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VRA holds 2022 ‘Safety Awareness Day’ celebration

The Volta River Authority (VRA) on Thursday held its 2022 “Safety Awareness Day” celebration intended to promote the safety and well-being of its staff here.

The event which was observed on the third Thursday of November each year by the Tema Area was aimed at enhancing safety performance and staff awareness of emerging global safety trends and also specific safety elements as pertained to their operations. 

Addressing the staff, under the theme “improving our health and safety culture for our business sustainability,” the guest speaker, Dr Alex Anlesinyah, a Management Trainer, Researcher and Consultant, said health and safety should be the priority of every individual and institution. 

He said it was important for every staff to have his or her Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and it should not be shared with others under any circumstances because it compromised health and safety 

DrAnlesinyah cautioned the workers against taking things for granted and hiding behind cultural and religious beliefs that God would protect them but instead play key roles in ensuring that they were safe.

He said in situations where there were no right tools and equipment for work, a worker should not try to use their physical strength as a show of strength  because such actions could cause them their lives and lead to the loss of vital human resource of an organisation. 

DrAnlesinyah advocated that an enabling environment be created to promote mental health issues of staff with a strong health system in place to address the concerns of staff in an atmosphere of confidentiality. 

He said a troubled worker could be a threat to his life and environment but healthy workforce increased productivity and hence the need for the Authority to invest in health and safety of their staff and environment at all times.

The Chief Executive of the VRA, Mr Emmanuel Antwi-Darkwa in a speech read on his behalf by the Procurement Manager, Mr Jacob Fosu-Kyei, said by providing education and awareness on health, safety and wellbeing issues, it was apparent that the Authority was poised to creating a culture that emphasised prevention of unsafe work environment and behaviours for their stakeholders.

He was of the opinion that it was crucial to do so to protect their workers and impacted communities.

  He said to sustain these practices, Management had over the years gone beyond mere rhetoric and regulatory compliances to pursue industry best practices in Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) through International Standard Organisation (ISO) certifications and benchmarking of OHS performances.

Mr Antwi-Darkwa said beyond interventions, management recognised the need to improve the safety culture of the VRA till safety became a way of life.

“It is a known fact that poor safety culture hacks away the corporate reputation of organisations and heightens the potential for occupational accidents and legal suits” he said.

He said management would continue to encourage staff participation in safety meetings and compliance to the safety policy as an important criteria to achieve its Annual Employee Key Performance objective and Business Sustainability Plan.

FROM DZIFA TETTEH TAY, TEMA

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