Following the death of one worker and injury to another at the airport, China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC) will have to submit an engineer’s report to the Labour Department of the Ministry of Social Protection declaring the area safe, before work can recommence, according to junior Minister Simona Broomes who also revealed that in the company’s agreement no provision was made for the safety of workers.
“It is in the law and one will have to follow suit… All these things are in the law, it is written but for whatever reason they have not been implemented,” the minister told this newspaper in a recent interview during which she said an investigation had been launched into the death.
On September 17, 23-year-old Lui Li, a Chinese national, died at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport expansion project at Timehri after he became trapped in a pit he was working in. Another Chinese national, Zhang Yixun, was injured in the accident.
According to the minister, initial investigations by her officers have found that no risk assessment was done by the company.
She explained that from photographs she would have seen of the site it appeared that it was an area where sand would have been poured that the workers went to work and it was a case where the sand was too soft and it sucked them in. The injured worker would have been sucked in up to his waist but the minister said because of the language barrier the man was unable to speak to officials further.
She said under the Occupational Health & Safety Act provision is made for the ministry to request from the owner of the work site that an engineer inspect the side and send a report to the ministry declaring whether it is safe to continue working.
The minister said when one peruses the agreement which the company signed, it does not cater for the health and safety of the workers.
“I think the past administration neglected workers generally, neglected them completely. How could you have workers…under a contract agreement which does not speak to workers’ health and safety?” she questioned.
According to the minister, the young man would not have been in Guyana for very long and neither he nor his injured colleague had work permits. There was no contract that they signed which stipulated the terms and conditions of their employment.
