DUBAI, 12 December 2006 — Brig. Gen. Rashed Thani Al-Matrooshi, director of Dubai Civil Defense, yesterday announced plans to form a permanent committee that will be responsible for ensuring the implementation of labor camp safety requirements across the emirate.
This initiative comes in compliance with the civil defense law No. 23 for 2006 that stipulates all labor camps should be equipped with necessary safety requirements. These requirements include fire safety guidelines, prevention, safety procedures, and multilingual safety rules among others.
The committee will carry out surprise visits to ensure safety requirements are in place at different camps. It will also check the readiness of fire alarm equipment and provide labor camps with adequate fire prevention needs.
Another task for this committee is to ensure that laborers are fully aware of all health and safety guidelines and receive proper safety, evacuation, fire-fighting, extinguisher and rescue training.
It will request that employers to post safety instructions at labor camps. These notices will take the language and nationality of workers into consideration. Dubai Civil Defense will develop these instructions as part of a comprehensive safety orientation plan that will also include brochures, leaflets and training courses to increase awareness and counter risks.
“The committee has already commenced with its work. We are conducting labor camp visits that aim to give us a comprehensive and accurate picture of labor camps safety, as well as fixing problems that are identified. We will ask different media representatives to accompany us on these visits to — hopefully — shed more light on this issue,” said Al-Matrooshi
