THE Employment Ministry must not “drag its feet” in facilitating workers’ compensation payouts because of the suffering endured by many families because of the delay in payments.
This was the view expressed by Opposition parliamentarian Mikaele Leawere in Parliament on Monday in his response to Employment Minister Parveen Kumar’s statement on workers’ compensation and International Labour Organization conventions.
“With regards to the management of workers’ compensation, I am glad that the ministry has been working on the massive backlog of cases,” Mr Leawere said.
“However, all cases after January 2019 should now be referred to the Accident Compensation Commission and the onus is on the ministry to speed up and dispose of all pending cases to 31st December, 2018, so that workers and their dependants are duly compensated.
“The honourable Minister went on to say that the number continues to rise and we believe that this year, it must not drag its feet and conduct due diligence as most of these workers and their families suffer with the delay in paying out the compensation.”
In his ministerial statement, Mr Kumar said he was pleased to report that over a 10-year period, the Employment Ministry managed to settle and close 10,768 of 11,558 workers compensation cases, equivalent to 93 per cent of all reported cases.
