Mr. Faris Attrickie, the General Manager and Technical Operations of the SIC Insurance Company PLC, has explained that employers are under obligation under the Workmen’s Compensation Act to pay medical expenses of employees in respect of the injury.
He said the act also makes provision for compensation for permanent incapacity, where total incapacity results from the injury, the amount of compensation shall be a sum of money equal to 96 months’ earnings.
On compensation for permanent partial incapacity, Mr Attrickie said where permanent partial incapacity results from the injury, the amount of compensation shall be, in the case of an injury specified, a percentage of the compensation which would have been payable in the case of permanent total incapacity.
Mr Attrickie, who was speaking at the seventh “Tema Regional Office of the Ghana News Agency Stakeholder Engagement and Workers’ Appreciation Day” seminar, said in the case of injury not specified, a percentage of the compensation which would have been payable in the case of permanent total incapacity and proportionate to the loss of earning.
“Where more injuries than one is caused by the same accident, the amount of compensation payable under this section shall be aggregated, but shall not exceed the amount, which would have been payable if permanent total incapacity had resulted from the injuries,” Mr Attrickie noted.
Touching on the New Insurance Act, Act 1061 of 2021, Section 216, Mr Attrickie tasked professional bodies to study the act, stressing that the medical institution needs to have professional indemnity cover and if they did not, the owner or employer could be summary convicted to a fine or a term of imprisonment.
He said that, Professional Indemnity had become compulsory through the new insurance Act, which replaced Act 726 of 2006, “now this new insurance act made it compulsory for any employer to ensure that every employee should come under the professional indemnity cover and an employer that fails to do so, if found guilty will be fined or made to serve a term of imprisonment or both”.
“The new Act 1061 of 2021 made motor third party insurance and the workmen’s compensation insurance also compulsory,” he said.
Mr. Attrickie said we need a united front to step out and reach out to all sector of society to discuss insurance and social development issues, which affected society.
He called on the insurance companies to cooperate with the GNA to raise the consciousness of society to their rights in order that they will be able to ensure that employers did not joke with the lives of the employers.
Mr Francis Ameyibor, Tema Regional Manager, GNA, in an introductory remark, said, the Stakeholder Engagement was a platform created to deepen a mutually beneficial working relationship with stakeholders to ensure both the media and corporate entities work together towards national development.
The engagement, he added, served as a motivational mechanism to recognise the editorial contribution of reporters to the professional growth and promotion of Tema GNA as the industrial news hub, while contributing to societal growth.
According to him, Government, Civil Society Organisations and other stakeholders could use the media more effectively as an instrument for social change, and said, the media was a powerful tool, which must be used strategically for effective change towards national development.
Mr Ameyibor was quick to add that, in modern development, “you ignore the media at the peril of the state, the organisation or an agenda; so, we must work together, creating an enabling environment for trust and collaboration because the media is simply indispensable for democratic functioning of the state.”
