatality rate has dropped from 8.1 to 5.5 per 100,000 workers in 2014. But that still translated to 27 deaths.
  5. We can do better, and we need to double our efforts. I know the construction leaders also share the same view. You have decided collectively to re-commit to reducing workplace fatality rate to less than 1.8 by 2018. This requires a reduction in fatality rate of at least 25% every year for the next three years.

    Tripartite partnership is needed to achieve target

  6. This can only be achieved if we all strive for Vision Zero together. To me, Vision Zero simply means that “Together, every life lost could have been saved”. Over the past eight months, the industry has come together to formulate a series of action plans2 towards Vision Zero. These plans focused on six key areas along the construction life cycle. I will mention just three today.
  7. First, leadership. Leaders need to set the tone and walk the talk to influence the behaviour on the ground. That means developers have to set clear WSH goals and expectations at the start of their projects. For example, aiming for zero fatality in the implementation of the project.
  8. Second, procurement. This is a powerful lever in driving the right WSH behaviour. If developers include WSH conditions when awarding tenders, such as demanding contractors to have a higher level of bizSAFE, then more companies in the construction value chain will have to invest in strengthening their WSH capabilities. Developers will also gain from working with safer and more productive contractors.
  9. Third, Design for Safety or DfS. This means thinking about safety and incorporating safety features right from the design stage. For example, in designing a building with green walls, architects should consider safe access for workers who will be maintaining the plants, such as rotating wall panels for easy pruning and watering. This way, workers will work in a safer environment.
  10. If the construction industry fully executes the action plans in all the six areas, I am sure we can prevent many of the accidents we see today. Our analysis of the construction fatality cases in 20123 shows that 44% or 11 lives could have been saved if DfS was adopted. So, I urge everyone to make serious effort in executing the over 100 action items in your action plans.

    Government supports the construction summit action plans

  11. The Government is committed to support your plans. We first announced our intention to mandate DfS in May last year. Many industry players, such as the contractors welcomed the move. Since then, we worked closely with the industry, including the developers and architects to develop the regulations. I am happy that we are now ready to gazette the Design for Safety Regulations4 under the WSH Act by August 2015. It will take effect a year later. The Regulations will lay out the roles and responsibilities of all parties involved in a construction project. It will be mandatory for projects of contract value of SG$10 million and above.
  12. To support the implementation, we will work with the industry to train 1,000 DfS professionals by 20185. We will also review existing DfS courseware to enable deep skilling of DfS professionals and expand the capacity of training providers.
  13. To encourage a change in work systems and processes, we will pilot the Developer & Designer Early Engagement (D2E2)6 programme with a few key projects. We will work closely with the developers and designers for better safety and health outcomes. In return, MOM will conduct fewer enforcement inspections of the worksite. Findings from the pilot will be shared with the industry so that we can all learn from the best practices in implementing DfS.

    Conclusion

  14. Achieving our collective target of less than 1.8 fatalities per 100,000 workers in the construction sector will be challenging, but must be done. With strong commitment and alignment of efforts, we can transform the entire construction process to be easier, safer and smarter (ESS) for the workers. Let us pursue Vision Zero together, because every life lost could have been saved.
  15. Thank you.

1 There were 19 construction-related fatalities from 1 July 2014 to 30 June 2015.

2 Refer to the Annex A – Executive Summary of the Action Plans for more information.

3 The analysis was done based on 25 construction fatality cases in 2012, which resulted in 26 fatalities in total.

4 For more information on the WSH (DfS) Regulations, refer to Annex B.

5 Refer to Annex C for more information on training support for DfS professionals.

6 For more details on D2E2 programme, refer to Annex D.