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"speaker_name": "Mr. Mungatana",
"speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister for Justice and Constitutional Affairs",
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"content": " Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I thank you for giving me an opportunity to also contribute to the debate on the Occupational Safety and Health Bill, 2007. I want to state from the outset that I support this Bill. I have said before that the effort by the Minister to bring our labour laws to the 21st Century must be supported by all. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, when we talk about occupational health and safety, we are talking about a cross-disciplinary area whose main concern, really, is the health, safety and protection of workers. Looking at the reasons as to why we should have protection of workers, first of all, is because of our own morals. It is important that the worker, who is engaged in productive activities, feels safe - and must be safe - at his work environment. Not only the worker but also the whole environment associated with the place at which he is engaged in productive work must be safe. The other important reason is economic. We want to have safe, clean and good environment for workers. because economically speaking, we need to have good workers continuing to produce in the economy. We also want to avoid costs in terms of treatment. Employers also would want to cut their costs and expenses in terms of paying for damages when accidents happen. So, this is a kind of legislation which should be supported by all, in terms of Government, employer associations as well as employed people. We need this kind of legislation. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, what I find very good about this piece of legislation is that it has embraced the modern type of approach towards occupational, health and safety for the worker by emphasising more the protection of the worker - preventing the possible accident instead of, simply, setting out rules to be followed. The Bill tries to focus on the prevention of possible accidents that may happen. I want to congratulate the Minister for making special efforts to focus the entire Bill towards avoiding the possible happening of an accident. For instance, under Clause 11, there is the requirement that we must have health and safety audits. This makes it mandatory for the people who are involved in industry to make sure that they look at anything that might, possibly, happen and file a report on it, so that it can be prevented before it happens. I think the Minister needs to be congratulated for that provision. The Minister also went ahead, under Clause 9, to make a requirement that there be committees of health and safety for workers in every place where there is employment of more than 20 people. This is a wonderful provision, because, again, it goes to the same modern concept of trying to prevent accidents from happening. If people exist within an establishment, then we shall prevent the happening of any such accident, and we will not be treating what has already taken place. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, having said all these nice things, we can only add a few things to the Bill to make it a better law for the Minister and the country as a whole. Very quickly, because this is not a contentious Bill, starting from the very Clause 4, the Minister has proposed that the safety and health regulations be approved by the director. The director is supposed to approve and issue codes of practices which are, in his opinion, suitable for that purpose. I believe that we can improve this Clause by requiring that there be consensus in the May 22, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 1505 industry affected. The director should not have too much powers. What might happen is that he might set up very high standards - and nobody will question him - or very low standards and, therefore, our workers will be exposed to injury and unsafe working environment. So, I propose that the director should not have all the powers. There should be a provision for him to consult and build consensus within industries affected. For instance, if we are talking about the standards required in the marine industry, the director, who will be seated in Nairobi, cannot set up the standards of marine environment, determine how workers should dress and what protective gear will be required. What about those who are involved in research, especially research that has something to do with technical things, which might even expose people to hazardous waste? There must be a provision to make it mandatory that the director consults with the industries concerned before coming up with the codes he intends to put in place. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, again, Clause 9 is very good, but it only talks about the Minister setting up committees at the work places. It says that the only requirement for setting up such a committee at any workplace is 20 people or more. It would have been wonderful if guidelines for such committees could also be provided for, so that the Minister can set up some basic rules for such committees, so that functioning committees in particular industries can have general guidelines within which to operate, which might be useful to all of us. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, there is the proposed Council that is set up under Clause 28; that is where I go again. The membership of this Council that is supposed to advise the Minister is too Government-heavy; it is top-heavy. The functions of this Health Occupation Council that is being set up are seriously fundamental to the welfare of workers. If you look at the provisions of Clause 28, they set out in detail what they are supposed to do. This cannot be left just to Government officers. If you look at the membership of that Council:- \"one representative from each of the following ministries- (i) health; (ii) agriculture---\" You know, all these are Ministries. It sounds like the Government is coming to one place again without the benefit of expertise from outside. So, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I think we could improve this particular Clause, Clause 28, by providing for experts to be brought in, who will advise the Minister properly and will be part and parcel of this membership. So, even if it is increased to something like five more, these are experts in the field of safety for workers; they should be included and this will make this law a better law. