The Sunday News
Stanford Chiwanga , Business Reporter
ZIMBABWE’s leading manager in the field of mining occupational safety, health, environment and quality (SHEQ), Mr Abednego Chigwada has been invited to be a guest speaker at the Mining, Technology and Operations (MTO) Forum which will be held in Perth, Australia from tomorrow to Tuesday.
The SHEQ management field is concerned with advising, assisting and auditing company operations to ensure that standards are adhered to. The main objective is to prevent accidents or incidents that might result from abnormal operating conditions and to reduce adverse effects that result from normal operating conditions in mining.
In an interview on Friday, Mr Chigwada said the forum will be made up of mining executives from Australia and New Zealand. He has been invited because he is viewed as a leading figure in mining occupational safety, health and environment.
“The forum agenda is aligned with the most relevant market developments. The event brings together executives from Australia and New Zealand’s leading mining companies, and with such a high-level audience it is imperative that they have the best of the best presenting.
“This is not my first summit. I was the distinguished speaker at the global health and safety summits in London in 2012, Perth in 2013, Johannesburg in 2014 and this year. My presentations have been described as passionate, insightful, good, powerful and energetic.
“In February 2016, I will be in Las Vegas. All these summits focus on high level global trends in occupational safety and health with a view to contribute to the body of knowledge on this subject matter and influence technology and innovation in the SHEQ field” said Mr Chigwada.
Mr Chigwada is rated as one of the top five presenters.
He said: “I have made achievements of an outstanding safety culture built upon an exceptional understanding of human factors. I have developed an accident prevention model; the AKBC model which emphasises on a strong safety leadership culture. I happen to be the founding president of the Zimbabwe Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (ZIOSH) and I also drafted the National Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Policy.
“I have assisted a number of companies from small to large to successfully develop, implement and maintain world class SHEQ standards. I also have assisted my current employer to be the leading company in SHEQ management in the region.”
Mr Chigwada bemoaned the occupational safety, health, environment and quality standards of companies in Zimbabwe and said ZIOSH was finding it hard to induce employers to invest more in protection their employees and the environment they operate in.
“The employment sector is unsuccessfully grappling to find solutions that create zero harm operations. Although large investments have been channelled towards operational risk management, little dividends have been realised, largely because the delivery did not relate to self, other, and the social setting of the recipients to uncover imbalanced worldviews from mono-cultural to trans-cultural realities.
“Analysis of accidents and incidents shows that human error contributes to cause most accidents and exposures to substances hazardous. Hence I have found it necessary to unravel some important aspects of the human factors and share the AKBC model as tested in a mining house in Zimbabwe which managed to attain more than 10 million fatality-free shifts,” he said.
Mr Chigwada is employed by one of the mining giants in Zimbabwe and the company revealed that “Abednego is currently responsible for ensuring that the Group operates according to vigilant SHEQ (safety, health, environment and quality) management practices. As the Group SHEQ Manager he is responsible for the development of a strong and well-informed SHEQ management culture within the company, enabling sound business decisions that balance risk and reward. More to that he assists management in complying with applicable statutory, regulatory and supervisory requirements and coordinating the overall operational risk management system.”
Mr Chigwada has a diploma in Mining Engineering from the Zimbabwe School of Mines, a degree in Environmental Science from the University of Zimbabwe and a Masters Degree in Strategic Management from the Chinhoyi University of Technology. He is currently studying for a PHD in Management, Technology and Innovation at the Da Vinci Institute in South Africa.
