9 January 2008
Maputo — Two workers of the Mozambique Fertiliser Company, closed this month by the Labour Ministry, have died of respiratory problems while others have been admitted to hospital, reports Wednesday's issue of the weekly paper "Magazine Independente" (MI).
The company, located in Gondola district, in the central province of Manica, produces and bags fertiliser. From 29 December to 2 January, a joint team from the Labour and Health Ministries inspected the premises, and concluded that working conditions in the company were dangerous and possibly lethal.
Although they were working with hazardous chemicals, the workers were not provided with face masks, gloves or other protective clothing. The inspectors closed the factory down until it meets a long list of demands - including setting up a first aid post, giving a full medical examination to each of the workers, and taking out collective insurance for the workers against risks of illness and accidents arising from the materials they are handling.
These measures came too late for Lapson Mutema, a worker at the company whose widow told MI he had died of a lung complaint caused by the poor conditions at the fertilizer factory.
When MI tried to confirm this at the Gondola health post, the doctor there claimed he was "not authorized" to speak of the causes of death of Mozambique Fertiliser Company workers. He recommended that MI contact the Manica Provincial Health Director, Sousa Augusto.
Augusto was slightly more forthcoming. He said a multi-sector team had been set up to study the causes of death, and that the state of health of the other workers would also be observed. He promised to speak to the paper about the matter again in the near future.
Mutema's family say that during his illness, nobody from the company had bothered to visit him, and the company made no contribution to the funeral expenses.
150 people worked at the fertilizer company, which began operations in mid-2007. One of the workers, Juvencio Martinho, told MI that the workers were continually exposed to the chemicals used by the company. They had hoped that matters might improve - instead they steadily worsened.
Martinho said that when a worker suffers an accident on the company premises, the management takes no interest in his health, and instead makes a deduction from his wages for "unjustified absence".
A second worker, Sixpence Quefasse, said that in recent weeks they had worked in the rain, because the factory roof leaks. The water had poured in, and the workers found themselves handling wet chemicals.
Quefasse said the company made no record of overtime worked, provided no written contracts, and had reneged on its promise to pay 110 meticais (about 4.6 US dollars) a day. This would have given the workers 3,300 meticais a month - which is about twice the statutory minimum wage.
The company's managing director, Zeca Ismail, denied these claims. "Everything's being paid on time, and I don't know anything about any non-payment of wages", he declared. The company operated on a piece work basis, and the workers were seasonal.
Ismail said that when there was work to do, the company called their workers in, and when there wasn't they stayed at home. At the end of the month, they would be paid for what they had done on the days they had worked.
He dismissed the demands for protective clothing on the grounds that "fertilizers don't harm anybody".
"If we were making pesticides, I'd say, yes there would be a risk. But we only work with fertilizers, and so there's no risk to health", he alleged.
Ismail claimed that all the fertilizer company's problems are now being overcome, and shortly all the situations detected by the inspectors would be regularized.
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