Government agencies announced they were mulling whether to temporarily bar private contractors with a poor occupational safety record from bidding for public construction projects.
Wu Tse-cheng (吳澤成), chairman of the Public Construction Commission, said penalties for contractors who scrimp on materials were already included in the Government Procurement Act, it rescinds the right of any contractor concerned to join the bidding process for public construction projects.
"We have found that these regulations have been completely ignored," Wu said,"so we decided to add Item 15 to Article 101 that will punish those with poor performance with regards to construction safety, and the penalty will be set based on the number and magnitude of accidents occurring during the course of any construction work."
The announcement, made jointly by the Council of Labor Affairs (CLA), the Public Construction Commission (PCC), and Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) yesterday, intends to reduce the amount of occupational accidents by asking contractors to enforce safety regulations more stringently.
MOTC Vice Minister Oliver Yu (游芳來) said that in view of the recent spate of construction accidents, the Ministry has appointed a technical supervisor to monitor labor safety violations nationwide.
"Transportation construction involves a lot of factors that potentially put laborers at risk, including a broad range of construction types and long working hours," Yu said, "This makes it difficult to manage."
Yu added that many of the bureaus under the ministry's administration have worked together to form a labor safety reporting system.
Now, when the ministry evaluates each bid for public construction projects, they also ask if expenses for labor safety examinations are also budgeted for.
The three government agencies held a cross-departmental meeting on Friday after three separate incidents on Tuesday left three workers dead and two injured. While a consensus had been reached to highlight the importance of labor safety, a representative from the CLA proposed that any contractor that fails to adhere to safety regulations may not enter the bidding for public construction for at least six months to three years.
The proposal, however, has not yet been endorsed by any of the agencies, according to Lien Chen-hsien (
According to statistics, the construction industry accounted for approximately 53 percent of work-related deaths last year.
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