Maritime Southern Africa (Feb/March issue) highlights findings of Gulf of Mexico reports

In a press release issued by Transocean the senior management is lauded for “voluntarily donating the safety bonuses that were awarded to them for 2010 to the Deepwater Horizon Memorial Fund”. If you read the findings of the reports on the Gulf of Mexico disaster you will certainly understand that Transocean was in no way exempt from blame in this incident that resulted in the death of 11 workers and a hideous amount of oil pollution.

So the question must surely be: how can the company justify awarding safety bonuses in the same year?  It’s as bad as multi-nationals issuing performance bonuses on the back of massive retrenchments!

Surely a better PR exercise would simply have been to donate the same amount directly from the balance sheet to the Deepwater Horizon Memorial Fund? By highlighting that the money is from safety bonuses seems to send out the message that the company actually believes their safety status was good for 2010.

Once again I point out that 11 people died in the disaster; that the impact of the oil pollution is still being felt and that human error has been fingered as a major factor!

A bonus for safety? I think not!