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, we could also improve on the proposed Clause 26, which provides for the appointment of the occupational safety and health officers. These are the people who are given a lot of powers, and if you look at Clause 32, they have powers to enter into industries, order the industry to be closed or whatever work you are doing stopped. They have powers to say that what you are producing is dangerous and hazardous to workers and, therefore, they can order the destruction of whatever you are involved in producing. So, these are people with immense powers! The only qualification that is being put in this law under Clause 26 is the qualification that they will be gazetted. Gazettement! This is not a good law! We must set qualifications for occupational safety and health officers. There must be proper qualifications set up in law so that we know the person who is going to exercise so much power under Clause 32 will be a person who is properly qualified; a person in whom we have confidence, to protect and take care of workers. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, there is one more issue that the draftsmen of this law need to look into, and I will give a quick example of Clause 36. You find a very, very long and circuitous kind of drafting that is there; one sentence that takes a whole quarter page. Surely, the drafters can 1506 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES May 22, 2007 improve! Create more sections if it is necessary so that the law is clear and when people go to court, they are able to quickly understand what their duties are and how this law is supposed to be applied. There is one point that I think is a very good point and I need to mention it here; to congratulate the Minister for thinking about it. Clause 40 talks of the protection of the person who makes a complaint to the officer in charge of occupational safety and health. Many workers out there work under horrible conditions, and many times, they are afraid to say so, because if they do, they lose their jobs! When we have a provision like Clause 40 that protects workers who are able to talk, and when the occupational safety and health officer comes, he is not under any duty to disclose where he got that information from. I think this is something that is wonderful and we should congratulate the Minister for it. I also want to congratulate the Minister for the establishment of the fund that will be for occupational safety and health. That this law is making a provision under Clause 126 that we will have to be setting aside money which will be utilised for purposes of improving the occupational safety and health of our workers at their workplace. This is wonderful and I want to congratulate the Minister because it will provide for proper research of health standards and codes; it will provide for proper training of staff that will be employed in this industry; and, it will provide for future development in this area. This is one of those provisions that we really need to thank the Minister for. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, in sitting down, I just want tco say that, I am very happy that, general health standards have been set from Clause 47 all the way to Clause 54; standards on cleanliness, overcrowding, ventilation and everything that concerns what we would want to see happening to workers. But the one thing that I would like to urge the Minister to also think of is; there is no clear provision for workers who are suffering from various physical disabilities. We need to have this somehow put in. In a manner, I was proposing that the Minister must have some leeway which will give him power to come up with rules and procedures--- You know, wide powers that will enable him to make provisions where disabled people might be working. That should be able to take care generally of all those workers who are disabled and working in various industries. Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, there is the final thing of the doctor notification. Under Clause 22(I), there is the provision that says that if a doctor finds that there is some industrial disease, he is supposed to report this matter. He is supposed to give notification if he suspects it is one of the scheduled industrial diseases under Schedule Four. But we know that our doctors are very busy people and we do not have the required doctor-to-patient ratio. We know that they may not take this issue as seriously as they should. In the manner in which this Clause proposes, they may not take it as seriously as we would want them to or as the intention of this legislation is targeting. So I would want the Medical Practitioners and Dentists Board to be mentioned in one of the sub-clauses to provide that if the doctor in question fails or negligently fails, he should be subject to disciplinary action by the Medical Practitioners and Dentists Board. This will make the doctors to fear more than the provisions that we have put here to deal with doctors who fail to give us what we want them to do; which is to notify us when there is an industrial disease which might spread, not only to affect workers, but the entire environment. So, I propose that, under Clause 22, we should add a provision that should bring the doctor who is negligently failing to register a possible industrial disease to be subject to the discipline of the Medical Practitioners and Dentists Board. Otherwise, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir, I want to say again that this is a Bill that is bringing us from the old dispensation of labour laws to the new dispensation of labour laws. It brings our country in keeping with the International Labour Organization (ILO) standards as far as workers' safety is concerned and I would urge the House, of course, with all the necessary amendments, to May 22, 2007 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 1507 support this Bill and bring us to another era altogether. I thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Sir. I beg to support."
}