[2020 National Audit] Safety Management Expenses at Construction Sites Not Properly Used... 5,123 Violations in 3 Years

Jang Cheol-min "System Establishment Needed Including Institutional Computerization"

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Chun-han] It has been revealed that the number of violations of the construction industry industrial safety and health management expense usage standards, which are used for the safety of construction workers, amounted to 5,123 cases over the past three years.

According to the status of disciplinary actions on industrial safety and health management expenses submitted by the Ministry of Employment and Labor to Jang Cheol-min, a member of the National Assembly's Environment and Labor Committee from the Democratic Party of Korea, there were 333 violations this year (as of September), 1,716 in 2019, 1,580 in 2018, and 1,827 in 2017. The construction industry industrial safety and health management expenses are costs determined according to the scale of construction projects and are legally mandated to be used for the prevention of industrial accidents and health hazards.

There are also concerns that the actual number of violations at sites may be higher than the detected cases. This is because labor inspections are mainly conducted at workplaces where industrial accidents have occurred, rather than across all workplaces. Among 766 companies that used safety management expenses exceeding 10 million won for purposes other than intended or failed to prepare detailed statements from 2017 to 2019, 693 were sites where industrial accidents occurred. Although these companies represent only 0.97% of the total number of construction companies in 2019 (Statistics Korea, 2019 Construction Industry Survey), the number of industrial accident deaths was 63, accounting for 15% of the 428 construction industry accident deaths in 2019.

Assemblyman Jang stated, “Supervisory matters regarding construction industry industrial safety management expenses are missing from the labor inspection manual,” and added, “We will establish a safe working environment by creating systems such as the computerization of the industrial safety and health management expense system.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.