UAE BARQ برق الإمارات – نبضك
The Abu Dhabi City Municipality called on all contractors and consultants to take all preventive measures and abide by the Environment, Health and Safety (EHS) standards in order to maintain the safety of employees, protect their lives and mitigate potential hazards at workplace.
The Municipality has recently inspected several areas on Abu Dhabi Island, Al Reem Island, Al Raha Beach, Yas Island, Al Saadiyat Island, Khalifa City, Shakhbout City and Mohammed bin Zayed City. The campaign targeted construction sites where works are underway to ensure their compliance with EHS requirements.
This campaign signals the commitment of the Department of Urban Planning and Municipalities – Abu Dhabi City Municipality to protect the lives of workers, safeguard their health & safety, and verify their compliance with the EHS standards of the Municipality at construction sites as stipulated by Abu Dhabi Occupational Safety and Health Centre.
During the three-day inspection campaign, the municipal inspectors issued 67 offences and 53 warnings against contractors and consultants for failing to comply with the rules. The inspectors also made a number of observations and directives aimed at improving health & safety on-site and ensuring that all requirements are met.
The violations monitored at construction sites included unsafe work-at-height practices and non-compliance with personal protective equipment. Other violations reported included neglecting temporary fencing on-site, storing building materials illegally, dumping waste illegally, and failing to service firefighting equipment.
The Municipality carries out such campaigns as per the Buildings Regulation Law No. 16/2009 and the amendments of law No. 4/1983 governing construction works, as well as the Law No. 2/2012 governing the Public Appearance, Health and Tranquility in Abu Dhabi.
The Municipality is poised to continue such campaigns to inspect all building and construction sites in Abu Dhabi.
The Municipality is keen to raise awareness about EHS standards at construction sites. To realise this end, it holds several awareness-raising workshops throughout the year and helps to build entities to develop their EHS management systems as per the Standards observed in Abu Dhabi. The Municipality also keeps interested parties informed about any potential changes to the EHS management systems, and the manual developed by the Municipality to improve the performance of entities seeking accreditation of their EHS management systems.
The improvement efforts include registering some guidelines together with insights and common errors spotted during the review of the Management Systems provided by companies; The step is bound to help entities avoid such errors and obtain the recurrence of thee errors. The Submittal will help entities avoid such mistakes, and obtain accreditation of the EHSE management systems at building and construction sites.
