Michael, I agree with you.
Technologies are as good as the people who use
them. Regulators and organisational stakeholders have always been good at
reactive measures rather than proactive. Once systems start working, stake
holders take their feet off the pedal and are only re-awakened by the failure
events/accidents. In most of the world’s
accidents, human error (due to lack of knowledge/inexperience, shear
negligence, complacency, ego, etc) has been the primary cause.
In the Macondo/Deep
Water Horizon accident (April 20, 2010), the capabilities (resources, staff,
etc) of the government regulatory authorities in overseeing BP’s deep water
activities came under question. If the Gulf Sea oil and gas operation was that
important as we all know, why were the regulatory authorities not adequately
resourced? Was it not somebody’s responsibility to ensure that? Was it a system
issue?
The BP officials’ blatant
breach of safety regulations was also identified as a major gap. These breaches
kept appreciating as they were unnoticed by regulatory officials until the
accident happened. Could we not say if the authorities had the capabilities to
do regular rigorous process safety
audits, some of these breaches would have been picked and BP sanctioned to
fix them, and consequently averting the accident or reducing the impact?
I think a risk
management system is as good as the people driving it. The lessons from the
Macondo accidents will lead to more stringent regulations and cutting edge
technologies. However, if these are going to work, human capacity building and
more penal measures should be the focus.
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