Rehabilitation and reintegration of injured workers run supreme in COID Bill changes - CF Commissioner
The rehabilitation and reintegration of injured workers to the workplace will be among the key changes contained in the Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases (Coid) Bill, meetings were told in Klerksdorp, North West and Bloemfontein, Free State on Thursday and Friday respectively. Vuyo Mafata, Compensation Fund (CF) Commissioner was addressing packed breakfast sessions with the Wesvaal Business Chamber as well as Bloemfontein Black Business Chamber.
“We want to rehabilitate and reintegrate people back into employment so that their skills are not lost in whatever role,” he said.
Mafata said the CF spent about R1-billion annually on injured clients. He said the changes to the policy and legislative environment had been negotiated with all National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) social partners.
The COID Bill is to be presented to Cabinet in August. The Bill will then be published for public comments. It will then be finalised at that stage.
‘’We hope it will be ready to be made into law some time next year”, the Commissioner said.
During the question and answer sessions, Mafata said the Fund had paid R10-Billion in the last three years in medical claims. He said this was expedited by the fact that the system is online.
“We however, still have a lot of pharmacist who do not want to dispense because they think they will not be paid,” the Commissioner said.
Precious Mdlokovana, who focused on interfile and IT system, said the launch of the CF project on April 1 this year had resulted in Online Self –Registration of employers – streamlining the submission of return of earnings – Provision of secure Online payment mechanism and a letter of good standing being issued within 20 minutes..
Compensation Fund is a public entity under the administration of Department of Labour responsible to cover workers injured during work or who sustain diseases during the course of their occupation.
The contact details of the fund are as follows:
CF-Filing System Challenges (Support@cf-filing.co.za)
CF Services (Registration, Return of Earning Enquiries) (CFcallcenter@labour.gov.za )
Statement of account (CFdebtors@labour.gov.za)
For more information contact: Franco Mabuya at franco.mabuya@labour.gov.za or on 060 989 8675.
