Safety, Health, and Environmental Requirements
Site safety is regulated by Mabhas 12 (safety and protection during execution), the Labour Law and inspection by the labour inspectorate, with environmental duties for dust, noise, waste and water discharge.
Core requirements
- Fall protection: guardrails at slab edges and openings, covered and marked holes, safe ladders and stair access, and inspected scaffolding with proper ties and working platforms.
- Excavation: shoring or safe slopes beyond the depth where collapse is credible, edge protection, ladder access, and checking adjacent structures and services before digging.
- Lifting and plant: certified cranes and operators, exclusion zones, inspected slings, no lifting over occupied areas.
- Electrical: residual-current protection, earthing, weatherproof panels, no temporary wiring on wet ground.
- Health and environment: PPE as the last line of defence, welfare facilities, dust suppression, noise limits, segregated waste and controlled discharge.
- Management: a site HSE plan, induction and toolbox talks, incident recording and investigation.
Worked example
Risk scoring: likelihood 4 (likely) × severity 5 (fatality) = 20. A score of 20 sits in the intolerable band, so work stops. Controls are applied in order: eliminate (prefabricate at ground level), substitute, engineering controls (guardrail, perimeter net), administrative controls (permit to work, exclusion zone), and only then PPE. After controls, re-score: likelihood 1 × severity 5 = 5, tolerable with monitoring. Note that PPE never reduces severity in the arithmetic - it only reduces likelihood.
Traps
Treating PPE as the primary control. Accepting scaffolding without inspection tags. Allowing an unshored excavation because "the soil looks hard". Ignoring neighbouring foundations when dewatering.