The SAFETY of life is the single most important attribute that every facility should offer!!
Safety Risk Practitioners seek to deliver the safety, security, and quality solutions that meet today’s demands and create safer and more sustainable futures.
A project risk management chain starts from concept to demobilization and should involve safety risk managers at all levels. In concept and design, the philosophies guiding Safety and Security are established for the project life cycle. They form an integral part of engineering and construction design considerations. It is important for the protection of Life, Environment, and Investments that these are considered. Donor Agencies and Financiers like the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, African Development Bank, Central Banks, and others have developed standards and guides that form mandates for disbursement. They recognized risks associated with non-compliance as critical. In Nigeria, the Central Bank has adopted Environmental Sustainability Policies. The World Bank has developed an EHS Guide used in all projects for compliance.
Also read: Developing a Culture of Safety in Construction
The need for competent and niche specialist Safety and Security Service providers to ensure that proper basis for development and implementation of reliable, functional, and adequate risk management solutions is crucial for compliance and can never be over-emphasized.
This is not only because of requirements from Authorities Having Jurisdiction (AHJ), codes, standards, RAGAGEP and best practices try to ensure that these systems are available when required.
To demonstrate the critical difference, let’s consider this example. The consequence of failure from loss of portable water vs. fire water supply due to any failure is an example that demonstrates the need for certification of experts that deal with the design, engineering, and construction.
“Portable water is a requirement for every day. A system malfunction is almost immediately detected and downtime leads to inconvenience without any significant consequence to life, the environment, or the asset. Firewater is required only when emergencies arise. A failure to meet the requirement of adequacy, availability at time of demand is immediately escalated to extensive risk exposure that could result in injury, loss of life, environmental damage, and asset loss. Furthermore, a failure of fire water supply results in insurance payouts and escalated premiums!!”
Also Read: SIL AND QRA SAFETY REVIEWS PROCESS
From this, it is clear that the design, specification, construction, and maintenance of the latter carries a different performance benchmark and requires that the expertise be carefully selected, especially in; concept and construction, generalist M&E consultants, and contractors are often brought in to carry these scope.
The SAFETY REVIEWS AND ASSESSMENT THAT FORM THE BASIS FOR DEVELOPING THE PRESCRIPTIVE AND ACTIVE PHILOSOPHIES ARE EXPERT SERVICES BY SAFETY EXPERTS. These are very different from generalist Mechanical and Electrical Services.
For the reasons above, we Safety Consultants and Solution Providers limited, work in multidisciplinary consultancy in Fire, HSE-MS, Technical & Process Safety, and Security Risk Mitigation in the Sub-Sahara Africa region. This provides an integrated risk basket and drives compliance in all aspects. We encourage all practitioners to do the same to meet today’s demands and create safer and more sustainable futures.
By Antonia Beri
Lead Consultants and Technical Director
Safety Consultants & Solution Provider Limited
Also Read:
- Nigerian British Chamber Of Commerce Acknowledge Safety Consultants and Solutions Provider
- THE NEED FOR OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH IN THE WORKPLACE
- THE VALUE OF RAGAGEP IN PROCESS SAFETY MANAGEMENT
