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Employees' Compensation Ordinance
Following is the speech by the Secretary for Education and Manpower, Mr Joseph W P Wong, in moving the resolution of the Employees' Compensation Ordinance in the Legislative Council today (Wednesday):
Mr President,
I move the motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The purpose of this resolution is to revise the levels of compensation and certain compensation-related items under the Employees' Compensation Ordinance. The Ordinance provides for payment of compensation by employers to employees who are injured or killed as a result of employment-related accidents. Our policy since 1978 has been to review the levels of compensation every two years to take account of wage movements, inflation and other changes. The existing levels of compensation have been in force since 1 January 1994 and are now due for revision. We propose that the revised rates should take effect as from 1 January 1996.
We propose to increase the ceiling for monthly earnings from $15,000 to $18,000. This figure is the basis on which the maximum amounts of compensation for permanent total incapacity and for death are calculated under the Ordinance. We also propose to increase the minimum levels of compensation for death from $219,000 to $262,000, and for permanent total incapacity from $248,000 to $297,000. In addition, we propose that the maximum amount of compensation for the costs of required by another person be revised from $297,000 to $356,000. For late payment of compensation, we propose to increase the minimum amount of surcharge imposed upon expiry of the payment period from $350 to $420 and the minimum additional surcharge imposed three months after expiry of payment period from $700 to $840. Each of these six proposed revisions represents an increase of about 19.7% over the existing levels, which is in line with the increase in nominal wages during the past two
years.
The ceilings on three other forms of compensation are to be adjusted to take account of inflation since their last revision in 1994. The proposed changes include increasing the maximum amount for burial expenses from $12,000 to $14,000, and increasing the maximum payments to be made by an employer towards the costs of supplying and fitting a prosthesis or a surgical appliance from $24,000 and $74,000 respectively to $28,000 and $86,000 respectively.