Debmarine targets zero harm
Debmarine Namibia chief operating officer Maenge Shipiki-Kali says meeting mining and maritime regulations is no longer enough to prevent fatal and life-altering incidents.
The marine diamond miner operates under a strict regulatory framework covering Namibian labour, mining and shipping laws, as well as International Maritime Organisation requirements. However, Shipiki-Kali said the company views compliance as only the foundation of an effective safety system.
“We are a compliant culture in terms of regulations. We comply with the Namibian regulations. We also comply with the International Maritime Organisation. In terms of safety of lives at sea, maritime labour, we are highly regulated.
“So we are compliant. But compliant is not sufficient for us. We need to be more than just compliant. So compliant is basic,” she said.
Shipiki-Kali said Debmarine’s offshore operations present risks that differ significantly from those faced by land-based mines, with employees working on vessels about 30 kilometres offshore amid deep water, changing weather conditions and marine mining hazards.
The company’s safety approach began evolving in 2010 through its “road to zero harm” programme, initially focused on safety, health, environment and security observations before shifting towards identifying and controlling fatal risks.
However, Shipiki-Kali said the company’s approach was also shaped by a fatality in 2008, when a worker, Nicolas Cloete, died aboard a vessel she was managing.
“That death would stay with me. The guy was from Port Nolloth, was working on a tug. Nicolas Cloete. I had to drive to Port Nolloth for his funeral. I had to meet his twin brother, his mother and his family.
“That would stay with me. It has informed how I feel about safety. It is personal. You have got skin in the game,” she said.
By 2017, Debmarine’s leadership had become concerned that focusing mainly on lost-time injuries and regulatory compliance was not adequately addressing events that could result in fatalities.
The company partnered with the Institute for Training and Development to assess its safety culture and psychological safety, interviewing about 800 employees.
The findings challenged management’s perception of its own safety performance.
“What we found is that we were mostly compliant, also reactive, a little bit proactive. In our minds, we thought that we were better than that, to be honest.
“We were shocked to see that the feedback that we got from the workforce was telling us that you are not as good as you think that you are,” Shipiki-Kali said.
The company introduced structured safety discussions involving senior managers, operators, plant hands and deck hands, allowing employees to challenge decisions regardless of their position.
“Around that table everybody is equal. There is no CEO. The plant hand is equal to our CEO around that table.
“The plant hand or the operator or the deck hand can give their opinion where they disagree and where they think management is also exhibiting some unsafe act,” she said.
Shipiki-Kali said this approach was particularly important in a marine environment where employees are required to follow a vessel captain’s instructions, but must still have the confidence to raise concerns and stop work when necessary.
Debmarine also changed its approach to risk management, moving away from focusing mainly on minor safety observations towards what it calls priority unwanted events.
These include hazardous materials, fire, launch and recovery operations, structural failures, loss of power and helicopter operations.
“It could not be that safety and we are separate. They had to be part of this process,” Shipiki-Kali said.
The company introduced critical controls for high-risk activities, with systems designed to alert responsible managers when controls were not checked or had failed.
“When you go and do a job, you have a paper that tells you, here are your critical controls. If this is not in place, it is a no-go.
“And if it is a no-go, that is your stop-work authority,” she said.
Debmarine also identified behaviours that could result in disciplinary action, including deliberately ignoring controls linked to high-risk activities such as safeguarding, confined spaces, hot work and lifting.
“Compliance is unacceptable for us. It is something that we do not accept,” Shipiki-Kali said.
She said the company’s definition of zero harm had evolved to focus primarily on preventing fatalities and life-changing injuries.
Employees across Debmarine’s vessels have since been trained to identify high-impact risks through a programme involving safety sentries, while technical teams and managers test critical controls through teams known as delta commanders.
“If something happens, whose fault is that then? It is not on the person who is doing the work. It is on me, it is on us. So we try and take care of that through design,” she said.
Debmarine now describes its safety programme not simply as a safety maturity journey, but as a journey towards resilience covering safety, risk, work systems, leadership and employees’ ability to respond to changing conditions.
“We actually say journey to resilience, meaning it encompasses everything. It is not just safety, it is risk, it is work, it is everything. It is in all spheres.
“So the key thing for us is the fact that everyone is a safety leader.
“The human being is the strongest link because we are too far to manage the team. The systems must be agile and everybody must be ready to respond.
“Psychological safety is a requirement, and there is no end to the journey,” she said.
