HGP Nightly News – A sharp rise in workplace deaths and injuries in the first four months of 2026 has prompted a strong warning from Labour and Manpower Planning Minister Keoma Griffith, who says the latest figures are deeply troubling and demand a tougher national response to occupational safety failures.
Addressing the Occupational Safety and Health Symposium at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre on Tuesday, Griffith said 13 people lost their lives in workplace incidents between January and April this year, while dozens more were injured. In his words, the situation is “deeply troubling” and points to an urgent need for stronger compliance and stricter health and safety practices across all sectors.
“While we’ve made significant strides, the statistics for the period of January to April 2026 are deeply troubling,” Griffith said. “For this period, there have been 13 workplace fatalities and 64 non-fatal incidents. This increase is unacceptable and underscores the urgent need for stricter compliance and health and safety protocols.”
The minister said the country can no longer afford to approach workplace safety as a matter of routine box-checking after the fact. Instead, he called for what he described as a fundamental shift in attitude and practice.
“We must therefore confront this conundrum head-on,” Griffith said, adding that the moment calls for “a decisive paradigm shift” away from reactive compliance and toward “proactive prevention, accountability, and zero tolerance for unsafe practices.”
He made it clear that government intends to respond with stronger enforcement. According to Griffith, the ministry will continue expanding the reach and capacity of its inspectorate while also updating legal and policy tools so they remain modern and responsive to changing workplace risks. “Occupational safety and health standards must not be optional,” he said. “They must be rigorously enforced across every sector in our economy.”
The warning comes against a backdrop of previous gains that the ministry had been pointing to in recent years. Griffith noted that between 2020 and 2025, the ministry conducted 6,186 occupational safety and health inspections across both high-risk and low-risk sectors. He said more than 27,000 workers benefited from those inspections nationwide, helping to strengthen prevention and resilience in workplaces.
According to the minister, those efforts had produced measurable results, including a 12.78 percent decline in work-related fatalities and nearly a 50 percent reduction in non-fatal incidents over that period. But the latest figures for early 2026 suggest that progress remains fragile and that serious gaps in workplace safety still exist.
