HEALTH, SAFETY AND ENVIRONMENT: CHALLENGES OF THE CURRENT DEMOCRATIC DISPENSATION

By Professor F. 0. OLA TUNJI
Department of Chemical Engineering
University of Lagos,
Akoka — Yaba,
LAGOS.
A paper presented at the 39th Environmental Health Officers Association of Nigeria, held in Lagos, 2003

1.0 INTRODUCTION
It gives me great pleasure and I feel highly honoured to be invited to deliver a plenary address at this your 39th Annual National Conference of the Nigerian Environmental Health Officers Association (NEHOA) taking place at the Banquet Hall, Lagos Airport Hotel, Lagos. I can see that I am to speak on the theme of this Conference, viz, “Health, Safety and Environment: Challenges of the Current Democratic Dispensation”. This theme cuts across many areas in the wide field of Health, Safety and Environment (HSE). We must immediately recognize that this Conference is for Environmental Health Officers and therefore we must emphasize aspects that relate to environmental health in this conference. It is well known that health, safety and environment are very much inter-related and any nation that believes in proper development of its people must consider this trio-based activity.
I wish to congratulate your organizers for choosing such a timely theme/topic at this time of our nation’s development in the present democratic dispensation.

2.0 WHAT IS “HEALTH, SAFETY AND ENVIRONMENT (HSE)?”
It is well known that man’s activities have impacted heavily on Mother Nature and those activities have caused deterioration in the quality of the environment and health, and poor safety conditions. Audu (1) had looked at the evolution of HSE management in the world as reported in a workshop in the year, 2000. The point has been made that the focus of man is predominantly exploitative involving unhealthy race/competition. Also, there was the wrong notion that the environment is ever assimilative, thus assuming that the Earth was inexhaustible in resources and characteristically discrete in behaviour. It was only in the area of safety that Man’s activities even in the olden days had slightly taken some precautions because of the direct impact on the people. This means that indirect impacts on man never receive as much attention for precautionary measures as direct impacts. It is interesting to note that, even in the olden days, safety was managed by instincts and not by scientific analysis or structured approach. Thus, “historical failures” determined how to prevent future occurrences of safety failures.
It is important to note Audu’s assertion in his paper that the Environmental and Occupational health aspects did not attract equivalent attention until much later historically largely because of their indirect impact on man’s wellbeing. We are told that with booming economy, various governments awoke to their responsibility of policy making and enforcing the regulations. We must mention here the establishment of the Federal Environmental Protection Agency (FEPA) IN 1988 which has served as an effective regulatory body in the control of quality of the environment.
Also it was interesting to note that increased public awareness (people standing up to their rights) has literally “cajoled” industries to taking a hard look at their processes in a bid to align the industries towards effective management of HSE aspects.
Because of their interrelationships, the HSE matters were elevated and structures of managing them put in place just like that for any process activity. It has since metamorphosed and given birth to the management system (MS) of HSE. Nigeria cannot afford to trail behind with her fast emerging and liberated economy. In any case, public awareness is ever Increasing and agitation is also becoming sophisticated. There now exists in the very developed companies HSE-Management System manual known as HSE-MS Manual. This manual is a documentation of systemic approach to management of HSE- critical aspect of our activities and an attestation of commitment to sustainable development.
Being a management tool the HSE-MS draws its existence from a Business Model (BM), Quality Management System (QMS) and Hazard and Effects Management Process (HEMP). It is hoped that Nigeria will soon adopt widely the concept of the development and use of the HSE-MS manual.
Let us at this juncture look at an example of HSE policy as enunciated by Mobil Producing Nigeria (MPN). In a paper written by Chief O.T. Olagbende, Manager, Environmental Affairs, MPN in year 2000 (2), HSE Policy for MPN states that “Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited is committed to safeguarding public health and protecting the physical environment of Nigeria” . The paper continues thus: “In recognition of this commitment, MPN complies with all applicable environmental laws and regulations and additionally strives to reduce overall emissions and encourage pollution prevention in Its operations wherever technically and economically feasible. In implementing its HSE Policy, MPN emphasizes among other measures, Pollution Prevention by encouraging techniques such as sources reduction, process modifications, reuse and improved housekeeping. Management of these techniques is achieved through procedure outlined in MPN Waste Management Programme. Also emphasized is participation in the Development and Transfer of Environmental Technology aimed at improving methods of storage, transportation, handling, treatment and disposal of wastes generated from its operations.”

