Bookmark & Share
DESPITE a busy 2008 churning out rigs for the global oil and gas industry, Keppel Corp's offshore and marine (O&M) division maintained high safety standards, making it a big winner at the Annual Workplace Safety and Health (WSH) Awards held yesterday by the WSH Council and the Ministry of Manpower.
'Since our WSH reform in 2005, we have managed to reduce the work fatality rate more than 40 per cent from 4.9 per 100,000 employees in 2004 to 2.8 last year,' Manpower Minister Gan Kim Yong said at the awards, which recognises companies that have implemented sound safety and health management systems. 'However, to bring the rate down further to lead in global standards will require a strong WSH culture across our workplaces.'
The 36 work-related fatalities up to June 30 this year exceeded the 32 in the same period last year, he noted.
Keppel Corp stood out in the awards, gaining 18 safety accolades - the largest number of any entrant. The group's O&M division collected awards for newbuild and conversion projects without incident, while two of its supervisors were singled out for exemplary safety leadership. The division's specialised shipbuilding unit Keppel Singmarine won the Silver Award for WSH Performance for the third year in a row. 'At Keppel, we continue to focus on promoting individual and collective responsibility to ensure workplace safety,' said CEO Choo Chiau Beng. 'We believe that everyone must embrace safety as a way of life.'
Through sustained and systematic efforts, Keppel maintained a low accident rate of 0.4 reportable cases for every million man-hours worked last year, which was was further reduced to 0.36 in the first half of this year for Singapore operations.
Keppel spent $17.5 million last year on workforce safety training to improve standards at its yards, offices and plants in Singapore.
Search Property News
