New law to regulate Occupational Health and Safety

A new Factories, Offices, and Shops law has been developed and will be presented to cabinet at the end of the month for consideration and onward submission for Parliament to pass into law.

The new law has been expanded to cover the construction, mining, agriculture and all the sectors of the economy to ensure the Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) of workers.

The Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, Nii Armah Ashietey, said this in a speech read on his behalf in Accra at a stakeholders conference and advocacy programme for members of the Ghana Contractors Association Council (GCAC) on the review of the Factories, Offices, and Shop law.

The conference was to seek the input of GCAC members for the new Factories, Offices, and Shops law.
GCAC has been championing amendment of the Factories, Offices, and Shops law because it was irrelevant to the construction and other sub-sectors of the economy.

According to the GCAC, the Factories, Offices, and Shops Act -- which is supposed to be the law to ensure workplace safety -- is limited and does not cover construction and construction sites, which is one key risky working environment.

Consequently, the GCAC with support from the BUSAC Fund commissioned a study into workings of the Factories, Offices, Shops Act to ascertain its limitations and come out with recommendations.

Mr. Ashietey said the policy will be presented to cabinet before the end of the month and he is hopeful the draft Factories, Office and Shop bill will be passed into law before the end of the year.

He said that when the new law is passed the Factories Inspectorate Department will be turned into an Authority -- gaining more power to prosecute people who fail to keep OHS standards at their workplace.

Mr. Ashietey further said the new law will consolidate all the OHS laws in the country into one law and create one authority to deal with OHS issues.

“The the new Factories, Offices, and Shops bill has made provisions for a National OHS day to be held annually to promote the workplace safety of workers and the development of local standards on OHS,” he said.

Mr. Ashietey said the views and recommendations of participants will be incorporated into the new draft bill, and entreated them to come with views which will help shape the draft bill.

Mr. Rockson K. Dogbegah, Chairman of GCAC who presided over the programme, said there were a lot of deficiencies in the Factories, Offices and Shops, Act; saying the existing law has no standards on OHS in the bidding for contracts.

He said it was against this backdrop that the GCAC hired consultants to look into the existing law to come up with recommendations with the goal of amending it.

‘’We contractors are happy with this situation. We are disgusted and troubled about the state of affairs and decided to initiate a process that will lead to a complete overhauling of the existing law, so that we can have a single but comprehensive law on OHS to cover every sector of the economy,’’ he said.

Mr. Dogbegah said OHS is very important and requires an appropriate law to regulate it.

The Chairman called on government to as a matter of urgency ratify the International Labour Convention on OHS, saying the country cannot afford to underplay its relevance to the safety and welfare of workers.

He entreated the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations to ensure that a “workable and relevant law is enacted”.

A Service Provider of BUSAC, Mr. Agyarkwa Ayisi Addo, said the construction industry constitutes an important sector of the economy and there is need for effective regulation to govern the industry.

He said the construction industry in 2013 contributed about 12.6 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product.