Dionne Rose, Staff Reporter

The Ministry of Labour will be re-directing its personnel in its occupational safety and health department so that it can conduct more site inspections on construction projects.

Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Labour, Alvin McIntosh, told The Gleaner that this was one of the moves being contemplated by the ministry to address the number of work-related accidents on these sites.

Mr. McIntosh was responding to a criticism levelled by Opposition spokesman on labour, Rudyard Spencer, who accused the Labour Ministry of being tardy in ensuring that construction sites are inspected as prescribed by law.

Fully functional

In a statement last month, Mr. Spencer said that the ministry has been negligent in carrying out its duties and that, if this was done, the Government would not have to be putting in place strict adherence to safety health practices at major projects such as the Bahia Principe hotel under construction in St. Ann, where a section of the hotel had collapsed killing one worker and leaving several others injured.

But Thursday Mr. McIntosh said that the occupational health and safety department was fully functional with all 16 posts currently filled.

"Increasing the number of staff does not necessarily guarantee that we would get the level of output, but re-directing and refocusing our resources in these areas where there is great demand (could address the problem)," he explained.

Mr. McIntosh said that the country in recent times has seen an expansion in the construction industry with more projects being built and as such there was now the need for more site inspections from the ministry.