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With reference to its observation, the Committee draws the Government’s attention to the following points.

Articles 3, paragraph 1(b), 17 and 18 of the Convention. Enforcement action against employers that fail to heed advice and warnings in respect of all measures enforceable by the labour inspectorate. Noting the indication in the 2008 annual report that a number of inspection offices are persistently lenient in their dealings with offending employers, the Committee urges the Government to take measures to ensure that the central inspection authority complies, in law and in practice, with its duties to control and supervise all labour inspection staff, and to keep the Office informed.

Article 6. Conditions of service of labour inspectors. The Committee again asks the Government to indicate the reasons for the large gap between the highest and lowest levels of remuneration of inspection staff, and to provide information on the measures taken or envisaged to ensure that all inspection personnel have a status and conditions of service that assure them of stability of employment and independence of improper external influences.

Articles 15(c) and 16. Increase in routine inspections and observance of the principle of confidentiality regarding the source of complaints. The Committee notes that despite the principle of the annual programming of inspection visits, according to the statistics in the annual reports most inspections are carried out in response to a request for intervention or following a complaint. The Committee wishes to point out that it is essential, in order to ensure that labour inspectors observe confidentiality regarding complaints, that their presence in the workplace should not be systematically associated with a complaint in the mind of the employer or the employer’s representative. The Committee hopes that the Government will ensure, in the near future, if necessary with financial support in the context of international cooperation, that routine inspection visits are the rule, so as to encourage employers to comply with the law and so that the employer or his or her representative does not associate the inspector’s presence with the lodging of a complaint and take reprisals against the worker suspected of making it.

Articles 14 and 21(f) and (g). Notification and statistics of occupational accidents and cases of occupational illness. The Committee notes that the annual inspection report for 2008 contains statistics on occupational accidents but not on cases of occupational disease, as announced in the introduction to the document, yet the report indicates that a campaign to prevent occupational accidents and diseases was carried out. Further to its previous comments, the Committee again asks the Government to indicate the instances and the manner in which the inspectorate is informed of these accidents and diseases, and to provide a copy of any relevant texts or forms. It would also be grateful if the Government would describe the part of the abovementioned campaign that specifically targeted the prevention of occupational diseases, indicate the measures taken to inform employers, workers and practitioners (general and occupational physicians) of the procedure for reporting cases of occupational diseases, and to ensure that relevant statistics are included in future in the annual inspection report.