Dangerous Occurrence at a Worksite

A dangerous occurrence took place at a construction worksite recently. While lifting a bundle of rebars, a truck-mounted mobile crane toppled towards a building under construction.
The occupier was told to investigate into the dangerous occurrence and to conduct risk assessment for all lifting operations.

Lifting equipment is the second highest contributor of workplace deaths in 2006. In the first half of this year, 7 workers, accounting for 28% of total workplace fatalities, were killed in lifting equipment accidents.
Amongst these fatal cases, about half of the employers had failed to conduct risk assessment (RA).

Even those with some form of RA failed to ensure that the control measures were effective or implemented. Investigations also revealed that many of these cases lacked proper on-site supervision to ensure that proper safe work procedures had been implemented.

(Source: MOM OSH Alert, dated 21 Aug 2007)

MOM provides $8 million top-up to Risk Management Assistance Fund (RMAF)

Set up in April 2006 to help Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) build risk management capabilities, the first $5 million of the RMAF has been fully committed to some 800 SMEs.

To allow more SMEs to benefit from the scheme and implement risk management successfully, MOM will provide a $8 million top-up to the fund. The top-up would be $2 million per year for the next 4 years till 2011. The funding cap per company has also been reduced from $7,500 to $3,500.