Reps mull laws to improve safety in public, private institutions 

The house of representatives committee on safety standards and regulations has announced a plan to introduce laws to improve health and safety in public and private organisations in the country.

Ibrahim Hamza, chairman of the committee, spoke on Monday at an oversight function in Onne, Port Harcourt, River state.

He said the purpose of his visit was to conduct a health and safety audit of some companies.

“So the ninth national assembly deems it fit that it creates a standing committee which will go round and ensure that lives and properties of Nigerian citizens are in safe hands and works are being carried out in the right and proper ways,” he said.

“It is very obvious and very glaring that there is a great gap behind local companies and international companies in terms of implementation of health and safety policies. We visited INTELS, we saw that they are in compliance to a very high magnitude in terms of health and safety policies.

“The other company we visited which is a local Nigerian company – Brawal, they are also doing well but they are operating below our expectations and we are hoping that there will be an improvement because we really sympathise with them because of the nature of the economic situation because there are a lot of challenges but with the involvement of the parliament, I’m sure we will be able to intervene and come up with laws and regulations that will really aid the progress of their health and safety activities.

The legislator said the purpose of the oversight function is to ensure the safety of Nigerians, and not to target any company.

“We are here to create awareness and synergise with them, we are not here to witch-hunt any company. We are actually here to make sure that what is supposed to be obtainable worldwide is obtainable here locally in Nigeria,” he said.

“We are on advocacy to make sure that the right things are being done; looking into their challenges, encouraging them also and make sure that they do the right thing, then we are also looking at what they have so far and see how they can up their activities to international best practice.

“It is obvious that there is a lacuna; there is a need for amendment of that law. The federal ministry of labour and employment needs to up its activities to make sure that the reporting line is being enhanced because most of these activities and incidences are not being reported to the right agencies which are part of what we have noticed in our visit today.

“We hope to really look into it, we will call the department that is in charge of ensuring that these policies are being implemented properly from the ministry of labour and employment. We will make sure that things are being done properly.”

He said the committee will ensure that erring companies comply with the safety policies of regulatory agencies.

Also speaking, Chinedu Onwuaso, deputy chairman of the committee, said the safety of Nigerians is sacrosanct; hence the need for compliance.

“It is a good step that we have taken, it’s going to expose a lot of things that are not good for our workers in Nigeria and from the interactions that we have had with these companies, they are ready to improve,” he said.