Farirai Machivenyika
Senior Reporter
President Mnangagwa has signed into law the Occupational Safety and Health Act that will modernise and overhaul the country’s workplace safety laws and empower workers to refuse unsafe work.
The new law was published by the Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet, Dr Martin Rushwaya, under General Notice 2036 of 2026.
The Act repeals the Factories and Works Act (Chapter 14:08) and the Pneumoconiosis Act (Chapter 15:08), consolidating workplace safety and occupational disease regulation under a single modern framework and expanding occupational safety and health protection to all permanent and temporary workplaces across the country, while aligning Zimbabwe’s framework with relevant International Labour Organisation standards on workplace safety, occupational diseases and hazardous substances.
The law also places greater responsibility on employers to prevent workplace incidents.
Clause 13 requires employers to conduct risk assessments, provide safety training and ensure workers have access to relevant occupational safety and health information, while hazard identification and risk assessment would become a cornerstone of workplace safety management, shifting the emphasis from responding to accidents to preventing them.
New institutional structures, the Department of Occupational Safety and Health and Zimbabwe Occupational Safety and Health Advisory Council, will also be established under the National Social Security Authority, while the Medical Bureau of Occupational Diseases will be created to carry out health examinations and issue certificates of compliance and will also deploy specialised Occupational Safety and Health inspectors across all industry sectors, including the informal economy
It further gives trained inspectors powers to issue improvement and prohibition notices where workplace safety requirements are not being met, while retaining the Accident Prevention and Workers Compensation Fund.
The proposed reforms come as workplace injuries and fatalities remain a concern.
Government statistics show that reported injuries increased by about four percent, from 4 242 in 2024 to 4 414 in 2025, while fatalities rose by 11,4 percent from 70 to 78.
During the first half of 2026, 2 442 disabling injuries were reported, up eight percent from 2 263 during the same period in 2025, while fatalities increased by 30 percent, from 40 to 52.
