GITEGA November 26th (ABP) – Provincial labor and social security inspectors as well as provincial social protection officials in the northern and central regions of the country are invited to regularly monitor the status of compliance with the new codes’ social protection and the labor code to guarantee decent working conditions and, consequently, improved performance.
Those recommendations were made Tuesday and Wednesday during a capacity building workshop for these officials responsible for monitoring and controlling the implementation of these new codes.
They were called upon to always ensure compliance with the revised labor code with the aim of ensuring equality of opportunity and treatment in employment and at work for anyone with the capacity to hold a job. That control must be carried out from the process of recruiting workers and establishing the employment contract. It must take into account the determination of salary, prescription, professional organization, conditions of services, social security rights, and professional risks.
The workshop participants underlined that this regular monitoring is of paramount importance to reduce the violations and abuses observed by some employers, in particular those in the informal sector who take advantage of the high rate of joblessness to violate certain provisions of the code. of labor, in particular when setting wages for new workers, which are sometimes lower than the wages provided for in the salary scale. They also deplored the non-updating of the guaranteed minimum interprofessional wage (SMIG) of 150 BIF, which dates back a long time.
Participants also deplored cases of harassment committed by certain employers against certain workers who denounce cases of injustice or abuse observed in the workplace.
At the level of the social protection code, the participants appreciated the extension of the law of social protection schemes and of the contribution to non-contributory social protection schemes which cover social assistance programs in favor of households and vulnerable people.
The participants, however, deplored certain employers, especially those in the informal sector, who show accumulations of unpaid monthly contributions to bodies managing the compulsory basic social security schemes as provided for by the relevant legislation.
The deputy head of the pension service at the INSS (National Social Security Institute), Mr. Hervé Bigirimana, raised cases of employers who accumulate arrears of social security costs. He cited cases of workers who, at retirement age, find that their employers have paid ten years’ contributions even though they have worked for 30 years. Those cases are often observed in the informal sector for employers who work underground and commit fraud in the remuneration of their workers.
The speakers, in this case the permanent executive secretary of the National Commission of Social Protection, Mr. Arcade Nimubona, and the principal inspector in charge of the control of the companies recommended to the provincial inspectors and to the officials intervening in the social protection and the regulation professional to do everything possible to ensure compliance with labor and social protection codes.