10 Sep 2020

The presidential COVID-19 task team has expressed concern about some government departments that flout the COVID-19 health protocols.

Speaking in an interview with BOPA on Wednesday,  team coordinator Dr Kereng Masupu said most government departments were still working with full staff complement whereas, they had been advised to facilitate and practise more social distancing.

When working with full staff complement, government departments should avail more offices to maintain social distancing, he said.

He emphasised that a minimum distance of 1-2 metres should be maintained between officers while at work.

Dr Masupu said where possible, government departments should adopt a similar approach as public schools where pupils attended classes according to prearranged shifts.

He said the approach could work for government departments to avoid overcrowding which posed a high risk of contracting the virus.

Dr Masupu said another anomaly that ought to be corrected was the process of registering and temperature recording at entrances to government  buildings.

He stressed that registration should be done by one person fully designated for the task to avoid sharing of pens which raised the probability of spreading the virus.

Moreover, government departments should maintain disinfection of high-touch areas such as table tops and door handles on two-hour intervals during working hours.

He said if health protocols were adhered to in the work environment, there would be no need to temporarily shut down departments, as had been the case, when one employee was implicated in contact tracing.

Non-wearing of masks, he said, was indicated as one area where public officers were deemed non-compliant, as evidenced by the high number of civil servants fined for non-compliance.

Dr Masupu said the situation called for management to consider going back to the drawing board to devise an array of activities that would enable them to deliver effectively on their mandates, without necessarily offending COVID-19 health protocols.

He said frequent assessments should be carried out to ensure that government departments were fully compliant and lived up to the set health protocols to avoid further spread of the virus.

Stressing self-discipline, Dr Masupu said curbing the spread of the virus was everyone’s responsibility. ENDS