Kazakhstan’s oil industry accounts for the highest OSH expenditures
Kazakhstan’s oil industry accounts for the highest expenditures on occupational safety and health (OSH), Kazakh Labour and Social Welfare Minister Berdibek Saparbayev told the forum Social Responsibility of Business 2008 held in Almaty on September 10.
10 September 2008
Content also available in:
русский
“Last year the fatality rate at mining and construction industries made up 45 percent of the republic’s total occupational deaths,” he said.
“Over the past years OSH expenditures in Kazakhstan increased three-fold. Last year this figure totaled around 33 billion tenge,” the minister said.
“The problem is that we simply compensate for hazardous working conditions and do not create a safe working environment. It is necessary to radically change this approach. Enterprises should upgrade equipment and technologies and create safe working conditions in order to renounce a compensation approach,” Saparbayev said.
He underlined that in April his ministry together with the International Labour Organization held an international conference focusing on the improvement of working conditions as a means to promote demographic stability. As a follow-up to the conference Kazakhstan makes preparations to introduce the new interstate GOST 12.0.230-2007 identical to the ILO-OSH 2001 Guidelines, a certification and independent audit system.
Source: Kazakhstan Today news agency
“Over the past years OSH expenditures in Kazakhstan increased three-fold. Last year this figure totaled around 33 billion tenge,” the minister said.
“The problem is that we simply compensate for hazardous working conditions and do not create a safe working environment. It is necessary to radically change this approach. Enterprises should upgrade equipment and technologies and create safe working conditions in order to renounce a compensation approach,” Saparbayev said.
He underlined that in April his ministry together with the International Labour Organization held an international conference focusing on the improvement of working conditions as a means to promote demographic stability. As a follow-up to the conference Kazakhstan makes preparations to introduce the new interstate GOST 12.0.230-2007 identical to the ILO-OSH 2001 Guidelines, a certification and independent audit system.
Source: Kazakhstan Today news agency