‘No business can survive without sound operational risks management’

Femi Young, the executive director of Safety Consultants and Solution Providers Limited, speaks on the forthcoming National Fire Protection Association of West Africa, NFPAWA, conference and why operational risk management is key to business survival

What does the National Fire Protection Association of West Africa, NFPAWA, seek to attain with the 2017 Life, Fire and Safety conference?

It is meant to bridge the knowledge and skill gaps through training in Corporate Governance, Capacity Building, Consultancy, Standardisation, Advocacy, and proffering of targeted solutions all geared towards public and private sector initiatives on life, fire and Safety Risk Management is a strategic decision particularly important for Compliance, Regulation and Continuity.

The conference for 2017 is going to be markedly different from that of last year. What’s the rationale behind this?

The strategic importance of Nigeria as the nerve of business in West Africa with a very diverse and dense population makes the mandate of all stakeholders involved in her macro-economic development commanding and important. The vision to become the hub in West Africa means Nigeria most aim at standardisation and compliance in operational risk management in life, Fire safety and Security. The critical role of assurance that the BCP both in private enterprise  and public sector is adequately underwritten based on tested benchmarks, standards and best practices is key to sustainability. So what we are trying to do is to drive this so that business continuity is held at paramount top. And the only way we can do this is by setting standards and benchmarks and best practices.

This is conference seems very strategic to business as you said. So what prompted the idea of this conference?

At NFPAWA, we have identified gaps in skill and knowledge in life, fire safety and security risk management and mitigation as a critical challenge to development and sustainability in the African Region. This weakness results in massive loss of life, environmental damage, economic hardship and financial losses. The effect of poor understanding and absence of set performance benchmarks for evaluating, assessing and investigating niche specific operational risks is now more glaring especially in today’s economy as Nigeria seeks a leadership position in the African Region. Furthermore, the absence of mitigative controls to reduce escalation via planned and organised emergency preparedness planning, response, control and abatement by qualified and trained personnel has aggravated the issues. This has not been good for our people and nation. It has had tremendous negative effects on the government’s strategic alliance with other nations seeking sustainable growth through partnership, investor confidence and an extensively disgruntled populace.

We now feel the primary advocacy initiative, the Annual Life and Fire Conference carries a three pronged agenda which includes, standardization. We must have standards while evaluating our processes, environment and what we do. We must measure up to something. The other is awareness. There are certain things people are not aware of. They don’t even know the question to ask.  If a company is talking to a contractor to do something and he (the client) does not know what to ask. But with this conference, he will know what and what to ask the contractor to take into consideration.

At least, the contractor will know the client knows about what he is talking about.

Exactly and something like standards he must measure to. The other thing is capacity building. And that is that with the standards in place, we want to tell our people what to do and how to do it. We want to build capacity locally in the Nigerian environment. So the conference, which will hold at the prestigious Oriental Hotel, Lagos, is an opportunity for professionals and operators to develop the required human capacity to efficiently support and drive their corporate objectives. To this end, they have themed This Sustainable Macro Economic Development: The Safety Perspective.

Who are key speakers and lecturers?

We have a whole of experts coming from abroad. Allanz is coming to take on decision makers at the boardroom level and share their experiences across the world. These include Tom Parrish, who has more than 25 years experience in fire protection and emergency response. He has held positions with municipal fire, law enforcement and emergency medical services and in private industry system design and installation programs. There is also Tracey Bellamy, who also has more than 25 years experience in the fire protection community including all areas of the fire sprinkler industry. He has extensive experience with fire suppression system design, fire hazard analysis and fire protection system inspection and testing. Others are Warren Burn, Isaac Mahlangu, Alasdair Douglas Walker, Gerhardus, Stephanus Barnard, Gonaseelan Naidoo and Robert Ter Morshuizen. These are all tested experts in safety and operational risk management.

What are the take-aways and benefits for participants?

They will get certificates of attendance and continuous educational benefits. These are credits which each of the participants will be awarded and these credits can be used for further training in pursuit of certain qualifications.

When is this conference taking place?

This conference is coming up from the 9th of May to 12th of May at the prestigious Oriental Hotel at the Victoria Island, Lagos.