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Factory, Office and Shop Act before Cabinet; after broken

promises, can we trust govt?

I have been following Environmental Health and safety matters in Ghana for some time now,

partly because it is a part of the ecosystem of the telecom subsector which I find myself. Fact is,

Ghana is growing relatively in Industrial commercial dimension and it is time some we did some

synthesis and isolates solutions to such issue so important as Occupational Health and safety

(OHS).

Accidents, disasters (force majeure) and occupational ill-health are global phenomena and

occur at any time and the Ghanaian workforce is no exception, in fact, on daily being exposed

to workplace physical, chemical, biological and psychosocial, ergonomic hazards.

Groups as such as civil Society, business community, academia, researchers, etc., have donetheir part on calling on policy makers to put in place the appropriate comprehensive policy

framework to ensure safety in the workplace. The establishment of different types of

industries such as Construction, Mining, Manufacturing, Agro, Transport, Food Processing, the

Telecom subsector and the current Oil and Gas in Ghana has brought into existence of a large

Ghanaian workforce with similar exposure of varying modes of workplace scenarios.

Though Ghana has no meaningful OHS policy, there exist some fragmented safety and health

laws used by various government bodies. The law as existed are the Factories, Offices and

shops Act 1970(Act 328) and the Mining Regulations 1970 LI 665 considered the main edicts.

These archaic policies have only driven the mining and Labour sector respectively with limited

effect. Others are the Workmens Compensation Law 1987(PNDC 187) which relates to

compensation for personal injuries caused by accidents at work, Environmental Protection

Agency Act 490 1994, the Ghana Health Service and Teaching Hospital 1990 ( Act 526), the

National Road Safety Commission Act 567 1999 and Labour Act 2003 ( Act 651) with sections

118 to 120 directing employers and employees in their roles and responsibilities in managing

Occupational Health, Safety and Environment in the nation but not specific to any reporting

structure in case of accident perhaps, implicatively referring reporting to the Act 1970 (Act

328) of the Department of Factory Inspectorate (DoFI) .The Factories, Offices and Shops Act is

the only recognized body in Ghana by the International Labour Organization(ILO) on OHS.

Among the core functions of DoFI are inspections of workplaces to ensure maintenance of

reasonable standards of safety and health, prosecutions of offences under the Factories,

Offices and Shops (Act 328), and investigation of reportable occupational accidents and

dangerous occurrences. But Companies hardly report such events to the inspectorate for

investigation and correction for obvious reasons and rightly so, nobody trails them!

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After gaining independence, Ghana became a member of the International Labour( ILO)

Organization. This feat meant the country should have strong institutional framework to

champion the course of OHS for industrialization. Ghana is yet to ratify ILO Convention 155 and

161 on Occupational Health and Safety and Health Services respectively.

However, there have been some positive results on the Occupational Health and Safety front

due, mainly to multinational companies such as those from Europe and North America

especially The UK, Canada the USA respectively whom, from their home base, workplace

occupational safety are values ingrained and integral part of their business processes and place

demands on their partners, especially contractors/suppliers.

During the recent Ghana Contractors Association Council (GCAC )meeting with government

functionaries, one Dr. Stephen Lomotey of Factories Inspectorate Department assured them

that the proposed OHS Policy was before Cabinet and receiving consideration .The meeting

was at the instance of the Councils commissioned report findings which, inter alia, stated thelimitations of the existing statute law of 1970 Act 328 on the its activities. But why should

GCAC take government serious? Research has it that as far back as 2000, a policy document

titled Development of Legislation and Policy on OHS for all Sectors of the Ghanaian Economy

was drafted as a bill by the then government. Till date, we are still talking it! My anger was

lifted to put down this piece when yet another assurance as indicated in the 5th of June

Daily headlined Draftfactory Bill for Cabinet soon. It further stated that the proposed Act

would soon be sent to Parliament for passage. For the records, the then Deputy Minister of

Employment, Mr Antwi Boasiako Sekyere at the First Biennial National Safety Conference at

Tema stated and I quote him we are very sure that by the end of the year (2012) we will have anew Occupational, Health and Safety Policy legislation that will be effective in dealing with our

workplace safety and health.Surprisingly, the interplay between the subject matter and jobs

creation for the teeming unemployed graduate youth in inspectorate positions remains

unexhausted

Ebenezer Annang

Telecom domain Analyst,

EHS Manager

annan_eben@yahoo.com