Labour ministry bolsters offshore safety with expanded inspection team

The Ministry of Labour continues to execute rigorous training programmes to empower persons to efficiently conduct safety and health inspections on Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessels offshore Guyana.

Minister Joseph Hamilton told the Department of Public Information (DPI) that the training sessions, funded by the ministry, go beyond conventional safety protocols, and seek to improve working conditions to guarantee workplace safety.

“We have done some additional training to develop other people. And now, we have moved from two to four in three years…That is a plus,” Minister Hamilton stated during a recent interview.

Participants receive comprehensive instruction on recognising the possible environmental effects of offshore oil and gas facilities, managing safety on installations, and identifying the risks and repercussions of hazards.

Minister Hamilton stressed that it is the ministry’s responsibility to continuously train and retrain people since it enhances national development.

Further, the labour minister said his ministry has also trained 14 officers in areas of health and safety to ensure they are ISO 45001 certified.

For context, ISO 45001, which is an international standard, lays out the specifications needed to create an OSH management system. It gives organisations a framework for risk management and enhances OSH performance.

“They are lead auditors. They can do certain types of investigations that are more upgraded than normal investigations,” Minister Hamilton explained.  

In order to reduce workplace accidents, the ministry’s Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) department continues to provide sensitisation training sessions for workers, employees, students, and the public on the ways to create and uphold safe work place procedures and systems.