Observation (CEACR) - adopted 2002, published 91st ILC session (2003)

I. With reference to the comments that it has been making for many years on Conventions Nos. 102, 118, 121, 128 and 130, the Committee notes that the Government provided information in May 2000 prepared by the technical committee responsible for preparing the necessary replies to the comments of the Committee of Experts. The Committee notes with regret that most of the questions raised in its previous comments received no reply, despite the reminders sent to the Government in July 2000. This concerns in particular all the requests for the statistical information required by the report forms adopted by the Governing Body on the above Conventions. Furthermore, the detailed reports on the application of Conventions Nos. 102, 118 and 128, which the Government should have submitted in 2001, have not been received. In these conditions, the Committee is bound to take up once again certain matters raised in its previous comments in the hope that reports and detailed replies will be sent by the Government for examination at its next session in November-December 2003. The Committee recalls that, if the Government is experiencing difficulties of an administrative or technical nature in the compilation of statistical data in the field of social security, in preparing reports or amending the relevant legislation, it could always have recourse to the technical assistance of the International Labour Office in this field.

II. With regard more particularly to Convention No. 102, the Government has supplied, in addition to the information from the above technical committee, the report for the period ending 30 June 2001, which only contains replies to the observation of 1999, but not to the questions raised by the Committee in its direct request of the same year. The Committee has therefore been bound to take up once again certain of these matters in a new request addressed directly to the Government. Finally, with regard to the matters raised in its previous observation, it hopes that full particulars will be provided by the Government on the following points.

1. Part IV (Unemployment benefit) of the Convention. With reference to its previous comments, the Committee recalls that, under the terms of section 38 of the Social Security Act, No. 13 of 1980, and Decision No. 303 of 1988 establishing rules governing the provision of cash unemployment benefits, where a contract of work or service is terminated without the insured person being entitled to a pension, the contributor continues to receive the previous wage from the employer for a maximum period of six months or until he or she finds another job and, upon completion of this period, from the competent people’s committee of the public service until the contributor is assigned to a suitable job. In relation to the minimum standards set out in the Convention, which authorizes the limitation of unemployment benefit to 13 weeks at a replacement rate of 45 per cent, the Libyan system extends the protection during the whole period of unemployment with a replacement rate of 100 per cent. In the Government’s opinion, as expressed in the past and endorsed in its last report, these provisions of the national legislation are adequate to ensure effective protection against unemployment, which is the essential purpose of the Convention.

The Committee considers that, while the Libyan system may prove to be effective in the current national context in which there is practically no unemployment, with the result that the financial burden borne respectively by employers and local budgets remains under control, its effectiveness could rapidly become inadequate where, in the context of greater openness of the national economy to global markets, unemployment and production costs in the country were to rise. The Committee therefore wishes to draw the Government’s attention to the fact that, although the Convention is intended to afford effective protection against unemployment, it envisages doing so by means of a system of social security which makes it possible to finance unemployment benefit through collective contributions from all those concerned, thereby avoiding the situation in which they are payable directly by employers, which may become too burdensome if the level of unemployment in the country rises. The Committee therefore hopes that the Government will reconsider the question in the light of its position as expressed in its 1995 report, in which it indicated that it would endeavour to adopt the necessary rules to permit the Social Security Fund to receive contributions and to pay unemployment benefit, thereby giving effect to Part IVof the Convention by means of the social security system and taking into account more fully the principles of organization and financing set out in Articles 71 and 72. In this respect, the Committee notes that the technical committee is of the opinion that provisions should be introduced in the national social security system to cover unemployment benefit with a view to giving effect in practice to Part IV of the Convention, and that it indicates that the submission to amend section 38 of Act No. 13 and Decision No. 303, referred to above, has been forwarded to the Social Security Fund with a view to bringing these provisions into conformity with the Convention. The Committee would be grateful if the Government would indicate the progress achieved in this respect in its next report.

2. Part VII (Family benefit). In its previous comments, the Committee noted that section 24 of Act No. 13 of 1980 only provided for the granting of family allowances to pensioners under the social security system, whereas Article 41 of the Convention covers other categories of employees or residents. In reply, the Government indicates that the family benefit for the various categories of employees is covered by the legislation respecting labour and the public service and that the purpose of the Convention of providing family benefit to all employees without exception is fully attained. The Committee notes this information with interest and hopes to receive copies of the legislative provisions in question with the Government’s next report.

[The Government is asked to report in detail in 2003.]