Dir.-Gen. Ahn Shi-kwon of the Construction Policy Bureau of the 

Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport

The following are excepts of a written interview with Dir.-Gen. Ahn Shi-kwon of the Construction Policy Bureau of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport on safety check systems on construction sites around the country. 

He said there are some 60,000 construction sites around the country, which is just too many on which to conduct safety inspections. But the government is doing its best to come up with the best safety management system, especially for safety checkups at construction sites, Dir-Gen Ahn said in the following interview:

Question: Can you please tell us about the safety measures taken at construction jobsites around the country?

Answer: The construction companies must set up safety guidance systems at their jobsites around the country before they take on the projects if they are considered bigger than ordinary and involve danger. They include construction projects in categories 1&2, digging the earth more than 10 meters deep, the use of explosives, constructing buildings more than 10 stories high, remodeling or destruction, building structures for flying objects to take off from or from which to be piloted.

The safety measures for these kinds of construction projects should include safety management systems according to project as well as inspection systems to ensure safety of the areas around the jobsites; plans for smooth traffic around the jobsites; plans for safety education; and plans for the execution of budgets for the maintenance of those safety measures. The construction firms about to undertake construction projects should submit those safety measure management plans to the construction permit licensing authorities or other proper authorities for approval and those authorities should thoroughly go over the submitted plans before issuing the proper permits or licenses. The construction companies can begin their projects only after they get the permits from the authorities. They should do everything within their means to thoroughly ensure that no accidents occur in their projects or in their vicinities and the authorities should conduct check-ups to see if they are following the conditions of the safety permits as strictly as they can. 

The most important thing is regular inspections over a regular period of time during the project construction period. The permit issuing organizations and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport should conduct project site inspections after the coldest part of winter, after the rainy season, and during the spring thaw to see if the safety management systems are being followed up on as stipulated in the permits. Otherwise, they can penalize the construction firms for not adhering to the conditions of the permits to make sure that the safety measures are maintained to the letter.  

Q: Can you please tell us about the safety education provided at the jobsites?

A: The safety education at the jobsites is provided in two ways: one is based on the Industrial Safety Health Law and the other based on the Construction Technology Safety Promotion Law.

The safety education based on the Industrial Safety Health Law is designed to prevent workers from getting into accidents by making sure they wear safety hats, fire prevention, and slip and fall accidents by teaching them how to avoid such incidents through a safety teacher assigned to each jobsite. The details of the education are provided by the Ministry of Employment and Labor.

The safety education under the Construction Technology Safety Promotion Law is not only for the project sites, but for the areas close to the project sites including the residents in nearby towns and the installations.

Generally, the safety officer at each project or an officer in a similar position conducts the education on safety every time the work on a project begins, pointing out where precautions are needed on the design maps, along with the processes of various stages of construction, as well as what cautions should be taken when certain technologies are used.

Q:  Please introduce to us the ministry’s major safety measures that have been introduced in 2014  

A: The ministry has been working to drastically cut the number of accidents at construction sites around the country and has come up with a number of measures after listening to professional opinions of experts at the accident sites and from the research institutions assigned to investigate them and recommend preventive measures.

First of all, based on a report that around 30 percent of deaths from the accidents occurred at temporary installations built at construction sites, the ministry has made it mandatory to check the safety of those temporary facilities and a law is being passed to regulate safety checks on temporary installations.

Through the revised law, architects and builders will be required to check on the safety of those temporary installations at construction sites and when the laws are revised, the accidents involving temporary installations are expected to be reduced very much. We also plan to involve the professional people on safety checkups at construction sites to prevent the accidents.

We have been managing the system requiring the license issuing agencies and permit issuing authorities to examine the safety management plans, but they have not been able to truly do the job fully as they don’t have enough professional knowledge to do the job as required.

We had the Korea Infrastructure Safety Corp. examine the safety management plans at construction sites, especially, the installations included in the large project construction plans, especially by revising the Construction Technology Promotion Law, which was made to apply to the construction projects being built starting this May.

We expect the revision of the law will boost the real effect on safety checkup systems at construction sites and if it is proved to work, all safety management systems check-ups will be assigned to the Korea Infrastructure Safety Corp. as best as possible.

The ministry has been at work to come up with safety measures at construction sites around the country by the fall at the latest and has been contacting everyone from architects to maintenance companies to draw up safety management measures.

But it should be noted that there are over 60,000 construction works in progress around the country now and it is far too difficult for public inspection organizations to take care of all of the safety checkups at those jobsites.

Q: Since the ferry Sewol sinking, the government has been focusing on drawing up pan-government safety management measures, with the construction sites being no exception, through diverse means to reform their safety measures.

 A:  The real-name safety system is one of the measures being studies, but detailed measures will come after many suggestions and recommendations have been collected and studied. In fact, all safety checkup systems are done in real names, but there have been limits to the system as they only write on pieces of papers on what happened during the checkups, nothing further taking place, such as sharing the checkup experiences and whether they were done in real names

The ministry expects to introduce the real-name inspection system with the application of a pan-government construction sites checkup experience management system and solve the double checkups among the similar organizations or agencies by sharing the checkup records. The ministry has under consideration a new checkup experience sharing system, which will be included in the reformed construction site safety checkup management system.