Garnish order to compel BCL to pay employees
Onalenna Kelebeile | Monday June 12, 2017 16:06
Presenting the Urban Development Committee report to the just-ended full council meeting senior district officer, Neo Mogorosi said issues of affected former employees remain unresolved despite efforts to persuade both the insurer and the provisional liquidator to find an amicable resolution. He also added that continuous engagement with the liquidator is ongoing so that the claimants could be included in the creditors list for payment consideration.
He added that the liquidation of BCL Mine has created a backlog of pending claims and that some of the former mine employees are undergoing medical treatment. He noted that out of 6,181 job seekers, 4,568 of who are registered with labour office, only 400 were placed from 66 vacancies advertised and the balance of 5,781 was carried forward to the next quarter.
He said the closure of BCL Mine has led to the highest number of job seekers including those that were employed by BCL contractors. “Placement is still at the lowest and job seekers are encouraged to acquaint themselves with relevant skills to suit the labour market. He added that only 19 out of 66 claims before the labour office have been resolved by payment and said P1 million was paid by insurance companies and disbursed to the claimants as compared to P82,000 of the previous quarter.
He regretted that some employees fail to report occupational injuries within time frame 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 though 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 system in place,” he said. Mogorosi also noted that inspections for business compliance to set trading standards has shown 85% of 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 Immigrations and Labour Departments, Police, BURS and CTO has resulted in 41 males, nine females and four minors arrested, warned and repatriated.
The amount of money raised on charges was P17,200. The second campaign led to the arrest of 16 males, four females and two minors arrested. The amount of charges was P9,500 and some of them were repatriated.