Worried about a spate of construction fatalities as contractors rush to restart projects, Singapore’s Ministry of Manpower (MOM) has launched an online register of contractors’ safety records for the general public and prospective clients to check with ease.
Inviting public opprobrium for safety failures and infractions, the register, called CheckSafe, will give the number of fatalities occurring on contractors’ sites for the previous 12 months, and other safety records such as stop-work orders for the previous three years.
"We hope that developers and clients will take advantage of this new service to choose safer companies for their projects; and that contractors will see this as an incentive to up their game in workplace safety," Senior Minister of State for Manpower Zaqy Mohamad wrote on Facebook in announcing the move.Â
"We cannot afford let our guard down, especially when workers’ lives are at stake," he added.
At the end of November last year, safety authorities and contractors in Singapore called for an "urgent safety time-out" after three men died at construction sites in one week. Â
They worried that contractors were racing to regain time lost to Covid disruptions.
"As more companies resume work following the circuit breaker, we are seeing a worrying trend of workplace injuries returning to pre-Covid levels," wrote Zaqy Mohamad. "In response to this, MOM has been ramping up its enforcement efforts with a focus on high-risk sectors."
Explore the new CheckSafe register here.Â
Image: CheckSafe will give the number of fatalities occurring on contractors’ sites for the previous 12 months, and other safety records such as stop-work orders for the previous three years (From the Facebook account of Senior Minister of State for Manpower, Zaqy Mohamad)
