admin
“Root causes are that employers are not investing in occupational safety and health blaming the dearth of capital. The causes include the fact that employers have not adopted a systems approach to managing occupational safety and health and in short they do not care much about the safety and health of their workers,” said Mr Dhliwayo.
He said immediate causes ranged from ignorance, recalcitrance, stubbornness, short cutting procedures and incompetence.
“On workers’ compensation, NSSA has a whole division established to manage this together with the national pension scheme,” said Mr Dhliwayo.
He said from the occupational safety and health viewpoint, there was never enough compensation to a lost limb or loss of life.
“The by-word must be prevention, prevention and prevention of accidents and not compensation,” said Mr Dhliwayo.
He, however, said as a fall back programme in case of injury or death, there was a workers’ compensation insurance fund established by NSSA.
“It is employers only that contribute to this fund for their workers. A report must be made to NSSA immediately after an accident on the necessary forms. NSSA then takes over the treatment and the eventual rehabilitation of a worker back to work,” said Mr Dhliwayo.
He said depending on the degree of disability, NSSA paid compensation.
“One would need to appreciate that this is a long process involving the medical profession to determine the level of disability and the processing of benefits by trained social security professionals,” said Mr Dhliwayo.
He said to avert further accidents at work employers must willingly adopt safety, health and environmental management systems.
“If they do not have the capacity to do so on their own, they should approach NSSA for help, which will be rendered it at no cost.
“Employers should employ competent personnel to do their work. They should send their identified employees to NSSA to train on the Occupational, Safety, Health and Environmental Management Course (OSHEMAC), which lasts for two months at NSSA Harare or Bulawayo,” said Mr Dhliwayo.
He urged employers to allow their professionals to attend Occupational Safety Health (OSH) conferences and workshops organised by NSSA.
“We will also increase the intensity of our inspections and OSH promotional work.”
Mr Dhliwayo said the police should expedite cases where employers are reported for grossly flouting the OSH law and causing accidents.
“My message to the workers of Zimbabwe is that they must demand to be trained on the safety and health of the work they do.
“They must refuse to do any hazardous or dangerous work, which has not been rendered safe,” said Mr Dhliwayo.
He said workers had a right to life like anybody else and therefore they must enforce this right.
“Workers must report unsafe conditions and unsafe behaviour first to their supervisors and ultimately to NSSA and all accidents must be reported and investigated in order to prevent recurrence,” said Mr Dhliwayo.
Online Reporter