• Govt. stresses 23-27 March are not public holidays
• Move aimed at preventing congregation of people in fight against COVID-19 spread
• Assures public services will continue without any disruption
• Essential services including health, public administration, transportation, banking, food, water, electricity, etc. intact
• Public and private sector urged to use technological means such as e-mail, SMS, telephone, as well as doing file work from home
• Learnings from pilot initiative will be used to implement a distant-public service mechanism in future

Pandemic or not yet, COVID-19 has heralded Sri Lanka’s – and perhaps the region’s first – official ‘Work from Home’ week starting today.

The Government yesterday in an unprecedented move declared 20 to 27 March as a ‘Work from Home’ week and stressed that except the weekend, the other days are not public holidays. It justified the move to prevent congregation of people in the nation-wide fight against the spread of the new coronavirus (COVID-19) which has afflicted 59, with over 200 suspected and thousands engaged in self-quarantine or in dedicated centres. 

“It is the responsibility of every Government, semi-Government and private entity as well as the general public to ensure that the situation does to escalate to a pandemic,” emphasised a statement from the President’s Office.

It said the Government decided on the ‘Work from Home’ week after careful consideration of every aspect and assured continuity of public services without any disruption. 

The statement said relevant authorities should take steps to ensure continuous supply of essential services including health, public administration, transportation, banking, food, water, electricity, distribution of fertiliser and buying paddy.

The activities of District Secretariats and Divisional Secretariats should also be continued. When implementing the remote working system, the relevant heads of departments should take steps to limit summoning their staff to the office to the maximum extent possible. The institutions can use alternative approaches like technological means such as e-mail, SMS and telephone, as well do file work from home.

The Government wants a technological approach to prevent the public from gathering at offices and to maintain the delivery of public services properly while solving the problems. If there is any additional cost involved in using personal telephones, the Government will provide necessary the relief in this regard.

“In a situation like this, the Government expects all officials to follow the proper strategy to maintain the delivery of public services,” the President’s Office emphasised. 

Reiterating that the main objective is to prevent the spread of coronavirus to the level of an epidemic, the President’s Office said it was the responsibility of the heads of institutions to apprise their employees regarding their strategies while implementing a proper system to limit their staff, as the services provided by various organisations were different.

“The private sector has also been advised through all Chambers of Commerce to do their business as per the new guidelines,” the statement said.

It added that the experience derived from this methodology would be used to implement a distant-public service mechanism in the future.

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