ILO: Nigeria Needs to Do More to Ensure Work Place Safety

Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has said Nigeria has not done very well in the area of implementation and maintenance of work place safety regulations.
It said the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment needs to do more for their workers in terms of helping to ensure safety of their work environment.
Speaking to journalists during a rally/road show in Abuja, to mark this year’s World Day for Safety and health at work place, ILO Health Officer, Mr. Ojobo Adah, said so many workers currently experience problem and challenges relating to their work environment.

He said: “When you talk of safety environment, Nigeria is not doing much, that is the truth about it. You see so many people have problems in their place of work. Most of them do come to Labour Congress for help and by the time they send them back to their employer, what we hear from them is not it’s not good at all.
“By the time they decide to take it up most of these employers, try to use their connections.  As an employee, whenever you want to go to court, they have lawyer there. So, Nigeria needs to do more.

“The Ministry of Labour need to do more for their workers in terms of helping their workers and as far as we are concern, they’re not doing much. ILO on our own we’ve been doing a lot to support them in that area,” he said.

Adah said though the country has laws and policies in place to regulate business operations, but that poor implementation has been the bane.
“You see the laws are there but the implementation is the problem. If government can wake up and implement it to the letter, let all employers do it the way it is in the law we won’t have all these problems,” he added.

On its part, Adah said the ILO has been supporting and partnering with the Labour Ministry and NLC over the years to make World Day For Safety at Workplace Programme a success.
“Over the years we have been supporting the Ministry of Labour financially and technically and this year is also not an exemption and we also here to support them,’ he said.

Representative of the Minister of Labour and Employment who is also the Director, Occupational Safety and Health Department, Mrs. Laureate Adogu said that government has been doing its best to monitor and ensure compliance to workplace safety standards in the country.

She said apart from issuing caution letters to defaulting entities, the ministry has also applied penalties to those who do not comply to rules.
“We are here today to implement the National Policy on occupational safety in into both formal and informal sectors. So, that is why we are here and in all workplaces. There are some hazards that are inherent in such places.

“Like here we learned that they use chemicals, we have chemical hazards and what are hazards are conditions that can result in accidents and diseases. Accident can cause injury and disability and cause a lot of problems to the family,” she said.

When asked to comment on the level of compliance by business operators, Adogu said: ” Well the compliance level is not yet very high, but it is coming up.  We have done this campaign at Kugbo Furniture market in Abuja, and they are now aware of the need to ensure safety and health in workplaces especially informal sectors, I believe there will be a lot of improvements.

“We have penalties and people who do not comply normally we have instructors who go round the factories and there have been doing prosecution, prohibition, warning notices, we give cautionary letters. After each inspection, there is always a report and there are always cautionary letters to all the occupiers,” she said.

Highlights of the programme include, free medical checks and sensitisation of traders and all those working in the market on best practices.