Outcry at ‘irrational and damaging’ Coida new rules
ORGANISATIONS this week called for the Commissioner of the Compensation Fund and Minister of Employment and Labour, Thulas Nxesi, to withdraw “irrational and damaging" Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act (Coida) new rules, saying it would hurt workers’ rights.
Injured Workers Action, United Domestic Workers of South Africa, the South African Medical Association, National Employers Association of South Africa (Neasa), Compensation Solutions and CoidLink are up in arms against the regulations.
The group in an open letter to Nxesi this week said: “Collectively, we represent more than 130 cross-sectoral bodies, ranging from health-care associations to medical practices, unions and companies, who, in turn, represent over 4 million impacted parties who are deeply concerned about the chronic and persistent failings of the Compensation Fund.”
The rules circumvent a decision by Parliament to remove clause 43 of the Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act Amendment Bill.
Clause 43 of the bill had the effect of removing the possibility of Medical Service Providers and health-care organisations ceding their medical claims and/or debts to third party administrators or financial institutions.
This clause was removed by Parliament due to its detrimental effect on the industry and its removal of the only functioning element of the
Compensation Fund. The gripe is that medical service providers will no longer be pre-funded by third party administrators and will have to submit their claims directly to the Compensation Fund for reimbursement.
The furore is that the Compensation Fund is perennially incapable of dealing with the about 1 000 daily injury occurrences in the workplace, leaving it with a backlog above 150 000 cases dating back years while it cited IT glitches.
The Compensation Fund in 2019 replaced its previous system with a new SAP-based system called CompEasy (S4i), but the new system – with a R300 million price tag, but which was unable to deal with a backlog.
The fear is that workers, already waiting inordinate lengths of time for compensation might have nowhere to go as medical service providers insist on cash for treatment to avoid the obligation to individually add to the bottleneck at the already overladen Compensation Funds claims system.
The open letter said,“In particular, we are alarmed by the recent regulations published by the Commissioner that we believe are ultra vires, irrational, unnecessary, and if implemented, have the potential to damage the rights of workers, harm medical service providers and impact employers negatively.
“Despite the bloated Compensation Fund having R60 billion in assets and R26bn in reserves and receiving some R9bn in annual contributions from 400 000 employers, on your watch, Honourable Minister, the Compensation Fund has lurched from crisis to crisis.
“For ten years, the Auditor-General has published disclaimers and adverse opinions about the fund. In addition to material non-compliance with legislation, so deep are its pathologies that the Auditor-General this year lamented that, if not required by legislation, it would withdraw from auditing the fund,” the letter said.
Neasa also said it strongly condemned the actions of the Commissioner of the Compensation Fund, following the publication of Coida last month. Neasa senior policy adviser Rona Bekker said after the initial publication of the controversial and detrimental rules on September10, Neasa, together with other role players in the industry, had opposed the implementation of these rules.
“Consequently, on October 15, 2021, Neasa communicated its relief over these same rules having been withdrawn by the commissioner,” Bekker said.
In what Neasa said was a shocking development, and one in direct contradiction to the initial withdrawal, it said the commissioner issued “new” rules to Coida which determined exactly the same as the strongly opposed, detrimental and consequently withdrawn, rules.
“These ‘new’ rules, once again, is contradictory to the decision by Parliament to remove clause 43 of Coida, by stating that the fund will no longer be accepting the banking details of agents and other representatives, other than those of the medical service providers or health-care organisations, for purposes of medical claims. Nor will the fund be accepting the banking details of agents and other representatives, other than that of the injured or diseased beneficiary and/or the Coida pensioner.”
Neasa said that it would, in accordance with its undertaking in its previous communiques, once again direct a letter to the Commissioner and the Minister of Employment and Labour.