3.0 OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH SERVICES IN NIGERIA.
For a Conference of Environmental Health Officers, the subject of occupational health services must be very important. In a paper presented at a Workshop in year 2000 (3), Chike Nwokike, Medical Adviser to Lever Brothers Plc looked at the Effective Organisation of Occupational Health Services in Nigeria. The summary of the paper is discussed here. The first thing to note is the WHO/ILO assertion that “every citizen of the world has a right to healthy and safe work, and to a work environment that enables him or her to live a socially and economically productive life. Nwokike’s paper reviewed the subject of occupational health and its practice In Nigeria and suggested strategies for improvement at the national level and within organizations, using modern management systems. We are told that Occupational Health is defined by the WHO and ILO as the promotion and maintenance of the highest degree of physical, mental and social well-being of workers of all occupations. Other aspects of the paper by Nwokikle are summarized below:
Occupational health is primarily concerned with health in its relation to work and the working environment and is largely preventive in nature. Occupational health seeks to protect workers from hazards at work and prevent work-related illness. In addition, occupational health is also concerned with preventing adverse effects on the work as a result of the health status of the worker. It is said that WHO declares that occupational health is an important strategy not only to ensure the health of workers, but also to contribute positively to productivity, quality of products, work motivation, job satisfaction and thereby to the overall quality of life of individuals and society.
You may wonder what is the result of inadequate occupational health and safety services. This is said to result in poor working environments with uncontrolled exposure of workers to hazardous conditions. This situation can be costly to the individual workers, the employers and the country at large as a whole in terms of human misery and financial losses.
The results of inadequate occupational health and safety services include the following:
i. Injuries and deaths from work-related accidents.
ii. Acute and chronic illness from work exposure.
iii. Increased sickness, absence and loss of man-hours.
iv. Low morale, low productivity.
v. High medical costs.
vi. Avoidable damage to machinery from accidents
vii. Poor quality products
viii. Poor public Image
ix. Higher costs, lower sales leading to lower profits.
It is worth noting that the development of adequate occupational health and safety services in Nigeria has been hampered by the following factors:
a. Insufficient knowledge and understanding of the critical issues involved in occupational health and safety on the part of the workers, management, employers and even government.
b. Many of the workers are illiterate and are not able to adequately understand the machinery and appreciate hazards of the industrial processes and chemicals.
c. High rate of unemployment means high reservoir of low cost manpower and consequently the value of labour is not appreciated.
d. Cultural factors — for example a fatalistic outlook that accepts accidents or occupational disease as inevitable..
e. Inadequate training facilities in occupational health and safety.
f. Inadequate and ineffective legislation-poorly enforced.
g. Non-reporting of accidents and occupational diseases resulting in inaccurate statistics.
h. Poorly focused Trade Unions who are more interested in wages etc than improvement in health and safety.
i. Lack of commitment and direction by government.
It must be mentioned here that many organizations and industries in Nigeria, instead of encouraging the provision of proper and core occupational health and safety services, have encouraged the provision of limited curative services usually through general practitioners on retainership basis. The exceptions are few of our multinational companies in Nigeria like Unilever Brothers, Cadbury, Nestle etc. as well as some Oil companies including the NNPC.

