A WORKER'S fall to his death has turned out to be a costly oversight that still weighs on sub-contractor Lam Teck Foo's conscience.

After the fall in September 2006, Lam - who has over 50 workers under him - chartered a hearse to take the body of the dead worker, Mr Zainal Zakaria, back to the latter's hometown in Terengganu.

He also paid for the expenses of the 40-plus workers who went up for the funeral.

The burial and funeral cost him about $15,000.

He has also been sending $3,000 annually to the dead man's family. He had promised to do that for three years following the accident.

To add to his financial woes, Lam and his company were fined a total of $150,000 last Friday for failing to take reasonable and adequate fall protection measures, under the Workplace Safety and Health Act.

The court heard that Lam's Singapore-registered company, LTF Engineering, had been engaged by a construction company to take down the asbestos roofing and the steel structure of some factories.

WORKING ON ROOF

On 25 Sep 2006 at about 2.30pm, five workers, including Mr Zainal, 26, were working on the rooftop of a disused factory at Penjuru Road.

The workers were all on the same side of the pitched roof - some were tasked with removing the screws on the roof sheets, while others were helping to remove the dismantled roof sheets, and passing them to workers at the lift.

While working on the rooftop, Mr Zainal stepped onto a plastic skylight. It broke under his weight and he fell about 11m (about the height of the fourth storey of a HDB flat) to his death.

At the time, the workers were provided with safety helmets, safety goggles, gloves, safety harnesses and belts.

But, as it turned out, having the necessary equipment was not enough.

There were no lifelines for the workers to secure their harnesses to and this resulted in Mr Zainal's death.

Since his death, Lam has installed six lifelines on the rooftop and sent a safety supervisor to conduct daily meetings for his workers.

Pleading for leniency, his lawyer, Mr Irving Choh from KhattarWong & Partners, said that Lam was a sub-contractor, engaged through a main contractor.

He said that Lam had promptly admitted responsibility for the death of his worker.

He also undertook the funeral and burial arrangements for the dead worker, and chartered a hearse to take the body from Singapore all the way to the worker's Terengganu hometown.

He added that Lam was a first offender.

Mr Choh said in the previous year, Lam's annual income, according to his tax returns, was a little over $43,000. Last year, it was $51,000.

The lawyer added that if the fine levied against Lam and his business was excessive, they would not only be adversely affected, Lam's financial situation would be worse than before, leaving him no choice but to close down his business.

Speaking to The New Paper after the court hearing, Lam, who is a Singapore permanent resident but lives in Johor Baru, said in Mandarin: 'The worker had been working with us for less than a year when he fell.

NOT AROUND

'I was not around the work site, but my foreman said that the worker was feeling dizzy. He was walking backwards when he fell off the roof.'

But, he admitted, that as the boss of the company, he is responsible for the safety of his workers.

Now, he said, he is faced with a fine that he says is 'so heavy'.

Divorced from his first wife, he has to support his second wife, and five children aged 3, 11, 12, 14 and 15.

'I asked to pay the fine over 10 months, but it was not allowed,' he said.

He added that the sum he got for the job that led to the fall was only $120,000, and the fine he was slapped with will set his business back.

Now, he said: 'I remind my workers to be safe. I've also put in more safety procedures to prevent such incidents.'