Safety practitioners would now need to be licensed to practice or hold themselves out as safety professionals working in industries, Vice President Kwesi Amissah-Arthur has said.

Employers, the Vice President said, would also be required to hire only licensed practitioners to manage Occupational Safety and Health at all places of economic activity.

The Vice President said this in a speech read on his behalf by the Minister of Transport, Mrs Dzifa Attivor, at the opening of the Third Biennial National Safety Conference, on Wednesday, organised by the Bureau of Public Safety, under the auspices of the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations.

Vice President Amissah-Arthur expressed the Government’s commitment to ensuring safe workplaces across all areas of economic activity.

He advised employers to pursue safety and health at their various workplaces with diligence, noting that, when the Bill on Occupational Safety and Health was passed, the demands on them to comply would be enormous.

Dr. Kwasi Amponsah-Tawiah, an Occupational Health Psychologist, who delivered the keynote address, charged Government to hasten the passing of the National Policy on Occupational Safety and Health.

He tasked the government to demonstrate greater commitment to Worker Safety by ratifying some important International Labour Organisation (ILO) conventions.

Other speakers included Mr. Fred Ohene-Mensah, the Chief Factories Inspector, Mr. Abraham Koomson, the General Secretary of the Ghana Federation of Labour, and representative bodies.

Speaking to the media after the Conference, Nana Yaw Akwada, the Executive Director of the Bureau of Public Safety, said the Biennial National Safety Conference would not be meaningful until accident statistics from industry were impacted positively.

He expressed gratitude to participants at the conference urging safety professionals, Human Resource managers and other stakeholders, to continue to patronise the conference as it was getting better each year.

The next conference comes off in June 2017.