The Labor Inspectorate cannot prevent the workplace accidents because there are not enough inspectors. In correlation with the infringement of the labor norms, this has led to a rise of about 5% in the number of accidents at work in the construction sector, compared with the first four months of last year. The example was given by the head of the Labor Inspectorate’s division for monitoring labor legislation implementation, Victor Turcan, who was asked by Info-Prim Neo to analyze the situation. According to the official, in order to avoid accidents at work, the inspectors must verify how the employers and employees observe the labor protection norms once a year. “But this is impossible because the number of specialists needed to carry out inspections is too small and the employers are not held accountable until the people file petitions,” Victor Turcan said. However, when an accident occurs at the workplace, it is investigated by the Labor Inspectorate, while the files are send to the prosecution bodies. Though the inspections are not carried out systematically, the number of violations identities during the checks exceeds 26,000. Among the most frequent infringements are the inappropriate working conditions, the precarious hygiene and the improvised equipment, Victor Turcan said. He added that given the alarming situation in the construction sector, the Labor Inspectorate decided that 70% of the checks will be carried out in the areas where the number of accidents is higher, such as constructions, processing industry, energy and transport. Since the start of this year, the Labor Inspectorate has been informed about 139 accidents at work. Nineteen of them had fatal consequences, 37 were serious and the rest resulted in temporary work incapacity. In general per country, most of the accidents occurred in the processing industry – 18. The cause of 14 of the 15 accidents that happened in constructions was fall from height. Two of these had fatal consequences. Five serious accidents related to fall from height occurred in the municipality of Chisinau. Over the first four months of this year, the Labor Inspectorate carried out 2,802 inspections.