Workers' insurance vital - Tsiane

FREDERICK KEBADIRETSE
Staff Writer | Monday September 27, 2010 00:00

 

Various presenters including Ministry of Labour and Home Affairs (MLHA) Permanent Secretary (PS) Segakweng Tsiane made this call at the Botswana Insurance Company (BIC) workers' compensation conference in Gaborone last Friday.

The one-day conference held under the theme, 'Thinking Beyond the Obvious' was meant to provide the public with a unique means of gaining critical information from the policy makers and senior personnel from the heart of the country's workers' compensation sector.

Officiating at the conference, Tsiane said employers should make sure they insure and issue insurance certificates to their employees regardless of the nature of their job. She also urged insurers to intensify marketing policies aimed at workers' compensation so that employers can fully understand the policy and its benefits to the company. She said it is every employer's responsibility to ensure the highest standards of occupational health and safety in the work place so that workers are protected from sickness, disease or injury.'Employers tend to give priority to profits rather than to the welfare of their employees.

It is common knowledge that employees get injured in the course of their work, in the process losing their earning capability and increasing dependability due to loss of income, hence workers' compensation issues should be clearly laid out in any work environment,' she said.

Tsiane said it is surprising how companies and other employers alike will move to insure machinery like cars so they can be compensated upon accidents or damage while they are reluctant to extend the same generosity to the most valuable asset in the set up, the worker.

She said this in return leads to poor performance as employees feel the employer is not appreciating their value and contribution to the company.

Another presenter and principal Industrial Relations officer at the ministry of Labour and Home Affairs, Keabonye Selebatso, said greater participation by Botswana companies in workers' compensation issues is essential to ensure a good employer-employee relationship, which will at the end lead to increased productivity.

She added that employers tend to forget that without the employees, there is no company, and therefore do not consider the necessity of adequately covering their employees.

'It might come at a cost to the company, but at the end it is worth it to the employers,' she said. She said it is important that both employers and employees familiarise themselves with the Workers' Compensation Act so as to know what they are entitled to when need for compensation arises.

Tshiamo Rantao from Rantao Kewagamang Attorneys also gave a legal perspective on the Workers' Compensation Act.

He warned that as far as the Act is concerned, the legal consequences are too ghastly because there are criminal sanctions involved.

'The parties involved should understand fully the Act because ignorance of the law is of no excuse,' he concluded.

Topics discussed at the conference included among them, purpose of workers' compensation, claiming benefits as well as trends and developments affecting the industry.

The conference was organised by BIC and the key speaker was Hilton Ikin from Prestige Loss Adjusters.