The contractors of the WG Friendship Plaza in Suva have been issued with an improvement notice after a solid piece of concrete fell from the high rise building this week.
On Wednesday, a man who asked to remain anonymous said he was driving past the 28-storey complex when the piece of concrete fell and landed on McGregor Rd, narrowly missing his vehicle and shattering into pieces.
Suva City Council acting CEO Azam Khan said an investigation carried out by the council’s building section and the Occupation, Health and Safety Department, found that during a special cleaning exercise, “a piece of concrete about 10cm by 10cm in size flew by windforce on the roadside”.
“The Occupation Health and Safety director’s office from the Ministry for Employment, Productivity and Industrial Relations has issued an improvement notice to the contractor and daily joint site inspections will be carried out over the next two weeks rather than the current weekly site inspections,” Mr Khan said.
“The contractors have been instructed to ensure the OHS procedures during the construction period are followed and safely store all materials on site.
“In the removal of materials of any sort, they must ensure that safety netting is placed prior to the work.”
He also said monthly stakeholder meetings would be organised where the contractors would brief various government agencies working closely with the SCC to monitor activities on the project site.
Meanwhile, senior technical officer field operations of the National Occupational Health and Safety Services (NOHSS) Saimoni Nabati said the NOHSS was investigating the incident to ascertain the cause and would recommend ways of improvement to avoid re-occurrence.
