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The Committee takes note of the Government’s report for the period ending in June 2005. It observes that most of the information concerns recent developments in the legislation on a number of subjects such as the organization of labour administration, and the amendment of the Labour Code, the Penal Code and the Administrative Offences Code in order to expand the legal basis and enhance the role of labour inspection in general. The Committee also notes the report of the tripartite labour inspection audit carried out with technical assistance from the ILO and the recommendations it contains. It would be grateful if the Government would provide information in its next report on the action taken or envisaged to give effect to the recommendations to increase the human and material resources for inspection in order to improve implementation of the legal provisions on working conditions and the protection of agricultural workers.

1. Articles 26 and 27 of the Convention Annual report on inspection in agricultural undertakings. The Committee notes that no information on the work of the inspection services in agriculture has been sent with the Government’s report. In its previous comments, it expressed the hope that relevant information on the activities of the inspection services in agriculture, as required by Article 27 of the Convention, would be shortly published and communicated to the International Labour Office in a consolidated manner either in the form of a separate report, or as part of its general annual report. The Committee notes the Government’s confirmation that no such report exists and that the annual inspection report covers all activities undertaken by the labour inspectorate, including in agriculture. The Committee would like to draw the Government’s attention to the fact that the annual inspection report required by the Convention is an essential tool for evaluating the work of the inspection services in agriculture and a source of information essential to determining the means for improving it. Publication of such a report should also enable the social partners in the agricultural sector to assess whether the means used and the measures taken to achieve the purposes of inspection are effective and to express their views and propose improvements. Specific information must therefore be easily identifiable, even in a report covering other sectors of the economy. The Committee is therefore bound to remind the Government of the obligations deriving specifically from this Convention and to ask it once again to take the necessary steps to ensure that the central inspection authority publishes and sends to the ILO, in one of the forms provided for in Article 26, an annual report containing the information required for each of the items at Article 27(a) to (g). Pending such a report, the Committee requests the Government to provide in its report on the application of the Convention the information specific to the agricultural sector required by each part of the report form.

2. Articles 15(b) and 21. Transport facilities for labour inspectors in agriculture and inspection visits. With reference to the abovementioned tripartite audit report for 2005 on the inspection system, the Committee notes that the obstacles to effective inspection include insufficient transport facilities and the fact that the few inspectors who use their own vehicles are seldom refunded their transport costs. The Committee notes that the Government has not sent, as announced in its report, the text of Regulation No. 219 of 28 May 2002, and accordingly asks it to indicate the measures taken to enable labour inspectors to carry out inspections of agricultural undertakings in accordance with Article 21 as often and as thoroughly as is necessary to ensure the effective application of the provisions enforceable by labour inspectors, and to provide copies of any relevant texts.