BOSAI being monitored to ensure implementation of recommendations following death of employee
BOSAI Minerals Group Guyana is being monitored by the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) to meet a strict deadline for recommendations put forward following the probe into the horrific death of BOSAI employee, Neptrid Hercules.
Labour Minister, Joseph Hamilton, during an interview with the News Room on Monday, said that he will also request reports to know whether the company is complying with the recommendations made by the 10-member investigative team that conducted the probe.
“The recommendations are because during the investigation, the faults were recognised and that is the reason why we are recommending that these things get amended.
“I don’t have the report on me, but if I remember the most is 30 and 60 days [to implement recommendations]. I will convene with my people to get an understanding as to how they are going with complying to what we recommended,” the Labour Minister said.
He noted that it is important that the recommendations are made and stated that his major focus is that the company carries through with it.
“My hope is that it [the inquiry] will serve as an all-encompassing recommendation to police the issues that are before us so that we don’t have to through the agony [again],” Hamilton previously said.
The team appointed to conduct a formal investigation into the incident handed over the report to the minister on April 26. Recommendations were released the following day.
It states that BOSAI must carefully assess the soil at its worksites and submit maintenance and management plans to the relevant authorities.
Fifty-nine-year-old Hercules, a resident of Wismar, Linden, went missing in the wee hours of March 11 after a plot of land he was working on swallowed him and the bulldozer he was operating at BOSAI.
Days after, the man’s decomposed body was found at the company’s Montgomery Mines in Linden, Region 10, following a massive search and rescue operation. Rescuers pulled his body from inside the bulldozer.
The investigative team also advised the mining company to establish a sectoral coordinating group comprising representatives of the Ministry, the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and a representative of the workers’ union.
It must also develop a Health and Safety Committee for the operations carried out at the worksites.
BOSAI must also assess the physical, mechanical and chemical properties of the soil and earth work at its worksites. This must be supported by the appropriate field and laboratory equipment to maintain a safe worksite, the team recommended.
BOSAI must also submit a document to stack or dump any waste product resulting from mining operations to Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) for approval.
And, it must prepare and submit an Environmental Management Plan and Contingency and Emergency Response Plan as required by the 2005 Mining Amendments.
