The requirement for many Public Servants to work at home during the COVID-19 pandemic is revealing antiquated Government operating systems that struggle to cope with the sudden change in circumstances.
In Cyprus the Registrar of Companies has essentially had to shut up shop since its systems cannot cope with distributed working.
When journalists took the complaints of clients to Registrar of Companies, Spyros Kokkinos, he refused to comment other than saying, “those with complaints should come to me first and not the press”.
The Ministry of Trade, under whose remit the Registrar falls, said it was trying to resolve problems as soon as possible.
Permanent Secretary, Stelios Himonas said work was continuing to enable more staffers to work remotely.
“There are technical issues involved in the process as the software is dated and technicians are trying to do it gradually to avoid the system crashing altogether,” Mr Himonas said.
Meanwhile in Hong Kong, the South China Morning Post revealed the story of Public Servant, ‘Cherrie’ who still has to travel to her office.
Although most Public Servants have been told to work from home, Cherrie has to be at the Information Services Department, where she handles press inquiries five days a week.
If her Department had provided her with a laptop and headset she could work from home, but without the hardware and software to support her answering calls from another location, she has to show up at the office.
Other Public Servants have complained that the Government’s attempts to get them working from home had not panned out.
They blamed three major obstacles: poor technology infrastructure; the conservative mindset of managers, and a lack of guidelines for implementing the work-from-home policy.
Nicosia and Hong Kong, 14 August 2020
