Gwangju Citizens Urge Government to Conduct Thorough 'Intensive Safety Inspections' on General Buildings

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Yoon Jamin] As a result of an online survey conducted by Gwangju Metropolitan City, Gwangju citizens demanded thorough inspections of construction sites, roads and railway facilities including bridges, and general buildings such as single-family houses and apartments in the government’s ‘Korea Safety Transformation Intensive Safety Inspection.’

From the 2nd to the 7th of this month, Gwangju conducted an online survey on the selection of facilities for the ‘2023 Korea Safety Transformation Intensive Safety Inspection’ (hereinafter referred to as Intensive Safety Inspection) through the citizen communication platform ‘Gwangju On(on)’ targeting 24,431 members of the Citizen Policy Participation Group.

The ‘Intensive Safety Inspection’ is a preventive activity conducted annually since 2015 during a designated period to intensively inspect facilities where disasters or various accidents are likely to occur, in order to raise public safety awareness and prevent disasters.

This survey was conducted to collect citizens’ opinions on the facilities that should be the focus of safety inspections during the ‘2023 Intensive Safety Inspection’ period scheduled from April 17 to June 16, and to reflect these opinions in the selection of inspection target facilities.

As a result of the survey, Gwangju citizens most frequently selected ‘construction sites’ (62.1%, 1,116 people) as facilities that must be inspected during the Intensive Safety Inspection period.

Next were ‘roads and railways (including bridges and related facilities)’ at 53.3% (959 people), ‘general buildings (single-family and multi-family housing)’ at 46.4% (834 people), ‘power and gas facilities’ at 43.7% (785 people), and ‘industrial sites’ at 39% (701 people).

In response to the question ‘What is most necessary to prevent safety accidents?’ the largest number of citizens (35.8%, 644 people) answered ‘strengthening safety inspections.’

Following were ‘strengthening citizens’ safety awareness’ at 28.1% (505 people), ‘enhancing safety experience education and publicity’ at 19.2% (345 people), and ‘strengthening related regulations’ at 16.2% (291 people).

When asked whether the Intensive Safety Inspection helps prevent safety accidents, 91.5% (1,645 people) of citizens responded positively that it does help (‘generally helps’ 54.2%, ‘greatly helps’ 37.3%).

Additionally, opinions were expressed such as ▲distributing self-checklists for self-inspection including fire extinguisher placement and removal of obstacles from pedestrian paths and stairs ▲strengthening safety accident prevention activities such as accident scenario demonstrations ▲imposing stronger penalties on sites where industrial accidents occur.

Meanwhile, Gwangju recruited 24,400 members for the Citizen Policy Participation Group starting September 8 last year to quickly grasp diverse citizen opinions and use them as basic data for municipal policy decision-making and execution. Additional recruitment will continue for interested citizens.

Heo Kyung, Director of the Citizen Communication Division of Gwangju City, said, “We collect diverse citizen opinions in a timely manner through the ‘Gwangju On(on)’ online survey on major municipal issues and current affairs, and use them as reference materials when promoting policies.”

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