KUCHING: Sarawak Energy has reiterated its firm commitment to occupational safety and health in the workplace for all its staff and contractors.
Sharbini Suhaili, the Group Chief Executive Officer expressed this to Tan Sri Datuk Seri Lee Lam Thye, the chairman of the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) when receiving the latter at Menara Sarawak Energy on Tuesday for a discussion on potential areas for collaboration in workplace safety.
Lee was joined by managing director of Tanjung Manis Technical Excellence Centre Academy (M) Sdn Bhd (TM TEC), Richard Song Swee Jin.
TM TEC provides consultancy and training services in collaboration with NIOSH Certification Sdn Bhd, a subsidiary of NIOSH.
Also present were Lu Yew Hung, Sarawak Energy Group Chief Operating Officer; Aisah Eden, Executive Vice President of Corporate Services and Marconi Madai, General Manager for Corporate Risk and Health Safety and Environment (HSE).
Asserting that safety was of critical importance as the organization worked towards meeting the energy demand for Sarawak and the region, Sharbini said, “Safety is our number one priority, and we are pursuing safety, health and environmental excellence as a key focus area.
“Our Life Saving Rules –mandatory rules governing how we work – have been launched and are being communicated to all 4,600 staff across our businesses and locations. There will be strong consequences for staff or contractors who choose not to observe the rules.”
He said as Sarawak Energy embarked on major projects like the Baleh Hydroelectric Project to generate reliable and sustainable energy for Sarawak, there would be at peak some 3,500 workers of many different nationalities working at the project sites.
The Life Saving Rules will act as an easy to follow visual set of rules to ensure that everybody understands Sarawak Energy’s safety requirements well.
“Taking into consideration the significant number of our own staff and contractor workers at our project sites, we must step up on safety so that everybody goes home safely at the end of every day,” he said.
Sharbini said Sarawak Energy’s safety culture will be built on four pillars: strong leadership commitment; a comprehensive system and structure on occupational safety, competent personnel in critical positions in the organisation and a proactive attitude and culture towards safety.
Lee said he was pleased that Sarawak Energy shared NIOSH’s stand on the importance of cultivating safety culture at the workplace and looked forward to working closely with the state’s energy developer in progressing this.
He said NIOSH hoped to share its inputs on safety related matters with Sarawak Energy.
In addition, Song said he was impressed with Sarawak Energy’s first class knowledge in HSE culture and believed that the state owned power utility was taking HSE culture in the organization to a higher level.
Past collaborations between Sarawak Energy and NIOSH includes a Memorandum of Understanding for the implementation of a Safety Passport Programme designed to promote work safety amongst its contractors.
The initiative is part of a suite of programmes to build up the safety culture of Sarawak Energy’s contractors, to complement the utility’s corporate policies, procedures and processes already in place.
