The T&T Cham­ber of Com­merce yes­ter­day ex­pressed con­cern about tar­get­ed shut­downs of gov­ern­ment of­fices by the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) and called for al­ter­na­tive meth­ods to be used be­fore re­sort­ing to dis­rup­tive mea­sures.

"Like all or­gan­i­sa­tions, the em­ploy­er is re­spon­si­ble for com­plet­ing a risk as­sess­ment to en­sure that its work place en­vi­ron­ment com­plies with the OSH Act. Where there are de­fi­cien­cies, the em­ploy­er should cor­rect these in a proac­tive man­ner. We are of the view that em­ploy­ees must be as­sured safe work­ing en­vi­ron­ments as pro­vid­ed un­der the OSH Act," the Cham­ber said in a state­ment.

The group not­ed the an­nounce­ment by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Lar­ry Howai that just over $1 bil­lion was ap­proved for com­ple­tion of the Gov­ern­ment Cam­pus build­ings and that OSH is­sues at the Im­mi­gra­tion and Board of In­land Rev­enue build­ings are be­ing ad­dressed.

"While laud­able, the Cham­ber be­lieves that there must be a more proac­tive ap­proach to man­age­ment of our pub­lic ser­vice fa­cil­i­ties. A well-func­tion­ing and ef­fi­cient pub­lic ser­vice sup­ports the de­vel­op­ment of so­ci­ety and en­sures so­cial and eco­nom­ic bal­ance, while pro­vid­ing life's cer­tain­ties to cit­i­zens," the Cham­ber said.