PLANS are in progress to review the 1975 Workmen's Compensation Act by the Ministry of Labour
Labour Minister Jone Usamate said this was the last of their Labour reforms and it was due to be completed by the end of this year.
According to Mr Usamate, there were 154 backlog cases where they had sought the assistance of 12 personal from the Fiji military forces to speed up the work involved.
He said the team included a doctor and a legal adviser since most of the cases were under the Employment Relations Tribunal and disputes awaiting a court ruling.
He said the most significant constrains faced by the Ministry was in terms of staffing.
"We have also engaged 10 graduate volunteers to assist us in achieving our goal of clearing all the backlog cases by December this year," Mr Usamate said.
Mr Usamate said the clearing of claims for workman's compensation was not something that could be done overnight.
He said compensation would be processed for payments after they verified the injuries which happened in the work course of employment without any negligence on the part of the worker.
He said one of the challenged faced by his Ministry was the late reporting of injuries or death cases by employer.
"Some cases are brought to our attention by the injured workers or relatives of the deceased workers well after the fact," he said.
He said workers need to know that any injury at the workplace needed to be reported to the employer as soon as possible.