SOME civil servants will soon work from home. Attorney-General and Civil Service Minister Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum said the move would involve some workers from within the various government ministries.
“It will be those within the ministries, what services are critical for ensuring that the public continues to get the service from the civil service,” he said.
“For example in a ministry, you may have a policy division, their job is to write papers and policies and they obviously can do that from home, but there may be within that particular ministry itself people that may actually need to be in the office.
“For example at this point in time people who are processing payments for Ministry of Health — people who are processing budget payments, they need to be there to see the documentation.” Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said the work-from-home program would allow for flexible working conditions.
He said the move would not affect government services to the public. Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said because the civil servants were still paid full salaries, the permanent secretaries would document with their staff members the duration of the arrangement (the hours they would work from home), and the key responsibilities and the outputs so they could track what the civil servants were doing.
“When working remotely the staff has to ensure that they are contactable during normal working hours that we can get in touch with them.
“They will of course also need to adhere to the civil servants code of conduct because they are still working.
“They have to keep safe the civil service equipment.”
Mr Sayed-Khaiyum said work for these civil servants would normalise depending on the COVID-19 situation in the country.
