Safety rules flouted on airport site
SAFETY on the Chek Lap Kok construction site came under the spotlight yesterday with workers flouting the most basic safety rules under the noses of their managers.
While the Provisional Airport Authority's (PAA) project manager Alistair Thomson was telling assembled journalists how important safety was on one of the world's largest building sites, metres away workers were not even wearing hard hats.
One worker smiled for the cameras from beneath his camouflage slouch hat while a labourer drilling the foundations for the airport terminal chose a light cotton hat for his stint beneath a 25-metre high pile-driver. Not one of the 20 drivers seen on the huge 250-tonne dumper trucks was wearing a helmet even though visiting journalists were told to keep their hats on inside their minivans.
Embarrassed PAA managers said they would haul in the contractors and give them a stern lecture.
'It has been noted,' said the PAA's corporate development director Clinton Leeks.
But the offenders would not be fined, he said. 'That is not the way to do it, you have to be more positive.' Last month an inquest jury said lighting on the dusty roads on the site had to be improved. Mr Leeks said the PAA was hurrying to comply with the recommendations.
