300,000 government employees working from home

In order to prevent the spread of corona Covid 19 virus through social distance as a key strategy Ethiopia orders around 300,000 federal employees to stay and work from home.
In an attempt to stop the spread of corona virus (COVID-19) pandemic, the Council of Ministers chaired by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in a meeting held on March 24, 2020 decided that selected civil servants in Addis Ababa should work from home.
The Council of Ministers met in an extraordinary session to discuss COVID-19 response measures, in light of the social, political and economic effects spread of the virus can create.
“The Council of Ministers has decided that as part of efforts to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, Federal Government employees will work from home effective March 25, 2020 until further notified. Federal Government employees who will work from home will be selected based on criteria to be set by each Ministry and communicated with their workforce,” the Office of the Prime Minister said in a statement.
There are 58 federal offices including the 16 Ministry offices. Accordingly there are more than 400,000 of civil servants at the federal level and 1.4 million employees at government level all over the country.
Based on the call to curb the spread of COVID-19 most Ministry offices are taking measures to decrease the number of employees staying at the office.
Hence Ministry of Health has announced 42 percent of its staff will be either on leave or working from home, the Ministry of Education and its reporting institutes have decided that among the 1,544 staffs in total only 196 (12.7%) will be in office over the coming days the remaining staffs will work from home.
The prime ministry office by itself announced that 64 percent of a total of 289 PMO staff members including advisors will work from home for the next two weeks.
Ministry of Trade and Industry has decided to 61 percent of its workforce to work from home.
Ministry of Urban Development and Construction, 75 percent, Ministry of Finance, 43 percent, Ministry of Revenues, 34 percent, Ministry of Agriculture, 20 percent, of their workforce will work from home.
Moreover Public Social Security Agency, 79 percent and 90 percent of Ministry of Science and Higher Education will work from home.
During this period, Federal Government employees working from home are expected to be accessible for tasks that require their contribution. This measure is taken to decrease city wide movement and transport sector crowding,” the statement from the Prime Minister office said.
‘As Federal Government institutions follow this approach to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, it is critical to note that these measures are also being taken to ease overcrowding in the public transportation system. Therefore, government employees are asked to adhere strictly to the ‘work from home’ policy and remain at home,’ the statement further added.