- Special e.g. drivers’ medical, food handlers
(iii) Supervision of the Working Environment
- Regular factory/work area visits
- Advice on industrial hygiene
- Hazard Identification
- Personal Protective Equipment/Clothing Supervision
- Environmental Monitoring
- Ergonomics Control.
(iv) Biological Monitoring e.g. Audiometry, Lung Function Test.
(v) Supervision of Food Hygiene
(vi) Advice to Management and Staff on Occupational Health
(vii) Health Education/Training e.g. in health, hygiene, first aid etc.
(viii) Health Promotion, Counselling
(ix) Supervision of Sanitary Conveniences and General Cleanliness
(x) Records/Health Statistics
(xi) Research/Teaching.
We need to take note of the final point made in Nwodike’s paper as to the need for establishing integrated occupational health, safety and environmental services unit, It is now a normal practice in many large organizations in the developed countries to have this type of integrated system. This helps In ensuring coordinated efforts in providing high standard and efficient servides.
It is important to develop an integrated Health, Safety and Environmental policy for a given company as advocated by Nwodike. This Health, Safety and Environment Unit would act as an indispensable advisory service to which all levels of management and production can systematically turn for advice whenever necessary.
4.0 HSE AUDIT AND ITS IMPORTANCE
The question we should ask ourselves at this point is why HSE Audit? In order to answer this question, we need to even know what HSE Audit is all about. Ndukwe (4), in a Workshop paper in the year 2000, took a look at Health, Safety and Environmental Audit. His paper defines auditing of health, safety, and environment as a process of monitoring an organization’s ongoing management of the various activities that can have an impact on human heal! h, safety or on the environment. Ndukwu asserts that a sure way of assuring a community that an organization’s operations do not pose unreasonable risks to human beings, or to the environment, is by having an audit conducted by skilled personnel using state-of-the-art-techniques. In addition, he says that it is advantageous to an organization if, from time to time, it does safety and environmental audit of its facilities especially when an audit ensures that an organization complies with all applicable regulatory and internal policies.
Ndukwe gives a brief account of what Health, Safety and Environmental audit is all about. This is as follows:

Audit Planning
At the audit planning stage, the auditors decided on the form of written document to guide them in the fieldwork portion of the audit. This document is usually known as audit protocol.
Understanding Internal Management Systems and Procedures
This is the first on-site activity of the auditors. The auditors must have accurate understanding of the facility’s management systems, standard practices and procedures, and be able to relate them to the scope of the audit. The auditors develop a working understanding of how the facility manages its activities, which can impact its Health, Safety and Environmental performance.
Assessing Strengths and Weakness of Internal Controls
In this step, the aim is to assess the facility’s environmental management systems and the engineered controls, whether if operating as intended will yield results that meet external regulatory requirements and any internal standards. The review and evaluation are intended to reveal the inadequacies in the facility’s health, safety and environmental management systems and to suggest ways of improving the management systems and/or engineered controls as the case may be.

Gathering Audit Evidence/Findings.
The first thing to do before gathering audit evidence is that the team develops a testing plan which includes verification strategies, sampling methods, and approximate time allocations for doing specific jobs. The audit team must ensure that evidence is gathered in accordance with testing plans to determine compliance with governmental and internal requirements and to verify that each of the environmental management systems included in the audit is working as designed and intended.

Evaluating Audit Results.
Prior to audit results being evaluated, each auditor should check his/her assigned protocol steps to ascertain that they have been completed and, if not, what additional information is needed. There is also a need to review the list of audit exceptions to ensure that they are all factually correct.
Audit results to be evaluated include audit findings (an overall statement of compliance with regulatory requirements or conformance with internal standards), exceptions (specific deficiencies with respect to applicable regulations or internal requirements), and observations (which may include exemplary practices, but more often may include specific deficiencies or areas of concern).
Reporting Audit Findings and Exceptions
This is the final step in the basic 6-step audit process. The report should accurately reflect the audit findings, exceptions, and observations.
Ndukwe’s conclusion is worth noting.
a. That the focus of audit report should be on compliance with regulations, policies and procedures, and good management practices (not on individuals or their mistakes).
b. That the main aim of an audit is to recognise good practices, update procedures, eliminate exceptions, and sensitise an organisation on issues which in future will be important to health, safety and environment.

