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The Committee notes the Government’s reports and the information they contain which partly reply to its previous comments. It draws the Government’s attention to the following points.

1. Labour inspectorate and child labour. In response to the Committee’s general observation of 1999 on the Labour Inspectorate’s role in combating child labour, the Government indicates the recent ratification of the Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No. 138), and the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999 (No. 182). The Committee further notes with interest that the Government has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) and that in this context labour inspectors and supervisors attended an awareness-raising seminar. Noting that, according to the Government, the material and human constraints impeding action by the labour inspection services in this area are gradually being reduced, the Committee hopes that the Government will not fail to take all possible measures enabling labour inspectors to participate actively in combating unlawful child labour and inform the competent authorities of the country’s status in this regard.

2. Reimbursement of travelling and incidental expenses necessary to the performance of duties of labour inspectors. With reference to its previous comments and noting the information supplied by the Government for the period ending May 2000 concerning the increase in the number of regional labour directorates and the forthcoming expansion of their equipment and means of transport, the Committee once again asks the Government to provide information enabling it to ascertain whether the allowances granted to inspectors under Decree No. 95-395 of 29 September 1995 are adequate to cover the travelling and incidental expenses in accordance with Article 11, paragraph 2, of the Convention which they need to conduct inspection visits as frequently as prescribed by Article 16.

3. Free access of labour inspectors to workplaces liable to inspection. The Committee would be grateful if the Government would supply information on the measures announced in a previous report to bring into line with the Convention the legislation allowing labour inspectors free access to workplaces in accordance with Article 12, paragraph 1(a), at any hour of the day or night to any workplace liable to inspection and paragraph 1(b), by day to any premises which they may have reasonable cause to believe to be liable to inspection.

4. Annual reports on the work of the inspection services. The Committee notes with regret that, although the Government has repeatedly announced the preparation of an annual inspection report, the information on the items listed in Article 21(a) to (g) has still not been published or transmitted in the form of some kind of report as prescribed by Article 20, the last annual statistics sent to the ILO dating back to 1993. The Committee draws the Government’s attention to the importance, for the aims of the Convention, of publishing an annual inspection report drawn up on the basis of the guidelines given in Paragraph 9 of the Labour Inspection Recommendation, 1947 (No. 81). At the national level, it enables those concerned, particularly employers and workers and their organizations and public and private institutions whose activities are related to the world of work, to become acquainted with the operation of the inspection services and the difficulties the latter may encounter in carrying out their activities and to elicit their reactions in a constructive spirit. Furthermore, transmission of such a report to the ILO within the prescribed time limit is intended to enable the international supervisory bodies to assess the extent to which the Convention is applied and provide the Government with useful guidelines for improvement. The Committee would be grateful if the Government would take appropriate steps to ensure that the central inspection authority fulfils its obligation to produce an annual report in accordance with Articles 20 and 21, and to provide information in the near future on progress made.

The Committee is addressing a request directly to the Government on other matters.