29th November, 2022
The Lagos State Government on Tuesday vowed to ensure a comprehensive safety standards across all the workplaces in Lagos.
Director General, Lagos State Safety Commission, Lanre Mojola, made the vow at an Environmental and Safety Seminar organised in collaboration with the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Apapa Branch, Lagos with the theme: ‘Seamless Environmental Regulations in Lagos State’.
He said the meeting was an interesting engagement where the Manufacturers and government’s regulatory agencies were chatting a course towards ensuring accident reduction at workplaces.
Mojola explained that safety is a concerted efforts and that everyone must imbibe the spirit of safety and take responsibility of ensuring that the environment was well protected from any form of hazards.
According to him, MAN should do things better in the coming year by taking safety as a collective responsibility and do away with complacency at work place, learn new ways and involve in consistent training workshop that would assist to make their personnel better equipped.
He stressed the need to take issues of safety very important, as the statistics were glaring-
2.3 million accidents in a year, 6,300 accidents a day and 260 accidents in an hour.
Mojola added that the whole point of this engagement session was for the government to jaw-jaw with the manufacturers and identify that Safety is everyone’s responsibility.
“Don’t turn blind eyes, abate that nuisance because that nuisance could even cause an accident that could even lead to a fatality,” he said.
The Director General stated that for 2023, the talk basically for the manufacturers should be to maintain standards, guidelines and procedures that had been laid down.
“We would like them to ensure that they follow all these regulatory processes and obtain their safety clearance certificate and ensure their safety officers are registered appropriately and put in right investment to training of their staff,” he said.
The Branch Chairman, MAN, Frank Onyegbu, challenged the regulatory agencies to ensure enabling environment was created to allow businesses to thrive.
He said the whole essence of the event was to create a path towards business-friendly environment, by analysing the expectations and ease of compliance for 2023 business year.
He expressed confidence that the seminar would go along way to forge a cordial relationship between government bodies and the association to ensure seamless working ambience that will reduce the cost of doing business.
Onyegbu lamented the rising cost of doing business which is having a negative impact on their operations, urging the regulatory agencies to bear with them in he area of financial services.
General Manager, Lagos State Waste Management Authority, LAWMA, Ibrahim Odumboni, charged the participants to dispose their wastes properly by paronising the PSP.
Odumboni was represented by Olumide Mumuni.
He said the agency had been going around the State to sensitze people to imbibe the culture of solid waste management.