Qatar projects keen to maintain high safety standards and improve efficiency have contracted a Bahrain-based occupational safety and health firm to train staff, the firm says.

The National Occupational Safety and Health (Osho) Centre has received contracts to train thousands of staff working on some of Qatar’s most prestigious projects including the Qatar Gas-II LNG onshore development and the Pearl Gas to Liquid (GTL) facilities, Osho Centre development manager Mohammed Alawi said.
Parties requisitioning its services include well known local and international names including Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI), Consolidated Contractor International Company (CCIC) and Tayseer Contracting Company.
Osho Centre specialises in health safety and environment management and training and offers consultancy services in the same field.
For the LNG project, Osho was signed up by CCIC and TCC to train around 1,700 staff in occupational safety and health hazard identification. They included officers and freshly inducted workers.
The Osho Centre is currently training HHI staff engaged in constructing facilities linked to the Pearl GTL project in all safety aspects. They are across-the-board staff and number up to 7,000 people, said Alawi.
“We have deployed a large international team to implement the training which is being conducted in six different languages – English, Hindi, Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese and Korean,” commented Alawi.
“The goal of the project is to create a safety culture within the organisation and help achieve high safety ratings with HHI clients as it is both a requirement and an appealing concept to the contractors to acquire good track records.”
The training is tackled on different fronts. “On top is leadership training which we have aimed at directors, other senior management and project managers. At another level we also cover a large number of lower-ranked trainees and their supervisors so that the programme meets its requirements.
“We also impart craft-specific training and it involves a large section of workers including welders, people in confined spaces, those working on heights, insulators, electricians, pipe-fitters and so on.
“This course was prepared with the assistance of the client and those in charge of safety in association with the project management contractor.
“Other courses include ‘lead by example,’ training of helpers’ trainers, safety on scaffoldings, electrical safety, handling of abrasive tools and power tools and safety during excavations.”
Osho Centre’s induction course includes a teaching on safety at work. An induction course is now mandatory for workers before they assume their posts.
“The company has participated in Qatar exhibitions and we are happy to be part of the rising awareness on safety,” said Alawi.
“Today organisations require an integrated approach to managing occupational health, safety and the environment in order to be effective and successful.
“The Osho centre, through implementation and enforcement of behavior-based safety orientation and training, defines unsafe acts and conditions.
“We have successfully trained different levels of personnel in management, supervisory positions, ordinary workers and HSE personnel.”