MBABANE:Thabile Mdluli,the Acting Government Spokesperson says the Task Team announced by Labour and Social Security Minister Phila Buthelezi will conduct an investigation to verify allegations or concerns raised by the International Labour Organization(ILO) during the recent Conference.
The Government Spokesperson was responding to this Swaziland News on Sunday afternoon, when asked to specifically clarify the terms of reference for the Task Team considering the fact that, the Human Rights Commission “has already released a report confirming that indeed, the police used excessive force against teachers and other civil servants” when firing a teargas inside a bus. She clarified that, Government respects the independence of the Human Rights Commission but, the Ministry of Labour and Social Security was not yet privy to the contents of the report.
“The Ministry of Labour and Social Security is unfortunately not privy to the contents of the Human Rights Report as yet. Government, however, recognises the independence of the Commission. By way of background, the Government of Eswatini was discussed by the Conference Committee on Application of Standards (CAS) on allegations of non-compliance with the provisions of Convention 87 on Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise (1948), ratified by Eswatini in 1978. This was during the 112th session of the annual International Labour Conference. After the discussion, the Conference adopted six (6) conclusions in respect of which it requested the Eswatini Government to submit a progress report on their implementation of these conclusions by 1st September, 2024. The Conference conclusions include addressing the comments made by the CAS and other supervisory bodies of the ILO; the report of the Independent Investigation Committee that was appointed by Government to investigate justification for the level of force used by the police during some industrial and protest actions embarked upon by Workers in 2018 and 2019 as well as the Voluntary Conciliation report that was signed by Government and TUCOSWA on the 15th September, 2023”, she said.
The Acting Government Spokesperson further mentioned that, the Inter-Ministerial Government Task Team “has been appointed” to assist Government compile all the relevant responses and prepare a detailed report to be submitted to the International Labour Organization(ILO).
“The multi-ministerial Government Task Team that has been appointed by the Ministry of Labour and Social Security will assist Government compile all the relevant responses and prepare a detailed report to be submitted to the ILO, addressing all the above-mentioned outstanding comments made by various bodies of the ILO. The bus incident is but one of these issues, which was also addressed and resolved by Government and TUCOSWA during the Voluntary Conciliation report wherein the parties agreed that this matter should be referred to the Human Rights Commission to conduct an investigation of whether there were any human rights violations during that incident. It must be made clear that the parties have not yet received an official report from the Human Rights Commission. But the Ministry of Labour and Social Security has been made aware that SNAT, as an organisation, also made their own separate request for the investigation of that incident by the Human Rights Commission.The Terms of Reference for the appointed Task Team include establishing the status of the report that has since been released by the Human Rights Commission to find out if it is the one that was agreed upon between Government and TUCOSWA. Government expected that in doing the investigation that was agreed upon by Government and TUCOSWA, the parties concerned will be consulted and interviewed, something which has not happened as yet”, said the Acting Government Spokesperson.
Labour Minister Phila Buthelezi.