The Chief Operating Officer of the Environment and Sanitation Group of the Jospong Group of Companies, Mrs. Florence Larbi has expressed the need for labour intensive organizations to ensure safe and healthy workplaces to protect workers from injury and illnesses, and reduce absenteeism.
She believes safety is the right thing businesses must encourage to increase the quality of output at all times.
Mrs. Larbi said according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), employers can save $4.00 to $6.00 for every dollar spent on a safety and health program because the enormous benefits supersede all investments in an organization that depends largely on labour.
Mrs. Florence Larbi who was addressing a durbar of workers at the maiden safety week celebration of the Integrated Recycling and Composting Plant (IRECOP) at the Accra Waste Recovery Park (AWARP).
Under the Environment and Sanitation Group of the Jospong Group of Companies are the Accra Compost and Recycling Plant (ACARP), Zoomlion Ghana Limited, Zoom Domestic Services Limited, Waste Landfills Limited, Alliance Waste Services Limited, Meridian Waste, Waste Masters, Urban Waste and Coastal Waste, Integrated Recycling and Composting Plant (IRECOP) among others.
“I am elated to be associated with this platform targeted at instilling occupational health and safety among employees of this very facility to protect workers, visitors and the environment by preventing major accidents through proactive approaches.
Mrs. Larbi observed, there is a global correlation between productivity, safety and health at any work environment, such that, the lower the safety and health standards of an organization, the lower the productivity of the organization, particularly in highly labour intensive environment such as IRECOP.
“There is no doubt therefore that improvements in safety for workers through effective loss control practices can be financially rewarding to IRECOP and subsequently spread the benefits to other stakeholders” she assured.
The General Manager of the Integrated Recycling and Composting Plant (IRECOP), Ms Betty Brown Nyadu stated that IRECOP which is less than three months has recorded encouraging statistics.
She said the purpose of the safety week is to further educate the employees on safety and to allow the workers to be audited to find out safety gaps and draw corrective measures to some of their operational standards and procedures.
“In contemporary times, safety has moved from a voluntary option to an inevitable choice in management practice, thus, every manager should endeavour to take health and safety issues very critically to forestall the loss of lives and the payment of unnecessary claims”.
Ms Nyadu said the Ghana Labour Act makes it mandatory for the employer to put a premium of health and safety by minimizing hazards at the workplace.