Sifax Group grieves over loss of staff

Zion Olalekan |

The management and staff of SIFAX Group, an indigenous terminal operator, have expressed deepest sorrow over the death of one of its staff, Mr Abiodun Bamidele.

Bamidele, who died last week Thursday, was until his death, the Terminal Operations Manager of Port and Cargo Terminal, a subsidiary of Sifax Group.

Ventilating the sorrowful mood of the indigenous operators, including its Executive Vice-Chairman, Barrister Taiwo Afolabi, the Corporate Affairs Manager of the conglomerate, Muyiwa Akande, described the shock of the staff and management of the company over the death of the staff.

He disclosed that Dr Afolabi personally led other management staff of the company to the bedside of the deceased when he was hospitalised.

“You can imagine how devastated Dr Afolabi was when he later learnt of the death of Bamidele”, Akande disclosed.

According to him, Bamidele died last week Thursday and was buried on Monday. Akande said that in its usual manner, all the hospital bills were taken care of by the company.

“Ever since he died, we have been in contact with the family in terms of planning the burial ceremony, Monday 15th, the burial was done and it was a sober time for us”

“Dr. Afolabi has given his word that the family would be taken care of, we don’t abandon our people, we took a large chunk of the burial expenses” he said.

Meanwhile, the company has said that it was embarking on sensitization of all its dockworkers on the need for compliance with the use of working kits known as Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) while on duty.

According to the Sifax spokesman, part of the management decision taken at its meeting yesterday was that the company is going through a little bit of restructuring and how to bring more effectiveness into its operations and how to increase the compliance level.

He assured that Ports and Cargo Terminal is going to kick-start some campaign around the terminal so that her workers will understand their own place in terms of their safety.

Speaking, he said sometimes the dockworkers are always reluctant to use the safety kits provided for them by management.

He said “For instance what about if the company provides the kits and you don’t use it? This is why orientation and reorientation must come in.

“We are trying to start an enlightenment programme where everybody would be educated, it’s not like we don’t do it, it is part of the key unbundling experience when you are employed into the company.
HSE training is 50% of the training you are given when you are employed”

“Personal protective equipment (PPE) includes gloves boots, headgear, nose covers. We take it seriously but day by day we also review our process and think we can still do a lot better.

“We have regulators that regulate our operations but it is our desire that going forward, we must increase, it is not that we are doing badly, but we felt that we can still do a whole lot better in terms of compliance regime.

“For you to know how serious we are about this the company now has Executive Director Compliance, we also have a coordinator of compliance whose duty is to ensure that every aspect of the laid down rules of the business is complied with.

“We have a clinic at the terminal to take care of our staff and improve their health, in the next few weeks you will also be seeing improvement in terms of health and safety”, Akande declared.