Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: MNA Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said on Friday that 50 percent of oil tankers lacked minimum safety measures and quality standards which are posing serious hazards and threats to the precious lives of civilians.

He was addressing the Professional Development Conference held at Islamabad, arranged by the Pakistan Chapter of the American Society of Safety Engineers. Referring to the oil tankers’ strike, he said that need for educating the general masses about the safety measures at the work place and the development projects so that the precious lives of skilled labours might be saved from fatal accidents. He further stated that among our masses, safety tools were taken for granted as fashion or a piece of decoration. “It is high time we understood that safety is vital and an important aspect in professional capacity and in order to achieve production it is very difficult to avoid physical hazards. Unless we adopt safety measures, these incidents will continue. In the Ahmedpur Sharqia accident, the whole system failed to protect people’s lives. We need to learn that accidents alone do not cause deaths, but post-accident events can also bring destruction,” he said. He further stated that in 2009 OGRA had issued a notification for adopting standard safety measures for the oil/fuel tankers. “According to those standards, every oil/fuel tanker in Pakistan is going against that safety measures. Media, educational institutions need to disseminate information about safety measures,” he said.

Published in Daily Times, July 29^th , 2017.