The Samruk-Kazyna Fund has organized the first Health&Safety Forum in Nur-Sultan to share experience and best practices, analyze existing problems, and create a new large expert platform in the field of occupational safety and health. 

The representatives of government agencies, top managers of the production companies of the Samruk-Kazyna Group, international organizations and independent experts were invited as speakers. Almassadam Satkaliyev, the CEO of Samruk-Kazyna JSC, welcoming the guests of the Forum, shared with the participants the results of the work that is now in progress in the Fund’s Group in the field of occupational safety and industrial safety, and spoke about the challenges for 2022-2026. “Samruk-Kazyna JSC is the largest employer in Kazakhstan. 

The number of employees of the group of companies is more than 250 thousand people. At the same time, the share of production personnel is 92.4% of the total number. It should be noted that for many years the Fund has been investing efforts and resources in promoting the values and approaches of safe production. 

Nevertheless, we are still very far from the targets for achieving zero injuries at our enterprises. At the end of the year, we will raise questions about the work carried out by the CEOs in the field of industrial safety to the Boards of Directors of the relevant companies. 

Ensuring the safety of employees of enterprises, is the main value for me personally and for the Fund as a whole, and I would like to warn everyone present that I keep every accident under special control,” Almassadam Satkaliyev outlined. Also within the framework of the forum, top managers of 13 large companies of the Fund Group signed personal commitments in the field of H&S. The managers undertook to demonstrate their commitment to safety values by personal example, to ensure the implementation of best practices in the field of occupational safety in companies, as well as to create safe working conditions for employees. 

The obligations were signed by the Heads of such companies as JSC NC KazMunayGas, JSC NAC Kazatomprom, JSC NC Kazakhstan Temir Zholy, QazaqGaz JSC, KEGOC JSC, Samruk-Energy JSC, Kazakhtelecom JSC, Kazpost JSC, Air Astana JSC, Qazaq Air JSC, JSC NMC Tau-Ken Samruk, Samruk-Kazyna Ondeu LLP and Samruk-Kazyna Construction JSC. 

The Forum brought together representatives of international organizations and companies who shared data on world achievements in the field of labor protection. The speakers of the Forum included experts from the ORP (International Fund for Risk Prevention), EBRD (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development), EVERYCO Central Asia Kazakhstan, IOSH (Institute for Occupational Safety and Health), NEBOSH (the UK National Examination Board in Occupational Safety and Health), OPITO and others. The representatives of the Fund noted that over the past four years, manufacturing companies have achieved a 24% reduction in the rate of injuries with loss of working time. 

In absolute terms, the number of the injured decreased by 35%: from 165 in 2018 to 108 in 2021. To monitor the state of occupational health and industrial safety, the Fund and portfolio companies are actively working on automation and digitalization of processes, employee training. A number of portfolio companies have already implemented IT solutions that provide a sufficient level of transparency of reporting, development of communications and other solutions that facilitate the identification of hazards and risk management. These measures help the Fund to respond proactively to the activities of portfolio companies, predicting the situation and planning appropriate measures in advance to achieve common goals in the field of industrial safety. 

The fact that 2022 was declared as the Year of Safety in the Samruk-Kazyna JSC Group played an important role in the development of this direction. For information: On May 26, within the framework of the X Kazakhstan International Conference on Occupational Safety and Health KIOSH-2022, the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of the Population of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Samruk-Kazyna JSC and the International Association of Social Security represented by the Business Consul (Global Ambassador) “Vision Zero” signed a memorandum, the main purpose of which is to promote the principles of the Vision Zero concept in the practice of the Fund’s Group of Companies.