This
is a new strategic project initiated by OSHAfrica to cater for the gap in OSH
and Labour Inspection across Africa. This part of Workplace Health and Safety
in Africa currently is difficult to understand and organise because of the
different standards being used across the 54 countries and we felt the need to
look into the issues with the hope of bringing all actors together for sharing
of experiences and learning together.
When
we refer to the ILO Labour Inspection Convention 81 of 1947 and Convention 155
of 1981 which virtually all African countries have signed and ratified, it
becomes obvious how committed we should be in developing our OSH and Labour
Inspection standard. Workplace inspection processes ensure organisations
implement the practices of decent and safe workplaces especially concerning the
protection guaranteed to the workers by social laws and regulations. There is
also a requirement for the inspectors to report the gaps or defects within
these laws and processes to government for further reviews and implementation.
When
we look at the role of OSH and Labour Inspection from this perspective, you
will realize they are not just there to inspect safe workplace practices, they
are also very important with the feedback needed to strengthen existing OSH
and Labour legislation. Having this in mind, we should therefore see this arm
of workplace health and safety inspection as a very important component of our
work without which the system may never be complete.
In reviewing the place of OSH and Labour Inspection in Africa, we realized there were three critical issues common among all actors across all countries, they are:
Under staffing
Under funding
Inadequacies in training
Two
of those factors are not within our immediate control, though we are able to
advice different government on improved staffing and better funding. We
realized we are able to immediately bring these inspectors together in one
common platform where they can share experiences on good practices and further
training which OSHAfrica and other partners can make available to them.
In
trying to fully understand the level of under staffing that exists within this
unit in Africa, we tried looking at the current staffing levels across 5
African countries and below were the outcomes.
Nigeria: This country has over 200
million people in population (https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/nigeria-population/), there were only less than 350
inspectors until 2019 when the new employment brought the figures to 750 inspectors.
This was according to our discussions with the Director of Occupational Safety
and Health of the Ministry of Labour and Employment. We see this figure as still
grossly inadequate for the population.
Ghana: This country’s 2020 population
is estimated at 31, 072,940 people according to United Nations data (https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/ghana-population/) but there exists only 50
inspectors currently and waiting for 6 more to be recruited.
Egypt: With an estimated 102 million
population (https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/egypt-population/) has 520 inspectors currently.
Zambia: With a population of 18.3
million people https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/zambia-population/) currently has only 13 inspectors
with a plan in place to recruit an additional of 13 more inspectors.
South Africa: With a population of 59 million
people, (https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/south-africa-population/) there are 170 inspectors. From
all indications, this seems to be the only country where we have a reasonable
number of inspector per population. These information were gathered from the
interaction we had with the Directors of Occupational Safety and Health and in
some cases with the Factory Inspectors in each of these 5 countries.
In
OSHAfrica, we already have functional 3 Scientific Committees and we realised
the only way we can create an intervention in this arm of workplace health and
safety improvement will be to create an entirely new strategic forum that will
bring together all OSH and Labour Inspectors. We have succeeded in doing this,
we currently have over 170 of such inspectors from over 18 African countries.
Western, Southern, Eastern African sub regions are already well represented, we
are currently pushing Northern and Central African regional inclusion, once we
achieve this in the next few weeks, we
will have the formal launch of African OSH and Labour Inspectors Network.
The
whole aim is to be able to offer these inspectors the specific training they
need to function rightly, capacity building and competency improvement is a key
area we want to help address. We realised most of these people were just
employed without any form or requisite training, in some cases where they had
training, they were grossly insufficient. We feel the right kind of improvement
expected in workplaces may never happen until we commence the intended training
and retraining programs focused on OSH and Labour Inspection skills
improvement. All existing scientific committees of OSHAfrica will offer support
to the new network in line with their mandate. Example is the OSH Legislation
and Policy Improvement scientific committee bringing together their expertise
in helping to work with member countries in strengthening their labour legislation. The committee on Education and Competency Improvement offering
training support while the committee on Research, Data and Publication will
also be here in helping them put data together for reporting.
We
should be able to harmonize OSH and Labour Inspection across Africa through
this intervention and we will keep updating the needed skills of the
inspectors. Currently they are all together in Telegram as a group and are able
to ask questions in areas they are not so clear about. As a Nigerian inspector, you do not need to
repeat the mistake that an inspector in Congo had already made, you just throw
the issues you have into the group for discussion and at the end of the day,
and you have a solution. This is the whole idea.
We
will be extending our discussions to International Association of Labour
Inspectors (IALI), International Labour Organisation (ILO), German Social
Accident Insurance (DGUV), European Network Education and Training in
Occupational Safety and Health (ENETOSH) and others partners for support in
developing the capacity of African OSH and Labour Inspectors.
Nyambari,
S. T. (2005). Labour Inspection in
Africa- Promoting Workers Right, Labour Education, ILO https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/@ed_protect/@protrav/@safework/documents/publication/wcms_108666.pdf
https://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:51:0::NO:51:P51_CONTENT_REPOSITORY_ID:2543058:NO
https://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:12100:0::NO::P12100_ILO_CODE:C081
https://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:12100:0::NO::P12100_ILO_CODE:C155
https://www.ilo.org/jobspact/policy/WCMS_DOC_GJP_ARE_DLG_EN/lang--en/index.htm.
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