A 30-year-old Indian national died while carrying out housekeeping works, said the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) on Saturday, November 16. As per the ministry, the unnamed man went through a partition board, falling from level 1 to basement 1 in Shaw Plaza at 360 Balestier Road.
The deceased, who was not identified, was employed by Express 21, which works on electrical engineering and structured cabling projects for buildings in Singapore. As mentioned by MOM, all remaining works within the worksite have been suspended. Further investigation is going on.
It should be mentioned that the number of similar incidents has declined from 24 in 2009 to eight in 2018 as the government and industry partners took an initiative to raise awareness by conducting proper training for the workers. In the past few years, different measures have been introduced to tackle high-risk tasks. The Shaw Plaza incident happened after MOM concluded the Work at Height Symposium on Friday, November 15 which is an annual event that aims to tackle the issue of workers falling from a height.
In 2019 September, MOM 250 companies associated with such risk-related works were scrutinized. Later the ministry issues stop-work orders and 8 fines to some of those companies totalling $91,000.
