SEAWELD CELEBRATES WORLD OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY DAY

The Chief Executive Officer of Seaweld Engineering Limited, Mr. Alfred Fafali Adagbedu, has urged employers and employees to make Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) one of their topmost priorities and shared responsibilities.

“Today, Seaweld joins the world to mark Occupational Safety and Health culture, which is the employees’ right to a safe and healthy working environment. With over 185 employees, both onshore and offshore, and worked more than 1,605 days without Lost Time Injuries (LTI), Seaweld Eng. as an indigenous Ghanaian Company, deem it right to join the rest of the world to say accidents are avoidable with strong safety culture, and to make employers recognize that health and safety is not a choice but a responsibility,” he said.

He said this when the Company joined the world to mark the day with a health walk through various principal streets in Sekondi/Takoradi to remind all, from heavy industries to the trader in the market, that to keep the wheel of industry and commerce in motion, there is the need to ensure safety at the workplace.

Ensuring a high safety standard, he states does not only help in saving cost and ensuring a good working environment but also enable companies with high standard to have competitive urge over those with low regard for health and safety. “It is sad that companies in our world today have become more of a death trap to its workers, combined with lack of commitment from management to implement health and safety standards,”

Mr. Adagbedu said that since the discovery of hydrocarbon reserves off the coast of Ghana and other resources that employ high risk during exploration, development, and production, there is a need to ensure high safety standards.

For the indigenous Ghanaian establishments to support and actively partake in the extractive sector, including oil and gas, there is the need to join in building a safety culture.

Seaweld, he said, provided services to International Oil Companies (IOCs) over the years in the areas of the crew for the rigs, scaffolding, meet and greet, vessel repairs, welding and fabrication, tank cleaning, warehousing, hospitality, and logistical support.

“Seaweld strived through various challenges to become a global brand in its specialized area of service with clients such as Seadrill, Transocean, Ocean Rig, Alpha Offshore Drilling, Kosmos Energy, Lukoil, Tullow, HESS, Halliburton, Total, Shell, ENI, MODEC and Aker solutions to mention a few,” he said.

Seaweld currently operates in Nine African Countries, two European countries and the United States of America and hope to spread to other countries shortly.

Seaweld also runs an integrated management system in OHSAS and ISO with a DNV certification since 2007, TRACE certified and adjudged the best indigenous company of the year 2014.

The head of the Health, Safety, Environment, and Quality department of Seaweld, Mr. Alexander Hammond, in an interview, said as an OHSAS certified Company, Seaweld appreciates the impact of health and safety on employees, visitors, clients and the environment, hence the need to join hands with the world to celebrate this special day and has been made necessary by the alarming rate of occupational deaths of 2.3 million people yearly according to the ILO.”

He added that it is essential to note that there is risk in every sphere of human endeavor that is aimed at contributing to social and economic development:

“Therefore, it is important to ensure that the state, employers and workers actively participate in securing a safe and healthy working environment through a system of defined rights, responsibilities and duties, and where the highest priority is accorded to the principle of prevention,”