On Tuesday, the Association of Public Administration Employees announced that all Lebanese public administrations will be shut for 3 consecutive days.
The association said it will be “stopping work in all departments and closing them, except for emergency cases, on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, 11 to 13 March 2020, to make room for those concerned with sterilizing them.”
The statement began with criticism aimed at the Lebanese government, to which the association has raised many “appeals and wishes” to take necessary actions to combat the spread of the coronavirus.
However, as the statement expressed, “the lack of interest of those concerned in facing the problem” has pushed the association to take this new urgent measure.
Evidently, the decision to close for 3 consecutive days was meant, as association stated, “not only to preserve the safety of employees but to ensure that the virus does not spread at a pace that we cannot curb.”
Moreover, it aims to preserve the safety of employees and citizens.
This is, as the statement put it, “because we are at the heart of the storm that does not subside by [turning the blind eye],” and to affirm “our insistence on the need to take the necessary preventive measures to confront the coronavirus.”
Notably, the Lebanese Association of Public Administration Employees concluded its statement with the following list of demands:
1- The sterilization of public administrations by specialized companies during the closing days, which are five (including Saturday and Sunday), and periodically and permanently during weekends.
2- Providing the necessary cleaning and sterilization materials in all public administrations in an immediate and permanent manner.
3- Pausing the work of fingerprinting machines until the risk of infection diminishes.
4- Placing insulators in all offices of employees who receive citizens and clients in their offices.
5- Asking citizens to use e-mail to present their paperwork to the departments where possible.
6- Obliging citizens to use facemasks to enter public administrations on the risk of not being served.
7 – Adopting the principle of shift-curfew permanently after reducing it temporarily.
