Compulsory insurance against workmen’s compensation claims

(1) Subject to this Act, it shall not be lawful for any person to employ another person as a workman, unless there is in force in relation to the employment of that workman a policy of insurance or other contract of indemnity in respect of the liability of the employer in case of the death of or bodily injury to the workman arising out of and in the course of such employment. (2) Subsection (1) of this section, shall apply only to the employments set out in subsection (5) of this section, unless the Minister by Order published in the Gazette declares that it shall apply to any other employment mentioned in that Order, and the Minister may at any time and from time to time make a new Order applying subsection (1) of the section to other employments. (3) Subsection (1) of this section, shall not apply where the workman is employed by or on behalf of the Government of Belize. (4) The Labour Commissioner or any person authorised by him in that behalf may call for and inspect any policy of insurance taken out under this section. (5) The employments to which subsection (1) of this section applies are, (a) any employment connected with building construction and structural work in connection with buildings, if more than three workmen are engaged thereupon; (b) any employment connected with any woodworking machinery or sawmill, sugar factory, docks, wharves or quays and the loading and unloading of ships thereat; (c) any employment connected with mining or forestry; (d) any employment connected with the production of sugar, cacao or fruit on places of employment where five or more workmen are engaged on any day; and (e) any employment connected with any dangerous operation. (6) The Minister may, if satisfied that a bond in such sum of money as he may fix entered into by an employer with sufficient sureties offers as good a security for the payment of compensation agreed upon or adjudged to be paid under this Act, direct that such bond be given and that it shall stand in lieu of the insurance required under subsection (1) of this section and every such bond shall be made in favour of the Labour Commissioner and deposited with the Registrar General. (7) The Labour Commissioner shall, upon any employer failing to pay any sum of money agreed upon or adjudged by the court to be paid as compensation under the Act for the benefit of a workman or his dependants, enforce the bond given in relation to that workman and the bond, if given to secure the payment of compensation in respect of other workmen shall remain in force as regards the other workmen, notwithstanding such enforcement. (8) The Minister may, if he considers any employer financially able, apart from money to be derived from insurance, to meet all claims for compensation agreed upon or adjudged to be paid under the Act, exempt the employer from 38 the duty to effect insurance or to enter into a contract of indemnity under subsection (1) of this section and any such exemption may be cancelled or varied by the Minister. (9) Every person who acts in contravention of this section commits an offence and is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding two hundred and forty dollars or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months, or to both such fine and term of imprisonment. (10) Notwithstanding anything contained in any enactment prescribing the time within which proceedings may be brought under the Summary Jurisdiction (Procedure) Act, Cap. 99, proceedings for an offence under this section may be brought within a period of six months from the date of the commission of the alleged offence or if not actually brought within that period, then within a period of three months from the date on which it first came to the knowledge of the prosecutor that the offence had been committed. (11) In subsection (5) of this section, “dangerous operation” means an operation connected with any manufacture, machinery, plant, process or description of manual labour in factories, workshops, or elsewhere which the Minister may, by notice published in the Gazette, declare to be dangerous to life or limb for the purposes of workman’s compensation.