No help for vulnerable workers

Proposed amendments to the Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act, purported to address governance weaknesses in the Compensation Fund by changing the advisory committee, will do nothing to change the fund’s performance and continue to offer the minister the influence to interfere in the activities of the fund and provide cover for a deficient commissioner.

Prof Alex van den Heever, chair of social security systems administration and management studies at Wits University, made this statement during a webinar about the consequences of the proposed amendments.

Governance

He said the advisory board was a token with no powers and should be supervisory, independent of the executive and be in the position to hire and fire the commissioner.

“The historical weaknesses of this poorly managed fund will continue to harm the rights of workers to social security as there is no political will to structurally change the governance structure in any meaningful way.”

Claims

The fund has assets of over R60 billion and more than R26 billion in reserves, but employers and doctors find it extremely difficult to access the fund’s systems.

The fund replaced its previous IT system with a new SAP-based IT system called CompEasy, at a cost of R285 million in 2019, but the new system is equally dysfunctional, continuing the delays in the registration and adjudication of claims and payments to doctors.

Cessation

However, one of the amendments, to Section 73 of the Act, wants to bar doctors from taking legal action, saying that “cession or relinquishment of medical claim void, any provision of an agreement existing at the commencement of this Act or concluded thereafter [sic] in terms of which a [medical] service provider cedes ... any rights to [a] medical claim in terms of this Act, shall be void.”

Assessing the amendments

Van den Heever said when you consider if the provision limits a right provided for in the Bill of Rights, you should look at the freedom of trade, occupation and profession, that gives every citizen the right to choose their trade, occupation or profession, which can be regulated by law.

Van den Heever was joined by Tim Hughes of the Injured Workers Action Group, who noted the fund was dysfunctional and removing the cession of invoices will eliminate the only part of the fund’s value chain that works. If this amendment is adopted, injured workers will not have access to quality healthcare.