Gürcafer: Lots of words but no action. I am embarrassed but we flunked in class again.

Cafer Gürcafer, President of the Cyprus Turkish Building Contractors Association (CTBCA), stated that there are many projects of non-governmental organizations, especially the CTBCA, on occupational health and safety, but none of them could be implemented due to the fact that in this regard, the legislature and the executive did not take the necessary steps.

Stating that the steps taken to eliminate the shortcomings in occupational health and safety are slower than the speed of a turtle, Gürcafer said, “While the world is revamping legislation on this issue, we unfortunately, are not even at the point where the modern world had started.”

‘’In every Occupational Health and Safety Week, politicians give lots of messages and issue statements, grab cameras and visit constructions sites, and they say how much they value workers and labour. However, they never do what they need to do in order to implement the occupational health and safety policy. For example; Let’s see how much money has been allocated to solve the problem of occupational health and safety while the budget is being put together…!? I’m sure no money has been allocated.”

CTBCA President Cafer Gürcafer released the following message on the occasion of ‘4-10 May Occupational Health and Safety Week’:

“Who remembers, or how much attention did they pay to the projects put forward by non-governmental organizations on occupational health and safety, from the past to the present? I’m sorry, but our grade on this issue is very bad. Occupational health and safety is not among our priorities. This subject continues to humiliate us both to ourselves and to the world. We do not have a system that cares enough about the lives of people who arrive on our shores for work from thousands of kilometres away in order to provide two pennies worth of bread for their home. Unfortunately, we are not doing what is necessary to improve this system. As a non-governmental organization, we have carried out many projects in this regard, and we continue to do so, but it is not possible to actualise anything that the legislature and the executive do not contribute to. Therefore, it is not enough that we alone care. I’m sorry, but I would have to declare on the occasion of the Occupational Health and Safety Week, embarrassingly, that we flunked in class again as a country.”