25 September 2007 was an important mile stone for our project: 200.000 man hours of work with no accidents at all! We marked the occasion by inviting the local authorities and contractors for a site visit and a seminar on occupational health and safety.
With support from the Danish Embassy we have made a small information campaigh to share our experience in safety and health with other investors, contractors, labor unions and the authorities. Our seminar was inaugurated by the Danish Ambassador Peter Lysholt Hansen:
"It is a great pleasure for me to be here today with you on this occasion. Safety in the workplace is an extremely important issue. Everyday serious work related accidents take place in Vietnam, Asia and elsewhere.
These tragic accidents are causing great harm – not only to the victims but also to their families, who often lose the basis of their livelihood. For every worker killed or seriously hurt – you may have 3 or more victims who share the suffering."
Ambassador Peter Lysholt Hansen: "Through the cooperation with the experts from Royal Haskoning
Mascot has have created a work place, which fully meets the requirements of a modern construction
site with proper safety precautions.
"In addition to the personal tragedies there are the economic losses for the companies and the society at large. I have no doubt that a huge amount of resources are wasted every day, when accidents happen due to negligence or ignorance.
Therefore I am more than happy to note that, a Danish company – Mascot International Vietnam, with the financial support from PPP (Public Private Partnership) a programme financed by DANIDA - Embassy of Denmark, has been able to ensure a systematic improvement of the health and safety standards of the construction site here in Hai Duong.
In this regard, I would like to stress that the PPP programme promotes public private partnerships for better working and living conditions for people by advancing corporate social responsibility, and increasing opportunities for investments and enhanced competitiveness through innovation."
The Ambassador and his secretary Bach Lan Phuong also cracked a few jokes with the workers
from civil works contractor Unicons. Approximately 30 % of the workers are women, doing heavy
and potentially dangerous work.
"Through the cooperation with the experts from Royal Haskoning you have created a work place, which fully meets the requirements of a modern constructions site with proper safety precautions.
As a result you are about to achieve the first 200.000 manhours without any accidents. I would also like to congratulate the three contractors here today – Unicons, Seico and TES – for their performance.
It is evident that proper safety measures needs cooperation and goodwill from all parties in the project. It is a shared responsibility between the investor, the engineers, the contractors and the workers.
In addition, the authorities have a responsibility to make sure that regulations are being followed. Therefore, I am very happy to note the active participation of the local authorities today.
It is also very important that others benefit from your experience. Therefore, the Embassy has sponsored this seminar and a number of other information sharing events to make sure that we get the maximum impact of this project," the Danish Ambassador said.
Safety officer Chinh has trained more than 750 workers so far and supervised the implementation
of our safety project. Chinh issued two serious warnings for violations in the first weeks, after we
implemented our safety project. Since then the awareness of contractors and their workers have
improved dramatically.
Of course we also take some pride in our growing reputation in Hai Duong as an investor, who makes a positive difference.
"I never met an investor before who makes it a special priority to care of the workers during the construction period, when you can just leave all the responsibility with the contractors. We hope to see many more with the same kind of philosophy," the chairman of the provincial trade union told me after the seminar.
A reporter from Vietnam News was equally curious, "why do you spend money on problems, where you do not have the responsibility.?"
The explanation is quite simple: In Mascot, We do believe that proper safety and health standards are a very good investment. It is not easy to manage a complex 15.000 m2 construction project in Viet Nam. Even though we have been half drowned in monsoon down pours for many weeks, the project is on schedule and on budget. One of the secrets behind this is definetely our safe and orderly construction site.
15.000 m2 of new facilities are well under way on our construction site in Hai Duong. We plan to
be in operation early March 2008.
A good day for Mascot's man in Hai Duong: Applause from our friends in Hai Duong province.
AN TOAN LA TREN HET
- SAFETY ABOVE ALL
