Materia Medica Malaysiana

Excellence Awards Help Slash Rate Of Workplace Accidents, Says Fong

PUTRAJAYA, Dec 21 (Bernama) -- The occupational safety and health excellence awards have helped to reduce the rate of accidents in the workplace by 44.6 per cent over the last 10 years, Human Resources Minister Datuk Dr Fong Chan Onn said Tuesday night.
The reduction was obvious in the years after 1994, he said at the presentation of the National Occupational Safety and Health Excellence Awards 2004 here.
Dr Fong said the Social Security Organisation (Socso) record of accidents showed that the total number of accidents had dropped from 133,293 in 1993 to 73,858 last year.
"This means that in the 10-year period there was a drop of 44.6 per cent. On the average, there was a reduction from 21.2 accidents per 1,000 workers in 1993 to 7.4 per 1,000 last year," he said.
Dr Fong said the awards seemed to have won over the occupational safety and health practitioners with the increase in the number of workplaces that had applied to participate in the competition for the excellence awards.