admin
Fungai Lupande
Mash Central Bureau
OCCUPATIONAL injuries and deaths between 2009 and 2018 gobbled up US$438 million of the National Social Security Authority compensation fund amid reports that the authority recorded occupational deaths ranging from 70 to above 100 each year.
The NSSA scheme is one of the oldest in the NSSA portfolio, pre-dating the formation of the authority by many years, and is a pure insurance scheme, collecting the levies from workers and their employers in the formal sectors and using these to pay out claims and provide pensions for those unable to work because of their injuries.
NSSA director occupational safety and health Dr Betty Isabel Nyereyegona recently announced the statistics saying a number of such fatalities were not being reported.
Dr Nyereyegona said under-reporting of occupational injury and death is casting a shadow on the real situation in workplaces.
To this end, the Government has drafted a new harmonious Occupational Safety Bill which will cover more workplaces and issues like occupational stress.
“Loss of production time and treatment of the injured has affected the economy with 0,3 percent of the Gross Domestic Product lost. However, all injuries, fatalities and diseases have a cause and are preventable,” she said.
Dr Nyereyegona said a lot has happened and development within industries have also happened making it difficult to enforce the laws of the 1970s which do not cover everything.
“Together with the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare, a new harmonised occupational safety and health Bill was drafted, in consultation with tripartite Government, labour and employers,” she said.
“The draft Bill is with the Attorney-General’s Office and we hope that soon we will have a more relevant and up-to-date legislation which covers all workplaces.
“The current Bill deals with safety sensitive industry, but with different trends emerging including digitisation things like occupational stress become important.”
She said sectors that were considered less occupational safety and health sensitive have become the biggest claimants of compensation because there are no programmes in those sectors to cover safety and health.
“NSSA is doing registration and health surveillance for Zimbabweans who worked in South African mines in the 1970s under the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association (Wenela) so that they get assistance if they contracted occupational diseases and compensated,” she said.
“We have covered Harare, Matabeleland and Masvingo in rolling out these examinations.”
Turning to COVID-19, Dr Nyereyegona said the pandemic is a big workplace issue and it made everyone aware of basic principles of safety and health.
“NSSA formulated a guideline to ensure that everyone is covered because the majority of workplaces had no guidelines.
“We are working with ILO, and other development partners to promote safety and health in the food market of the informal sector,” she said.
“We are in the process of developing a strategy in occupational safety and health in the informal sector to come up with a policy and management system.”
Online Reporter