• In Kenya there is no insurance company that insures employers against liability that may arise due to occupational diseases.
• Fund will materialise after a successful review on the compensation scheme for sick and injured employees that has already kicked off.
Employers could soon receive funds from the Labour ministry when an employee gets sick or injured in the course of duty.
The Occupational Disease Fund is envisioned to take care of a victim for a period, including livelihood sustenance.
“Occupational diseases have got a long latency period and they may manifest long after employees have retired from employment or long after employers have wound –up business, leaving their employees without recourse,” Labour CS Simon Chelugui said.
According to the ministry, the fund will materialise after a successful review on the compensation scheme for sick and injured employees that has already started.
“The arrangement that has been there for a long time is based on employer liability where the employer is charged and entrusted to compensate any worker who is injured or contracts a disease during the course of his duty,” Chelugui said last week.
He added that a successful review will ensure Kenya is in line with the currently emerging practice where organisations are moving from employer liability to social-insurance based compensation system.
In Kenya, there is no insurance company that covers employers against liability that may arise due to occupational diseases.
Following this, the review seeks to shift the current employer liability-based compensation system to a social insurance-based compensation system.
Chelugui said the current arrangement has been a problem since the uptake by employers has been very slow due to the fight back by the employers while trying to defend themselves.
“This fund will now solve the cases where some insurance firms close down and cases that take too long to recover or recur much later after the organisations have closed shop,” Chelugui said.
He said the fund will take care of the present and future injuries that my recur in cases where a private insurance winds up their businesses.
The CS said the social insurance-based scheme is premised on a periodic payment such as Inua Jamii where beneficiaries receive money under social protection, singling out some people who are living with disability after suffering injuries at work places.
Chelugui at the same time noted that the social scheme will also help to safeguard the employer from any blame as well as protect workers.
“We are coming up with a number of follow ups that we would be able to pursue as we seek to move towards standardising and borrowing experiences given by International Labour Organization experts on the policy. We also intend to engage other stakeholders to enable us come up with a good policy,” he added.
Edited by R.Wamochie