Valid Claims Submitted under Work Injury Compensation Act

Mr Zainal Sapari asked the Minister for Manpower (a) what is the respective number of claims and valid claims submitted under the Work Injury Compensation Act (WICA) since 1 January 2016; (b) whether all successful claimants have received WICA compensation for their injuries; (c) what are the reasons for claimants being unable to receive such compensation from their companies; and (d) what recourse do the claimants have when their companies are unable to pay the compensation sum.

The number of Work Injury Compensation (WIC) claims has been stable. From 1 January 2016 to 31 December 2017, a total of 33,743 WIC claims were processed, of which 30,695 claims (91%) were valid. Another 2,538 claims (7.5%) were withdrawn due to various reasons, such as workers wishing to resolve the compensation with their employers privately, choosing to pursue common law or deciding not to proceed with their claims. The remaining 510 claims (about 1.5%) were found to be invalid after investigation, mostly due to the injuries not being work-related.

More than 99.9% of the valid claims were given compensation by employers. Only seven out of the 30,695 valid claims were not compensated by the deadline given by the Assistant Commissioner (Work Injury Compensation). These non-compensation cases arose as the employers failed to insure the workers and they claimed financial difficulties. We take enforcement actions, including prosecution, on these employers for non-insurance and non-compensation, and debar the companies and individual directors from hiring foreign workers until they have provided compensation.

Of the seven cases, three have since been compensated. Another one case has been assisted with ex gratia payments from the Workers' Fund managed by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) after the employer was sentenced to jail for failing to comply with the Work Injury compensation order. For the remaining three cases, MOM has prosecuted one of the employers and will take enforcement actions against the remaining two errant employers, such as prosecution or composition fines, depending on the investigation findings. We will provide Workers' Fund assistance to the three affected workers, if the compensation orders are not paid up.