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The Department of Employment and Labour's Civil, Explosives and Major Hazard Installation (MHI) directorate within the Inspection and Enforcement Services (IES), is set to host an advocacy session with the Local Authorities to foster relations and collect inputs to develop an MHI technical document.

Around 200 delegates inclusive of the local authorities from different departments, the MHI fraternity residing in Gauteng and, the departments' inspectors are to be attending this session.

Project leader, Rachel Aphane said the session is one of the platforms that the department utilises to advocate and raise awareness to all the risk owners falling within the space of MHI.

“Every year we host the workshops to engage with them, check their challenges, to remind them of their responsibilities and to also educate them about the law. We also use these sessions to understand the implementation processes because, they come across challenges as they are implementing. So, what we are trying to do is to make everything easy for them in order to comply with the law," said Aphane.

This year's theme is focusing on “approvals of MHI sites". Discussions arising from the session will assist the department to develop a working procedure document that will help the local authorities and the duty holder or the risk owners, to comply with the MHI Regulations by:

• Identifying an entry point for MHI approvals at the local authority

• Defining the criteria for quantitative risk assessments and the minimal acceptable contents in the risk assessment reports and;

• Renewal and updating of MHI information.

The sessions are planned to be conducted in provinces with a high number of MHI sites which are Gauteng, Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal. KwaZulu-Natal's session took place in October and after Gauteng, the Western Cape will follow.

Major Hazard Installation is an industrial facility that manufactures and/or stores relatively large quantities of chemical materials, which, if they were to lose containment, would result in effects that could cause harm to personnel and members of the public near the facility. Effects may include major fires, explosions and release of toxic materials that disperse over a distance.

By law, MHI Regulations are co-administered by the Local Authority and Department of Employment and Labour. Every employer, self-employed person and user shall notify the chief inspector, provincial director and relevant local government in writing of the erection of any installation that will be a major hazard installation, prior to commencement of erection thereof; and the conversion of any existing installation into a major hazard installation, prior to such conversion.

Media is invited to attend and RSVP's must be forwarded latest 15h00 (14 November 2019) to Roy.Chauke@labour.gov.za .

Date:    15 November 2019

Time:   08:30am to 13h30pm

Venue: CR-JHB-Sasol Place,

              50 Katherine Street

              Wierda Valley

              Sandton

For more information contact:

Mr Roy Chauke

076 754 0421

Email: Roy.Chauke@labour.gov.za

-ENDS-

Issued by: Department of Employment and Labour

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