The Sugar Cane Growers Council has taken a significant step towards enhancing the safety and well-being of cane farmers.

This as the Council has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Accident Compensation Commission Fiji which aims to ensure that families do not lose out on compensation in the event of an accidental death.

SCGC Chief Executive, Vimal Dutt says the Sugar Cane Growers Council is now focusing on regularizing farming equipment.

“One of the objectives is that we want to ensure that all farming machineries are regularized. We realize that the tractors especially are not registered with the authorities hence what happens is if there is a death caused by tractor accidents the family will lose the compensation. We all know that compensation is quite significant in case of loss of families so we want to ensure that these gaps are filled collectively.”

ACCF Chief Executive, Parvez Akbar.

ACCF Chief Executive, Parvez Akbar says they have paid a substantial amount of compensation to cane growers for motor vehicle accidents.

“The bulk of what we have processed at the moment has been in terms of motor vehicle accidents and cane growers involved in motor vehicle accidents in some shape or form and so for that it’s close to half a million we have already paid to cane growers for motor vehicle accidents.”

Akbar says the MOU outlines areas of cooperation between the two entities.

These include assistance with the lodgment of applications for compensation, and referral of victims of motor vehicle, employment and school accidents to a designated contact person at ACCF.