Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2008, published 98th ILC session (2009)

The Committee notes with regret that the Government’s report has not been received. It hopes that a report will be supplied for examination by the Committee at its next session and that it will contain full information on the matters raised in its previous direct request, which read as follows:

Article 2 of the Convention. The Committee has been in receipt of very succinct reports in recent years regarding the effect given to the substantive provisions of the Convention. It therefore requests the Government to specify whether the administrative instruction No. 57/1946 concerning a fair wages clause, a copy of which was attached to the Government’s report of 1970, is still in force and continues to apply to all contracts awarded by or on behalf of the Governments in the Federation of Nigeria. In addition, it would appreciate receiving some clarification as to whether the specimen copy of the contract document, which was also transmitted at that time, is still in use by the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing.

Part V of the report form. The Committee notes that for the past 30 years the Government has been indicating that there are no changes or major developments to be reported and consequently no information has been provided on the practical application of the Convention. In this connection, the Committee recalls that under Article 6 of the Convention and Part V of the report form, governments are required to give a general appreciation of the manner in which the Convention is applied, including, for instance, extracts from official reports, information concerning the number of contracts and workers covered by relevant legislation, etc. The report form, which was adopted by the Governing Body of the ILO, is the main channel through which the Committee may obtain all the necessary information in order to follow the evolution of the national law and practice in matters covered by the Convention. The Committee would therefore be grateful to the Government for supplying in its next report detailed and up to date information on the practical application of the Convention, including samples of public contracts, the model text of the labour clause currently in use, information from inspection services on the supervision and enforcement of national legislation and any other particulars bearing on the measures designed to implement the Convention.

Finally, the Committee takes this opportunity to refer to its 2008 General Survey on labour clauses in public contracts which contains an overview of public procurement practices and procedures in so far as labour conditions are concerned and makes a global assessment of the impact and present-day relevance of Convention No. 94.

For all useful purposes, the Committee attaches herewith a copy of a Practical Guide, prepared by the Office principally on the basis of the abovementioned General Survey, to help better understand the requirements of the Convention and ultimately improve its application in law.