OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH ISSUES IN UGANDA

WORKPLACES IN UGANDA AND THE IMPLENTATION OF OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH ACT 9, 2006

1.0. Background

In Uganda the concept of formal labour was redefined by the advent of colonial administration and since then many changes in the labour industry have been witnessed. Currently the Ugandan’s labour force is estimated at 9.8 million of which 53% are females (UBOS, 2006)

About 75% of the labour force is below 40 years and yet 30% of the total labour force is illiterate and close to 77% has education below secondary school level. This means that the majority of the individuals who enter the market do not have required skills or even awareness of market requirements and labour laws which include safety and healthy .

The International Labour Organisation estimates that two million workers die as a result of occupational accidents and work related diseases every year an equivalent of the world GDP lost as consequence of those occurrences. Statistics for Uganda alone cannot be easily established due to the failure of the sector to undertake inspection and enforcement of the Act and collecting occupational data.

According to Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS 2006) 3.5 million people of the labour force belong to working poor category and the incidence of working poor is highest among those engaged in primary sector followed by those in manufacturing sector.

Despite a number of achievements in Uganda’s economy, the achievements have not matched with the necessary safety and health standards, which standards are meant to guarantee safety and good health of the working population which impacts directly on their productivity hence poverty reduction.

Poor working conditions contribute to changes in work places in Uganda manifested by poor work methods, processes and procedures, limited awareness of labour laws and limited knowledge of workers rights and obligations.

2.0. Occupational safety and Health in Uganda.

2.1. Legal frame work
The constitution of Republic of Uganda recognizes the importance of good working environment of all workers and their rights. Article 34(4) constitution of Republic of Uganda (as amended) not only looks at the labour force but also children who are supposed to be protected from social or economic exploitation. The article pronounces itself that children are not supposed to do work that is likely to be hazardous or interfere with their education, health physical mental spiritual or moral development.

Article 39 gives workers a right to a clean and healthy environment while article 40(1) empowers Parliament to enact laws to provide for the rights of persons to work under satisfactory, safe and healthy conditions.

As a result in 2005 a bill on Occupational Safety and Health was brought to Parliament ending into the enactment of Occupational and Health Act,9,2006 with the over all purpose of safe guarding safety and health of all workers in all work places in Uganda. The Act defines the work place as all places of work and all sites and areas where work is carried out including not only the permanent and indoor stationery places of work such as factories, shops but also temporary places of work such as civil engineering sites, open air places such as fields, forests, roads, oil refineries and mobile places of work such as tractors and excavators, ships, galleys, freight desks of aircraft, and without exception. Places where workers are found as a consequence of their work including canteen, living quarters on board ships.

The main objectives of the Act are:
To operationalise articles of the constitution namely, 34(4), 39, 40 (1) put in ascending order by making provision for health, safety and welfare of persons in employment.

To spell out steps to be taken before operating a work place of all sorts

Spell out duties and obligations of both employers and employees in ensuring safety and health for all at work places.

Stressing measures and methods that should be put in place to ensure safety and health at work.

2.2. Justification for implementation of the Act.
Like any other legal laws of the land, the Act needs to be implemented in order to address the objectives that put it in place. It should there fore be wholesomely implemented to cover all work places in Uganda fairly and squarely.

To protect workers at all work places in Uganda. Workers in Uganda have in past years been victims of unhealthy work places, faulty lifts, dangerous civil works and constructions leading to ill health and death. There is need there fore to have this Act implemented to minimise such occurrences.
There is need to streamline registration of workplaces in order to help government better plan for workers in all sectors.

Further, the Act gives the workers opportunity to have needs/challenges shared with Government through Advisory Panels as outlined in the Occupational Safety and Health Act 2006 section 10.

The Act also provides for a potential source of Non Tax Revenue to Government. Section 40 requires the Commissioner OSHD to keep register of all work places in the country and in pursuant to this, section 41 requires that a fee be paid before a work place is registered. This is expected to generate billions of money to the consolidated fund.
3.0. Occupational Health and Safety Act implementation.
The Department of Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) in the Directorate of Labour, Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development has the mandate of ensuring the existence of safety and health in all work places and work environments which it does through enforcement, advice education and training. Currently the department has 33 staff of which 28 are qualified inspectors in the fields of Health, Engineering, Environment, Chemistry, Hygiene, Food science among others.

