Ministry of Labour of Guyana participates in training on RNOAD

Guyana: Employees of the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) department of the Ministry of Labour are participating in a two-day workshop focusing on Training on Recording and Notification of Occupational Accidents and Diseases (RNOAD) for Occupational Safety and Health Officers, facilitated by the Ministry and the International Labour Organization (ILO) at the Regency Suites Hotel.

At the opening ceremony, Permanent Secretary, Bishram Kuppen, IT Consultant for ILO, Kerwyn Roach, OSH Consultant, Gwen King, System Development Co-ordinator, Peter Changa, and Joseph Hamilton, Minister of Labour, attended and delivered remarks targeting the focus of the workshop.

In his remarks, Roach mentioned that he is delighted to be of service to the people of Guyana and became involved in the project approximately six months ago to modify an existing system to meet the needs of the OSH requirements in Guyana.

“We had several meetings with King; after those modifications, we were able to have a demonstration of the system in mid-March. From that demonstration, we made some modifications, and today we will test the system and enter records for incidents that occurred during the year. We will enter such information in the system, generate the reports with the expectations to tackle a few modifications.” Roach mentioned.

In his address to the gathering, Minister Hamilton mentioned his commitment to the officers of the Labour Ministry, whether Labour, OSH, CRMA, or Coop’s, ensuring that everything possible is done to establish the necessary facilities to do the job.

“I will intervene at every level to speak to everyone about the importance of the OSH officers having access to training, re-training, and development, which is my commitment to you. Last week, the Ambassador of China paid me a courtesy call, and I revived a conversation I had with the former Ambassador about making available scholarships programs for OSH officers so that they are exposed to the necessary training,” he stated.

He further added that the OSH officers have a great responsibility, and they must see their job as a calling, or else they cannot do it. Every day, OSH officers are protecting lives, which is the fundamental thing.

During the exercise, the officers will be exposed to reviewing the OSH applications, main modules, security, data entry and reports, and resolving data entry and other issues.