Armed police intervention required as some companies in Zimbabwe resist safety measures and lockout NSSA Inspectors

Michael Magoronga, [email protected]

SOME companies in Zimbabwe are resisting implementing safety measures that keep the work environment safe and lockout National Social Security Authority (NSSA) official Inspectors.

The inspectors are sometimes forced to bring armed police to gain access to factories.

This is even though implementing safety measures results in huge savings in the long run for companies as absenteeism due to injury or paying huge amounts for rehabilitation or compensation of injured workers are reduced.

Speaking at the ongoing NSSA Engineers workshop in Kwekwe, NSSA Principal Inspector of Factories Engineer Absalom Zengeya said they have since ordered some companies to change the operations applied in some furnaces that were dangerous to employees.

He said some companies were not adhering to the country’s legal occupational safety health frameworks and some were even locking NSSA Inspectors outside denying them entry into company premises.

“There are many instances where we had to forcibly enter company premises accompanied by armed police. Every company must be visited by NSSA inspectors and it is NSSA’s mandate to inspect every company,” he said.

He said most companies in Zimbabwe were not conforming to the Safety and Health legislative provisions of Zimbabwe hence the disasters being encountered within the companies.

“Most of the cases in industries deal with negligence. When a person fails to exercise the care required in the circumstances, or where he should foresee a prohibited result or circumstance and guard against it, but fails to do so, it is failure to exercise due care and usually results in accidents,” he said.

He said most cases in the informal sector were being fuelled by the sector’s failure to have permanent worksites.

“We have recorded numerous fire incidents in the informal sector and this is largely because they are not easy to monitor. The informal sector changes worksites time and time again and enforcement becomes a challenge. We can give instructions to employees but challenges come in making follow-ups. However we have local authorities which have by-laws that are supposed to be adhered to by the informal sector,” he said.