5.0 CASE STUDIES OF RESEARCH WORK ON WASTE
MANAGEMENT IN THE PRESENT DEMOCRATIC DISPENSATION
This paper concludes with case studies of current research findings by graduates of the Postgraduate Diploma (PGD) programme in HSE at the College of Medicine, University of Lagos (CMUL). These researches have been carried out on present problems in our local environment and these are only a tip of the iceberg.
Case Study 1: Mushin Local Government Area of Lagos State.
a. Title of Project: “The Problem of Solid Waste Management and Its Effect on Community Health in Mushin Local Government”. Sanusi, A.K. PGD/HSE, College of Medicine Project, 2000.
b. Brief Comments from the Author’s Work
Waste Management in Mushin Local Government remains an environmental problem that is becoming more complex on daily basis. The current challenge calls for the government, private sectors, voluntary organization, to harmonise their activities to promote sustainable management of waste. The different methods of solid waste management in Mushin Local Government are listed as follows: Burning, Burying, House Collection, Incineration, Open Dumping, Twin Litter Bins’ Communal Refuse Depots, Cart Pushing and Land Fill Sites.
c. Recommendations from the Author’s Work (only a few given here)
i. There should be a statutory requirement that all solid waste emanating from home, offices and factories must be sorted and placed in labeled polythene bags for the private operators to collect.
ii. It is reasonable that sorting of waste begins at sources. Categories into which the waste can be sorted include plastics, metals, non-metals and organic paper.
iii. Indiscriminate dumping of waste or dropping of litter on roads or into gutter or public drains should be legislated against and should attract a minimum penalty to discourage people against it.
iv. Enforcement must be strict and should be handled by specially trained environmental health officers equipped with motor-cycles or vehicles for mobility and accessibility.
v. Lagos State Waste Management Authority should create fence and supervise dumping sites at suitable locations well away from building areas to which all those within the locality must take their waste.
vi. The local government councils should supplement the effort of the private sector participation (PSP) by a sort of mopping up exercises, for example, removing of waste from the public places, schools, hospitals, open places, public drains, roads, median and verge.
vii. The local government should commence the teaching of environmental health and safety subjects in the primary schools, as a means of catching them young and also of reaching out to their parents and getting them to develop environmentally-friendly habits.
viii. Licensing of private waste management operations should be done by the local government, using ward clusters as operating base units.
ix. These operators must, as a prerequisite for licencing, produce evidence of their ability to mobilize the resources, i.e. men, tippers, needed for their job
x. The environmental department of the local government should be adequately funded in order to enable the mopping up exercises to be successfully carried out and the environmental equipment to be purchased, such as rakes, hand-shovels, tippers and mechanical shovels.
xi. The environmental health officers of the local government need to be exposed to more management training exercises to enable them learn modern management concepts which will help them plan their work better and learn to think more critically and creatively about their work.
xii. Finally, there is need to employ more environmental health officers in the State. Presently, the number of environmental health officers in the State as at year 2000 is less than 800 which is just too small to cope with the challenges in the State.
Case Study 2: Epe Local Government Area of Lagos State.
a. Title of Project: “Environmental Impacts of Bush Burn/nc, and other Burning Activities in Epe Local Government Area of Lagos State.”. Amacho, T PGD/HSE, College of Medicine, Unilag Project 2000.
b. Brief Comments from the Author’s Work
Epe Local Government Area is a rural setting with a population of 219,891 by the National Population Commission data of 1990. It is bounded on the West by lkorodu Local Government Area and on the South by lbeju-Lekki Local Government Areas both of Lagos State. The boundary on the North is by Odogbolu Local Government Area of Ogun State and on the East by Iwopin Riverine Local Government area also of Ogun State. The main occupation of the people are farming, fishing and petty trading.
Bush burning is an activity that is mostly carried out by farmers in Epe LGA in order to prepare the land for farming which is one of the major occupations of the indigenes. Apart from bush burning, other burning activities considered and studied were domestic or household burning (also termed residential burning), industrial burning, and burning in public place.
c. Recommendations from the Author’s Work
i. Awareness should be created among the people on the dangers of burning activities especially through community involvement and participation.
ii. There should be provision of adequate ventilation in case of domestic burning.
iii. There should be promulgation of laws against indiscriminate burning activities relating to bush burning, refuse burning and burning of garden weeds.
iv. Community watchmen should be engaged in the monitoring of indiscriminate burning within the community.
v. There should also be regular monitoring of the state of the environment by the State Government through the activities of the advisory committee on environmental sanitation set up by the Ministry of Environment and Physical Planning.
vi. Attempt should be made to convert heat energy produced by incinerators, furnaces and burners into steam for treating and drying processes.
