By Rukayat Moisemhe

Vitafoam Nigeria Plc has restated its commitment to a safe and healthy work environment for its employees in recognition of their contributions to the growth recorded over the years.

Vitafoam’s Group Managing Director, Mr Taiwo Adeniyi, said this during the company’s health and safety week with the theme: “Creating a safe and healthy Vitafoam: Your rights and responsibilities” on Friday in Lagos.

Adeniyi represented by the Finance Director, Mr Joseph Alegbesogie, stated that the week was necessary to retrain employees to workplace risks and conduct routine health checks on all employees.

He added that the company’s top-notch performance was hinged on its robust safety policies, trainings and its ability to engage the right employees.

“At Vitafoam, we recognise that our employees are the number one ingredient for our success and we have put in place measures to guarantee their safety to ensure a productive workforce and a comfortable business.

“As we join other reputable organisations across the globe to celebrate the world day for safety and health at work, we reiterate and reaffirm our commitment to ensure a safe and healthy environment for all our employees.

“In celebrating the safety week, a number of activities have been lined up for the week to reawaken employee safety consciousness, assess our risks, train and conduct health checks with the goal of preventing workplace fatalities in our organisation,” he said.

Vitafoam’s Commercial Director, Sola Owoade, revealed that the firm had Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) that specified how processes should be carried out with safety as one of them.

“In all of our factory locations, we have sprinkler systems. There is no other foam industry in Nigeria that has that.

We have a hydrant system, a reservoir tank, with a capacity of over 1.2 million litres of water and a second one of 300,000 litres.

“Our sprinkler system is automated and we have smoke detectors all over the premises and also conduct safety drills monthly to test the state of awareness of workers.

“We want to see their response time, so that we are sure that we are safety – conscious always.

“There are clinics in all our factory locations, an ambulance stationed in the premises and a resident nurse and a doctor that visits twice a week, in case of emergencies,” Owoade said.

Mr Lanre Mojola, the Director-General, Lagos State Safety Commission, commended Vitafoam for the precautions and steps it put in place to ensure its operations were safety-compliant and had the interests of its stakeholders at heart.

Mojola, represented by Mr Seun Awojobi, Technical Adviser to the Commission, said that safety should be regarded as a matter of value for any organisation.

He, however, described Vitafoam as an exemplary organisation committed to health and safet