Eli Msimanga, Regional Safety, Health, and Environmental Lead, WSP in Africa
Identifying, assessing, and managing risks in some of Africa’s most challenging environments remains critical for the success of any mining project. Ensuring the safety of staff while delivering high-quality work in remote and often unstable locations is vital.
Working in the security, risk, travel, business continuity, and/or emergency sectors may have introduced you to TRM (Travel Risk Management). Following a course that no one anticipates or foresees, events culminating in chaotic shifts; the success of many organisations depends on providing the necessary conditions for employees to feel comfortable and secure both before and during their work-related travel. This is a challenging endeavour because the traveling is now vulnerable to a variety of threats, including terrorism, and kidnapping for ransom because of globalisation.
Those organisations looking to identify and assess opportunities across the continent must therefore perform extensive risk assessments and identify how the appropriate controls can be implemented cost-effectively to an accepted level. Enabling staff to travel safely, execute work, and return safely from those locations.
With major mining operations often in remote areas, identifying additional resources such as logistics for travelling, medical aid care, and security to provide support and act as a deterrence is an added focus. These resources will never be static as companies must be agile and responsive to changing situations. For instance, if civil unrest or protests threaten to impact travel routes, the priority must shift to ensuring the safety of the in-country team, and include evacuation, if necessary, without compromising the controls required to ensure the safety of all personnel in the field.
A way of working
In the case of WSP, the “Way of Working” lies at the heart of our practice. This is a project lifecycle management system that encompasses every facet of project management from identifying opportunities through to project completion, with health and safety at the centre.
This six-stage process begins with a thorough assessment of the opportunity. As part of this, health, safety, and security considerations are central to adopting a ‘go’ or ‘no-go’ mindset and are founded in a detailed location risk assessment. This assessment informs firstly an understanding of whether or not the identified threats and risks can be effectively mitigated, which in turn will underline whether any decision taken on pursuing the opportunity will be approved or declined.
Should the decision be to decline, the process stops there. However, should it be decided to pursue the opportunity, this assessment also offers a guide on the resources required to adequately mitigate the identified risks, suitable service providers to deliver these resources and services and the cost thereof for inclusion in the bid to the client.
The client’s consideration of the bid may include scrutiny of measures to be applied to mitigate the risk, and detailed risk analysis and resource identification is essential to ensuring that adequate understanding and provision can be demonstrated. In some instances, client resources to address the identified exposures may be available, however this cannot be assumed and requires verification.
Following award of the project, development and implementation of the required controls, securing the indicated risk management resources, incorporating the client’s resources and protocols, and preparation of the team, all precede mobilisation to site. Mobilisation only occurs once all resources are in place, the team has been properly prepared and that these measures have been reviewed and approved both internally and by the client if required. Thorough monitoring of the implemented controls throughout the execution phase is essential to making sure that the controls identified before mobilisation are effectively implemented, remain relevant to the assessed risk, and are understood and utilised by all team members.
Following completion of the project and demobilisation, any lessons that have been learnt relating to the exposures and controls implemented would be documented and shared with teams considering opportunities where similar locations, risk profiles and controls may be encountered. Throughout this journey, we remain focused on all aspects of the technical, quality management, ethics, and health and safety aspects of a project.
Always changing
In crisis situations, no company can rely on a fixed playbook. Each scenario demands a unique response, prepared based on a meticulous risk assessment. This includes evaluating the specific risks of the location and integrating the required resources and measures into proposals to clients. Everything must be tailored to the specifics of the situation in which employees are working.
For instance, our risk evaluation process is grounded in a comprehensive country assessment mechanism. This involves a series of questions and prompts that assess health, safety, and security for the project location, including travel to and from the site. It is a holistic approach that considers all potential threats and risks from the moment our team leaves their home base.
Of course, commercial considerations also play a significant role. Balancing the costs of implementing safety and security measures against the profitability of the project is important. If a project requires security investments of three times the return, then clearly it is not viable to pursue. Ultimately, there is a need to maintain a balance between commercial earnings and risk mitigation.
Making the tough choices
Effective decision making requires a partnership-driven approach, working with clients and safety specialists alike. Using specialist service providers for up-to-date information is critical. This external expertise is invaluable in preparing comprehensive country overviews, which can then be rigorously reviewed by internal organisational opportunity teams. Only after confirming that resources and mitigation measures are adequate should a company then decide to proceed with a project.
Sometimes, the situation necessitates a no-go decision. For instance, the current security concerns in Northern Mozambique (Cabo Delgado), with its unpredictable separatist movement, make the region highly volatile. Though the area is of great interest to the international oil and gas market, the situation is such that it is too fluid to predict if and when an attack by the separatist movement may take place that many businesses have decided to not pursue opportunities in that region until the situation normalises. That said, some of the majors are reestablishing in the area, but with robust measures in place.
For us, working in Africa is defined by a deep commitment to safety, coupled with a relentless pursuit of quality. Understanding the unique challenges of each location, staying agile in the face of changing situations, and balancing safety with commercial viability are the cornerstones of our approach.
