Observation (CEACR) - adopted 1995, published 82nd ILC session (1995)

With reference to its previous comments, the Committee notes from the Government's report that the implementing regulations concerning compensation for industrial accidents and occupational diseases provided for in section 58 of the Act respecting the social security system, No. 18/90 of 27 October 1990, have not yet been approved and that, pending their adoption, the applicable legal provisions consist of section 141 of the General Labour Act of 1981, which requires all enterprises to insure their workers against industrial accidents and occupational diseases, and of the supplementing Resolution of the People's Assembly No. 12/81 of 7 November 1981. This Resolution provides that the compensation for occupational injuries will continue to be regulated by the system that was previously applicable, although the relevant legislation has been formally repealed and no new corresponding social security legislation has yet been adopted at that time. Taking into account the subsequent adoption of Act No. 18/90 mentioned above, the Committee asks the Government to indicate what provisions of the previous legislation still remain in force and to what extend they continue to give effect to the Convention.

In addition, the Committee recalls that, as it had already pointed out in 1980, the schedules of occupational diseases contained in the previously applicable legislation (the Angolan Labour Code of 1957 and the Rural Labour Code of 1962) failed to mention certain activities likely to cause poisoning by lead, its alloys or its compounds, and by mercury, its amalgams or its compounds, as required by Article 2 of the Convention. It also recalls that since that time the Government has been referring to a draft Decree on employment injury and occupational diseases, section 14 of which, according to the information supplied previously by the Government, contained a schedule of diseases in line with the Convention. This Decree has, however, not been adopted. In this situation, the Committee is bound once again to express the hope that the Government will take all the necessary measures to adopt in the very near future the above-mentioned regulations respecting compensation of industrial accidents and occupational diseases provided for in section 58 of Act No. 18/90. It also hopes that these regulations will provide, in accordance with Article 1 of the Convention, for compensation to workmen incapacitated by occupational diseases, or to their dependants, in accordance with the general principles relating to compensation for industrial accidents, and that it will also contain a schedule of occupational diseases, including all the diseases and processes that are liable to provoke them, as set out in the Schedule annexed to Article 2. It requests the Government to supply detailed information on the progress achieved in this respect and to supply the text of the above regulations when they have been adopted.