3. Reporting Incidents

The COID stipulates the employer to report any incident that results in disablement, death, or unconsciousness to the Department of Labour. These types of accidents are termed as 'reportable injury' in terms of Section 24 of the Occupational Health and Safety Act. An employer must meet compliance standards by using the correct form to report such an incident called Annexure 1 form and address it to the Inspector or Occupational Health& Safety division at the Department of Labour. The above-mentioned are the correct channels that an employer must follow according to a proper Incident Investigation Procedure so as to be considered to be compliant.

If the accident is fatal, an Inspector from the Department of Labour will be sent to conduct an inspection and their findings of the accident will be reported to the Chief Commissioner.

If the incident is minor or a near miss, the employer must refer the matter, for investigation, to the health and safety committee. The health and safety committee is expected to launch an internal investigation into the matter. They should establish the root cause and they should take action. They must implement control measures to prevent the re-occurrence of the same incident.

The employer also has the duty to report an incident that needs compensation to the Compensation Authority or the relevant authority as soon as possible. They expect to receive the required documents too.

All workplace parties have a duty to fulfil the incident investigation procedure, by correctly reporting incidents to their next superior in the authority hierarchy in the workplace. It is essential for all parties involved to know their roles and responsibility to ensure that an efficient incident reporting procedure is followed.

Incident reporting is a legal requirement and the correct compliant procedures and steps should be followed.