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Injured workers are waiting years,
not months, to be paid out by the fund set up to help them in
their hour of need. The time delays in getting claims processed
mean that many are without an income for extended periods and
some are even starving. It is just as bad for the dependents of
workers killed on duty. They may have nothing to survive on as
claims for compensation get bogged down in red tape.
This Tuesday Special Assignment
lifts the lid on the Workmen's Compensation Fund. Administered
by the Department of Labour, the fund is meant to pay out
workers injured on duty. But it stands accused of further
crippling already injured workers by forcing them to wait years
before they can get paid out, or for their claims even to be
accepted.
Trade union federation COSATU has
described the fund's processes as "tardy" and
"inefficient" - and admitted that the bureaucratic
delays in the fund are severely detrimental to workers' rights.
By law, any worker, from those
employed in the formal sector, to casual labourers, are entitled
to financial compensation if they are injured on duty. Employers
pay premiums into the fund, which is then used when a worker is
injured at work.
The officials in the fund claim
the delays are the result of workers not following up their own
cases in time, or because employers do not submit the paperwork.
In many cases, especially in the informal sector, employers do
not even register with the fund, and "disappear" when
a worker is injured.
But there are those who say that
the responsibility lies with the fund itself. They say, by law,
it is the duty of the Department of Labour to follow up on, and
finalise claims. Of the nearly 26 000 claims sent to the fund in
2002, less than 20 percent had been settled by the next
financial year.
In this moving documentary, we
see how delays in getting paid out by the fund have prejudiced
the lives of three individuals. The lawyers assisting them
detail their exhausting battle with officialdom in getting the
fund to assist their clients.
This investigation into an issue
affecting thousands, if not millions of South Africans, is
produced by award-winning journalist, Khadija Magardie, and is
filmed by Llewellen Carstens. |