vii. There should be provision of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), such as nose masks, for workers in the burning or incineration industry if air pollution cannot be controlled or reduced to a minimum.
viii. Environmental education should be introduced into School Curriculum especially at the primary and secondary levels.
Case Study 3: Ikeja Local Government Area of Lagos State.
a. Title Project: “Private Sector Participation in Domestic Refuse Collection and Disposal: A Viable Option in Solid Waste Management in Ike] a Local Government Area of Lagos State” lyoriobhe, V.E. PGD/HSE, College of Medicine Project, 2002.
b. Brief Comments from the Author’s Work
Ikeja Local Government is one of the twenty local governments in Lagos State. The Local Govenment area is bounded in the North by Agege and lfako-ljaye Local Governments, in the East by Kosofe and Sornolu Local Governments, in the South by the Mushin Local Government and in the West by Oshodi/Isolo and Alimosho Local Governments. lkeja Local Government area is a mini-Nigeria in setting, with almost all the tribes present, though the majority of the inhabitants are predominantly Yoruba speaking people. The population according to 1991 census figures is 281,530. The project focuses on the Involvement of private sector participation (PSP) in domestic refuse ‘collection and disposal in Ikeja Local Government Area. As at the time of the project in the year 2002, there were twenty-six (26) private sector refuse operators.
c. Recommendations from the Author’s Work
i. There are inadequate resources militating against effective solid waste management. These resources are pay loaders, bulldozers, tippers, compacting vehicles, dino chassis and bins, cleaning implements and funds. Adequate provision of these sources will enhance solid waste management.
ii. There is a need for private sector to be involved in solid waste management in all the urban local government areas in the country since they have similar problems in solid waste management. This is because the government cannot bear the burden of solid waste management alone as a result of the huge cost. More importantly, those who generate the refuse that pollute the environment should pay for its evacuation. The programme is working in Lagos State.
iii. There is a need for recruitment of skilled personnel such as Sanitary Engineers, Environmentalists, Geologists and Environmental Health Officer to take charge of solid waste management. These personnel should be able to plan and coordinate all the processes involved in solid waste management.
iv. There should be adequate and proper town planning for effective sold waste management. For example, there is a need to provide good access roads which should be properly linked to one another. Other needs are street lights and good drainage system. All these will ease the evacuation of refuse from all the nooks and crannies of the city.
v. There is also a need to put in place development and extension of Health Education Services.
There is no doubt that if every Nigerian has been duly and sufficiently exposed to Health Education, the environmental sanitation of Lagos state in general would change for the better. A well-planned and coordinated environmental health education programme for all the communities in the state should be given high priority.
vi. There should be comprehensive environmental legislation. The laws relating to environmental sanitation offences should be made comprehensive. The cases should be tried in courts especially set up for environmental sanitation and related matters. Stiff penalties should be meted out to offenders. The enforcement officers should ensure that the laws are enforced to its logical conclusion.
vii. Refuse waste should be sorted out at source of storage. The reusable materials should be bagged in bags with different colours. The items should be identified with the colour of the bags.
viii. The private sector operators in solid waste management should be strengthened in terms of acquisition of appropriate equipment such as tippers and compacting vehicles. The government should fashion out a way to grant them loans directly or guarantee the loans in financial institutions. To ensure repayment, a mechanism to recover the money should be put in place.
ix. There should be sanctions for the private operators who do not perform according to the law. Any Private Sector Operator with lapses should be removed from the proramme. However, prior to the removal, he/she should be warned in writing at least three times.
x. Finally, there should be a way to reward the best worker and/or the best private refuse operator company. This reward system will motivate the workers, while it will also create competition among the operators.

6.0 CONCLUSION
The paper takes a look at Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) as it affects the Nigerian polity. The paper focuses on occupational health services in Nigeria and the need for establishing integrated HSE service units in organizations. The importance of HSE audit was highlighted especially to ensure compliance with regulations, policies and procedures as well as good management practices. Finally, in order to bring out the challenges of the current democratic dispensation, case studies of current research work on waste management problems in Lagos State were given and discussed.

7.0 REFERENCES

1. AUDU, Y.B. (200) “Managing HSE as Core Business” Nig. Soc, of Chem. Engineers Proceedings, Nov pp. 161-1 70.

2. OLAGBENDE, O.T. (2000) “Waste Management Programme-Mobil Producing Nigeria’s Experience”. The Punch, June 5, 2002


3. NWOKIKE, C. (2000) “Effective Organization of Occupational Health Services in Nigeria.” Nig. Soc, of Chem. Engineers” Proceedings, Nov. Pp.11-28.

4. NDUKWE, O.C. (2000). “Another Look at Health, Safety and Environmental Audit”. Nig. Soc. Of Chem. Engineers’ Proceedings, Nov. Pp. 92-98.