A safety college program has recently been introduced by Eko Electricity Distribution Company with the intention of improving the organization’s overall safety culture and increasing employee awareness of how to carry out their responsibilities safely.
This information was released in a statement from Babatunde Lasaki, the general manager of corporate communications and strategy at EKEDC, who said that the program was designed as training sessions with the goal of educating at least 90% of the operations team members (linesmen, lines mates, cable jointers, etc.) by the end of the year.
He stated, “Over the years we realized that the majority of accidents caused within our network are due to a knowledge deficiency and procedural breach in our current operations, which reiterates the need for retraining of all the operational staff in batches through the initiative.”
In 10 batches of 110 participants each, 1100 employees will receive training in the Standard Protection Code, HSE, and Security Modules, which will be included in their annual performance reviews and added to the scoring system used by the human resources division.
He added that the program, which was launched during the recently passed World Day for Safety and Health at Work, would be expanded upon and continued as part of the staff’s annual training modules in order to emphasize the significance of safe practice and to instill and strengthen HSE culture.
As stated by Lasaki, “We believe the initiative would facilitate the desired level of ownership, engagement, and participation that was required to reduce and eliminate accidents and sustain the HSE Management System.”
When questioned about the recent incident involving the electrocution of two EKEDC employees, the police reported it, Lasaki called it an unpleasant circumstance and informed the public that the families of the deceased had been contacted and that actions were being done to help the family of the deceased.
We sympathize with the relatives of the deceased and are working with them right now, he said. The fact that lives were lost in the disaster regardless of its cause is something we are willing to discuss with the safety college.
