Injured Ex-Miners To Petition BCL Mine
Onalenna Kelebeile | Monday June 5, 2017 17:28
Most of the employees’ injuries were induced by noise at the Mine, Neo Mogorosi, a senior district labour officer said recently at the just ended Selebi-Phikwe full council session.
Presenting the Urban Development Committee report, Mogorosi said issues of affected former BCL Mine employees remained unresolved despite efforts to persuade both the insurer and the provisional liquidator to find an amicable resolution.
He also said continuous engagement with the liquidator is ongoing so that the claimants could be included in the creditors’ list for payment consideration.
He added that liquidation of BCL Mine has created a backlog of pending claims and that some of the former miners are undergoing medical treatment. Mogorosi said the closure of BCL Mine has led to highest number of job seekers including those who were employed by BCL contractors.
Meanwhile, Mogorosi said he regretted that some employees failed to report occupational injuries within the timeframe prescribed by the Act.
Mogorosi also said that a quarterly target of 90 labour inspections around the town was not met as only 64 were conducted. He attributed this to industrial growth outweighing the labour inspectorate capacity.
He said although the level of compliance has improved, there are small and medium enterprises that continue to violate the labour laws.
“Plans are to organise a task force by engaging labour inspectors from other regions,” he said. He indicated that of the 37 consumer complaints that were received this quarter, 35 were responded to within five days while others were referred to the headquarters. “Some businesses take long to assist consumers because of limited powers vested on branch managers.
A recommendation has been made to encourage businesses to have effective complaints handling systems in place,” he said.
Mogorosi also noted that inspections for business compliance to set trading standards has shown 85% compliance. He added that the focus was on price display, licence requirements, annual fee payments and BOCRA requirements among others.
On issues of security, Mogorosi indicated that the joint anti-crime clean-up campaigns by Immigration and Labour departments, police, Botwana Unified Revenue Services and CTO has resulted in 41 male, nine females and four minors arrested, warned and repatriated. The amount of money raised from charging the wrongdoers was P17,200 he noted. The second campaign, Mogorosi said, led to the arrest of 16 male, four female and two minors.
“The amount of charges was P9,500 and some of them were then repatriated.”