By Mabinty M. Kamara
The labor sector is one of the most dysfunctional in Sierra Leone.Despite repeated promises by successive governments to fix it, the only thing that appears to be changing is the deteriorating conditions of employees. Probably, nowhere is this any more manifest than among the country's unskilled labour force.
Foreign companies, and sometimes even businesses owned indigenously, are taking advantage of weak policies with little or no supervision from relevant authorities, sometimes even with tacit official connivance,to subject Sierra Leoneans to situations akin only to slavery.
Besides having to put up with pittance as wages, many work under deplorably dangerous and risky conditions.
Along Jenneh Wright Road, around the infamous Bomeh,up to Ferry Junction in the east end of Freetown, is a long queue of trailers and trucks filled with imported cements, iron rods, and other building materials. They are being off loaded by men into two different stores owned by Acmed Mackie and Husain Fawaz. All over the bodies of thesemen is cement dust, so that they are hardly recognizable.
Some of these men have been working here for over five years as casual workers. They have absolutely nothing to show for it in terms of personal or professional development.
To add to this is the sorrowful condition they work in - with little or no protective gears.
At the two stores above along Bai Bureh Road,the few labourers who have protection on, like booths and overalls, had only managed to hold on to their once-a-year supply.
At Husain Fawaz’s, the workers say they are paid Le400, 400 per month, far less than the minimum wage. Needless to say they are not registered on the National Social Security and Insurance Trust (NASSIT), according to their knowledge.
At the nearby Mackie’s store, the workers say they are paid Le100, 000 a week. That will amount to Le400, 000 a month.
“And after doing the work it sometimes takes more than a week before we can be paid,” said one of them, before removing his t-shirt to reveal rashes on a part of his body, which he believes is a result of constant exposure to cement dust.We cannot reveal the identities of these men to protect them against reprisal by their employers.
Cement is made of a composition of chemicals experts say could be dangerous to the skin and eye if exposed to it for a long time.
“Once we were working when a forklift rode over my feet and they took me to the Emergency Hospital,” recalls one of Fawaz’s men.
“Nothing was done by my employers and until now, as you can see, I have not fully recovered but I am here because I have no alternative,” he added, pointing to a visible scar on his left leg.
“If I stayed at home for more than a day due to pain, I risk losing my job…and I have a family to care for.”
Little solace
With all this there is little solace for these and many Sierra Leoneans who visit the Ministry of Labour almost every day to complain about one form of abuse or the other at their work places.
The men who work for Husain Fawaz recalled in June 2015 when they went to the Ministry with a complaint letter and were given “false” promise of action. Their case was handled by Labour Officer, Ibrahim Deen. They claimed he requested that they provide transportation to enable a ministry representative visit their employer.
“We gave him Le50, 000 every two weeks since we were very disparate,” narrated one of the men.
But nothing has happened since then. They said once when a Labour ministry official found time to visit Fawaz’s store and had a talk with the manager, the case died a natural death.
Husain Bassma, the manager Acmed Mackie’s building materials store, declined to comment when Politico visited the place. The workers were working without any protective gears except for a tiny nose masked used by a handful of them.
After several failed visit to the Ministry of labour, we only managed to get hold of Mr. Deen’s phone number. He confirmed handling a complaint from Fawaz’s men but angrily denied he demanded money from them.Through a complicated phone interview,the Labour ministry official threatened [court] action against the men for lying against him.
Deen said he was only trying to help out.
“If they would have taken their case to a lawyer and the case is being delayed, would they have gone to report to a journalist?”he asked.
Deen went on to explain that at the time the complaint was lodged, the only available vehicle at the ministry was on a mission in the province. He said in that note they decided to invite Mr Fawaz over to the ministry. But the Lebanese business mogul would not turn up,giving the excuse that he had an appointment with President Ernest Bai Koroma at State House. And he would never honour that invitation.
Deen went on to catalogue constraints faced by the Labor ministry, including funding issues, which he said prevented them from functioning accordingly. He said as a consequence they have had hundreds of backlog cases waiting to be addressed.
“But people can be very inpatient,” he lamented.
Bribery
Our attempt to get hold of Husain Fawaz himself proved difficult. But when this reporter eventually caught up with him, he told us that majority of his labourers were provided for him by the Labour Ministry, and that he had no business providing protection for them since they were been paid at the end of their contracts.
“Most of the labourers you see here are being provided to us by Labour [Ministry] on contract basis and as such I have no business providing protective gears for them,” he said in an angry tone, before cutting off the interview half way. He then asked that the interview be scheduled for another time as he couldn’t speak in a “noisy environment”.
He also told our reporter that he preferred talking to people in private.
As this reporter exited the store, one of the workers followed her.
Looking around him as though to make sure he was not been watched, he nervously explained their plight and pleaded that the case wasn’t dropped.
“All those who came here – journalists, Labour Ministry officials - they have all abandoned the matter as soon as they entered that office,” he said, suggesting that they may have been bribed to shut up.
But since then Mr Fawaz keeps turning down our request for further clarification.
Unemployment has been a thorny issue for successive governments in Sierra Leone. This has left many Sierra Leoneans, both young and old, to struggle to make ends meet. And this will mean many overlooking injustices meted out to them by their employers.
Violation of the country`s labor laws is universal and cuts across all sectors. But it is even more evident with Asian-owned businesses.
This is aided largely by a lack of an up-to-date labour laws in the country. “Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) is in dare situation in the country; work places are hazardous, OSH unit is nonfunctional and has no information, and generally throughout Sierra Leone, there is little evidence on the grounds of the existence of, or the compliance with a preventive safety and health culture,”a joint Sierra Leone government/ International Labour Organisation report of 2010-2012 reads in part.
This has serious repercussion for a country seeking to attract investors as it exposes its labour force to potential abuse that would lead to further problems.
At the Labour Ministry, Mr. Deen, who had refused to tell us his first name, explains that there is a labour union down at the Queen Elizabeth II Quay which provides the ministry with labourers for recommendation to the Lebanese businessmen. These labourers, he added, are selected from within the community. They help mostly in offloading goods on contract basis.
He wouldn’t answer to questions about details of their contracts or what the Labour policies say about the allegations of these men.
(c) Politico 14/01/16
