CORPORATE CITIZENSHIP

SAFETY, HEALTH AND ENVIRONMENT (SHE)

Looking to the future

In the 2006 annual report to shareholders, a list of challenges facing AECI was presented. Perhaps it is the nature of the environment in which the Group operates that these challenges remain as relevant in the coming year. Indeed, they may well have been exacerbated by the apparently worsening skills shortage and management difficulties arising from running operations in an energy-scarce country:

• instilling a culture of safe working practices is perhaps the greatest challenge. Until this is in place, too many relatively minor incidents, which carry the potential for significant consequences, will continue to plague the business;
• linked to this, a shortage of skills and competence at supervisory and middle management level is hampering efforts to implement and maintain the necessary disciplines, particularly in operational areas;
• expertise and operational competence in the area of process safety is of particular concern; and
• significant effort in the remediation arena is still required to complete the work being done to rectify environmental legacies. Linked to this is the need to ensure that the mistakes of the past are not repeated, creating fresh legacies that, in turn, will require remediation.
  

Jacques Pienaar
General manager
Group human resources and SHE

Sandton, 25 February 2008