KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 7 — The Department of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) today denied a report by a foreign newspaper that accidents at workplace which involved the death of Nepalese workers in Malaysia happened every day in 2018.

In a statement issued here today, DOSH said that based on the department’s record, 23 Nepalese citizens were involved in fatal accidents while at work in 2018.

In fact, based on statistics by the department, the number of fatal accidents at workplace, involving local and foreign workers, dropped to 611 cases in 2018, from 711 cases in 2017, it said, adding that the rate of fatal accidents at the workplace in the country also dropped by 15.5 per cent from 4.90 per cent  for every 100,000 workers in 2017 to 4.14 per cent per 100,000 workers in 2018.

The statement was issued in response to an article in a portal (Opinion: Free Malaysia Today (FMT) last Friday, which among others quoted a report by a newspaper in Nepal, The Kathmandu Post, claiming that 364 deaths involving Nepalese were reported in 2017, and one Nepalese worker died at work in Malaysia daily in 2018.

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On the death of a Nepalese who was killed while at work at a meat processing plant in Alor Gajah, Melaka, last Dec 30, the department said it is still investigating the incident. — Bernama