28 divers qualify under new local workplace safety certification

28 divers qualify under new local workplace safety certification

Cold saltwater hit him when the cage he was in dropped into the sea.

With more than 27kg of diving equipment, Filipino Ro Galeno, 38, descended nearly 30m onto the seabed, just 1km off the coast of Singapore's Pulau Sudong.

"Fun. The water's clear today, that's good," said Mr Galeno of the experience last Thursday.

That was not the first time he had done a commercial dive. It was just like any other that he had carried out over the past four years, repairing ship hulls and doing welding work underwater.

But the dive last week was part of a commercial diving course that Mr Galeno completed, making him one of 28 divers to be certified under a local Workplace Safety and Health (WSH) Council diving standard.

They are the first divers attaining the standard, which qualifies them for all diving work within Singapore.

Last week, The New Paper reported that many marine companies did not abide by the standard, a code of practice licensed by government agency Spring Singapore in 2005.

The lack of training options also compounded the problem.

But the WSH Council has since accredited training provider KB Associates to assess and qualify experienced commercial divers to the local standard.

Known as an assessment-only pathway (AOP) programme, it includes assessors who grade trainees according to the criteria set out by the council.

The programme is still not available to the public, but a council spokesman said a full training one will be launched in phases by next year.

For now, only commercial diving contractor Mencast Subsea, with 40 divers in its staff, has conducted the AOP programme. Said KB Associates director of operations Colin Alexander: "Now, the instructors we have are trained in overseas qualifications, but we want to train a batch of local diving instructors qualified to teach the course."

PREVIOUS STANDARDS

When diving specialist Alan Hardy came to Singapore from the UK two years ago, it was a shock for him to discover that commercial diving standards here were poor.

The assessor for the AOP programme said: "It's awful, considering that Singapore has more than 40 years of maritime history and leads the world in several marine industries."

Commercial Diving Association (Singapore) chairman Edwin Tan, who represents the commercial diving industry here, said: "In the end, we want to reach the best industry standards, such as the one used by the International Association of Oil and Gas Producers (OGP)."

OGP standards are used by large companies such as Shell, ExxonMobil and BP, which will refuse to hire any commercial divers that do not meet the standard.

The local standards are still less stringent than the OGP ones, said Mr Tan. Mencast Subsea health and safety manager Abdul Malik said: "Multinational companies like Shell have continuously encouraged us to attain greater standards.

"That's why we have to carry out training programmes like this in the first place."


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