It seems that there should be some changes employed to the law in order to improve safety and health in workplaces and minimize fatalities as much as possible.

One important change will look to hold the main contractors responsible for the safety and health of employees hired by their subcontractors, and another will look to expand the Workplace Safety and Health Act in order to cover all the workplaces, from September of the coming year.

The new regulations were officially announced yesterday by Mr. Hawazi Daipi, Senior Parliamentary Secretary for the Ministry of Manpower, during an ongoing debate on the Ministry's budget.

He stressed that the Ministry has come across cases wherein the main contractors were not able to make sure that their subcontractors undertook the safety work effectively. As far as the bringing all workplaces under the Act factor goes, Mr. Daipi said that it was more in-line with the MOM's promise made in January 2006 to take care of this by 2011.

With the new Act, an estimated 1.4 million workers would be covered across about 16 industry sectors which employ about 50% of the total workforce of some 3 million.