FRIDAY-30TH NOVEMBER 2007-ACCIDENTS AT WORK PLACE DROP 47.8 PER CENT SINCE 1994

Accidents at work place drop 47.8 per cent since 1994
KOTA KINABALU:
The number of accidents at the workplace dropped 47.8 percent since the Occupational Safety and Health Act was enforced in 1994. Department of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) director-general Datuk Ir Johari Basri said the Social Security Organisation (Socso) received reports of 117,231 cases in 1995 compared to 61,182 cases in 2005. “This means that industrial accidents had dropped 47.8 percent in the 10 years,” he said when opening an Occupation Safety and Health seminar for the Sabah public sector here yesterday. The text of his speech was read out by his deputy Zabidi Md Adib. Johari said although Malaysia could be proud of the achievement, it still lagged behind developed countries like Sweden and Britain which registered three and four accidents for every 1,000 workers compared to Malaysia with 5.6 cases for every 1,000 workers.
“However, the statistics are only based on cases reported to Socso by the private sector as the public sector is not keen to report such cases as required under the Occupational Safety and Health Act 1994.” Johari said most of the cases reported to DOSH by the public sector comprised road acidents involving workers and exposure to radiation and chemicals. He added that overall, awareness on the importance of occupational safety and health at the workplace was still low in Malaysia. -Bernama