Senator Faber Slams OSH Inspectorate as Underfunded and Unprepared

The long-delayed Occupational Safety and Health Bill languishes in the upper house, several weeks after it was placed before the senate. Before the ink is even dry on the new OSH Bill, Opposition Senator Patrick Faber says the government is setting itself up for failure. The UDP senator is warning that the inspectorate at the center of the legislation has neither trained personnel nor the financial resources needed to do its job, raising doubts about whether the measure can be properly enforced. Faber also challenged the inspectorate’s independence, arguing that its structure leaves it vulnerable to outside influence and questioning the government’s commitment to making the system work as intended.

 

Senator Patrick Faber, United Democratic Party

“The inspectorate is not an independent body given the setup for answering that they have here. I made the point also, Madam President, that there was no money put into developing the inspectorate. I asked the question to the technical experts that were here, how many inspectors were being trained already and the answer to that was that they will start when the bill passes. So if the law comes into effect, Madam President, and none of these people who are in the inspectorate are yet trained, how is that things are going to move? In fact, from the Cabinet’s whitepaper, Madam President, what we understood to be the case was that the monies for the inspectorate were to come from the daily budget, the regular budget of the ministry, a ministry which they will tell you, already doesn’t have the money, slashed to the bone. So you have to be joking. It has to be an indication, Madam Speaker, that they are not serious about really putting into effect this piece of legislation and to have it function in the manner in which it should function because you have no intention of really putting together that inspectorate and have it function in the manner in which it should function.”

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

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