Announcing a $6.4 million six-week clean-up of asbestos-ridden Succaba Pen in Old Harbour, St Catherine, the Environmental Foundation of Jamaica (EFJ) warned negligent senior managers that the law would soon catch up with them.

Dr Ishenkumba Kahwa of EFJ outlined details of the clean-up, set to begin next week, in a recent address to a group of senior managers on environmental health and safety at the Mona Visitor’s Lodge, Mona in St Andrew.

But Kahwa used the opportunity to put CEOs on alert that the litigious practices of North America and Europe would reach Jamaica soon and senior managers could find themselves serving jail time for negligence resulting in workplace hazards.

“One might say these things are happening in the United Kingdom and the United States, we are not going to be very much affected. Globalisation has wiped out all of that security because we are vulnerable to the same issues that are affecting managers in the United States and the United Kingdom,” Kahwa said.

Kahwa said lawyers from countries where institutions were sued regularly regarding matters of workplace safety, would capitalise on opportunities in countries like Jamaica, if the local legal fraternity did not.

He also pointed out that Jamaica’s proposed National Occupational Health and Safety Act would provide stringent guidelines for the safety of the workplace.

When passed, he said, the new law would have some ‘teeth’ and would offer Jamaicans valid recourse for injuries, or illnesses contracted on the job.

He added: “Many people in Jamaica do not know where asbestos is in our workplace – it is in our rooves, it is in floor tiles, wire installations.”

Asbestos is a naturally occurring fibre, which has been proven to cause lung diseases and mesothelioma, a rare form of cancer of the lining of the chest and abdomen.