Latest update November 21st, 2024 1:00 AM
Twenty workplace deaths recorded in 2023 – Labour Minister
Kaieteur News – The Ministry of Labour has recorded a marginal decline in deaths due to workplace incidents.
Minister of Labour, Joseph Hamilton made this disclosure during a press conference held at the Ministry of Labour’s headquarters on Brickdam, on Tuesday. Hamilton explained that there has been a steady decline in workplace fatalities.
“In 2020, there were 32 workplace deaths; in 2021, the number decreased to 27 deaths and then in 2022, there were 21 deaths…Over a three-year period, we have moved from 32 deaths in that area and now 20 deaths that should not have happened. We have moved from 32 to deaths to 21 fatalities in 2022 and 20 in 2023,” Minister Hamilton told reporters.
The Minister noted that the majority of the fatalities were recorded in the Mining and Construction Sectors.
Hamilton reported that of the 20 deaths recorded last year, nine were in the Mining Sector with the majority occurring in Region Seven; six of the deaths occurred in the Construction Sector with four of those occurring in Region Four. The other deaths were in the security, logging, vulcanizing, and transportation sectors.
Minister of Labour, Joseph Hamilton (center) at the end-of-year press conference. He was accompanied by the ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Mae Thomas (left).
In the past four years, more than 75 deaths have been recorded in the workplace.
Additionally, 175 non-fatal accidents were investigated in 2023, from a total of 577 reports.
Additionally, 950 inspections were conducted at workplaces across the ten administrative regions which affected over 8000 workers.
Given the alarming number of fatal accidents in the mining industry, Minister Hamilton said the Labour Ministry will be partnering with the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC), the Guyana Gold Diamond Miners Association (GGDMA) and the Ministry of Health to develop a special training programme aimed at providing miners with First Aid Training.
“So, one of the things that…we are working on and we hope to implement this year along with partners is to do some training of a different sort, medical first aid type training in mining areas, and not just mining areas, in the forestry areas, so that you will have somebody on a mining site, or in the camp who have some first aid training,” Minister Hamilton explained.
Noting that one death, is one too many, Minister Hamilton said the Labour Ministry intends to bring the number down to zero by intensifying Occupational Health and Safety training, while collaborating with key stakeholders on the issue.
“Someone would ask, what’s the big issue here? The big issue here is that every death is a person, it is not a statistic. It is somebody’s child, husband, father. Some set of people mourning, some set of people having a funeral, and so for me, I don’t treat these as statistics and that is why we are doing everything possible to ensure that this could be reduced to zero. We have established several joint technical committees with partner agencies whether private sector or public sector to help to ensure that this fatality rate decreases,” the Labour Minister said.
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