3.1. Capacity of the department to implement the Act

Technical capacity
While it is important to note that the department has made tremendous progress in the area of its mandate, it does not have enough technical manpower to implement the Act throughout the country. Going by the current UBOS 2006 statistics, of 9.8 million workers as compared to the 28 inspectors, it brings forth inspector to worker ratio of 1:350,000 against the ILO desired standard of 1:500 and considering the fact that inspectors have different areas of specialty the statistics are even more alarming. For instance in matters of occupational health there are only two doctors in the department in charge of the whole country making the ratio of inspectors to workers 1:4.9 million.

Currently UBOS 2006 estimates Uganda’s population to be about 30.8 million peoples at the growth rate of 3.3% per annum which is the second highest growth rate in the world. This implies that work places and workers shall be many more than earlier anticipated. This therefore means that for the department’s work to be felt in the country there is need to have the number of technical staff increased to match with the surging working population.

Logistical capacity
The department has only one vehicle to carryout all its functions throughout the country which is very inadequate in view of the fact over 90% of the work is field work. In as far as resources are concerned article 10 of the budget Act requires that every bill introduced in parliament be accompanied by indicative financial implications if any on revenue and expenditure over the period of no less than two years after coming into effect.

Following this, on 26 October the then Minister of State for Finance, Planning and Economic Development (General Duties) submitted to parliament that expenditure plan major components for next two years as accommodate with in Medium Term Expenditure Frame work for FYS 2005/06-2007/08

That the funding and budgetary implications of the bill were NIL and that no saving, revenue was expected in FY 2005/06.

It should be understood that the Certificate of Financial Implications’ silence on the indicative figures has complicated the over all implementation. If it was more elaborated on figures it would have been easy to point out activities and their relationships to expenditure. Yet again it would have been easy to project Non Tax Revenue to Government. The fact that the Certificate of Financial Implications placed the implication under the MTF without specifying figures, the department created is adversely affected by ceilings set which affects the flow of money to implement the Act.

Looking at FY 2006/7 approved by budget was UGX 330,053,000= of which UGX 281,738,461 was wages. Actual amount of money released was UGX 294,475,895=.

Leaving the department to run on mere UGX 12,737,431= to cater for allowances and other logistical costs. This type of funding cannot provide for implementations of the Act adequately.

Again FY 2007/8, while responding to the ceilings set by the Ministry of Finance, the departments proposes UGX 330,053,000= and the proposed allocation from Ministry of Finance is UGX 294,475,928= reflecting 89% of the total figures above. It’s interesting to note that 288,868,000 was budgeted for wages and proposed allocation UGX 2,554,836,441= respectively. This takes over 90% of the whole total budgeted finances in the two cases. Going by the resource envelope the implementation of the act will remain a wish full thinking unless drastic measures are put in place.

4.0. Recommendations

From the highlighted issues, it is clear that issues of occupational safety and health are of utmost importance and impart directly on people’s wellbeing hence their productivity which translates, hence poverty reduction need. Parliament therefore recommends that the Act be implemented accordingly that the consultant be procured to analyze the bill and translate it into activities, the actual cost of implementation and Non Tax Revenue to be collected and determined.

That the procured consultant advises the Government on both structural and logistical requirements needed to implement the Act fully.

That parliament gives advice on the operational entity of the department of occupational safety and health (OSH). Issues of whether to give the department autonomy like Uganda Bureau of Standards should be looked into.

That the Ministry of Gender Labour and Social Development be tasked to develop relevant regulations to opentionalise the Act.

That minister responsible reports to parliament on the progress of the implementation of the Act.



5.0. Conclusion
The implementation of the OSH Act is very important in promoting the safety and health workers or at least minimising on occupational risks at the work place hence improving the wellbeing of their families, communities, enterprises and economy. The ever increasing risks and hazards at work places due to current modernization and globalisation, workers necessitate work protection as the primary resource.

There is need for general sensitization for employees and employers and the general public on issues of safety and health. This shall help people take a proactive approach rather than a reactive approach which is more often than not complicated and costly. Thus, this Act needs to be given the attention it deserves.