AGOA SETBACK AS BILLS STILL PENDING BEFORE PARLIAMENT

MBABANE – Minister of Labour and Social Security, Winnie Magagula, says in Geneva, she will present that the two outstanding African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) benchmarks are still pending in Parliament.

The two outstanding benchmarks are those that call for the amendment of the Public Order Act of 1963 and the Suppression of Terrorism Act of 2008. “I’ll state that the two Bills are in Parliament and I can’t speculate on what will happen,” she said. Magagula said she did not know whether this would be good enough for the delegates to remove the country from the special paragraph. Recently, she informed parliamentarians that there was correspondence to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and it was sent on February 10, 2016.

Despite being sent at the beginning of the year, Magagula said government was still awaiting feedback from ILO on whether the amendment to the Suppression of Terrorism Bill was in compliance with ILO Conventions. “The ministry requested the ILO to assess the compliance status of the Bill with the ILO Convention and feedback is yet to be received,” she said.

This is despite that government and its social partners are leaving for Geneva today, to attend the conference which will start on Monday. The amendments of the two Bills would aid the country in it’s efforts to regain AGOA. The minister said following the finalisation of the amendment Bill, it was presented to Cabinet, where a decision was made to refer it back to the National Committee on Social Dialogue for further consultations.

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