Sri Lankan Public Servants are to be given an extra day off each week to tend their backyard vegetable plots and grow food, following a Cabinet announcement.
The island nation’s unprecedented economic downturn has left several staple foods in short supply, along with petrol and medicines, while rampant inflation is ravaging household budgets.
“It seems appropriate to grant Government officials leave for one working day of the week and provide them with the necessary facilities to engage in agricultural activities in their backyards,” the Cabinet said in a statement.
The extra day off would be a “solution to the food shortage that is expected to occur in the future”, the Cabinet said, adding that cutting down on Public Servants’ commutes would also help reduce fuel consumption.
Public employees are to get every Friday off for the next three months without a pay cut, according to the Cabinet decision, but the arrangement won’t apply to essential services staff.
The Government also said any members of the 1.5 million-strong public sector who wanted to travel abroad to find work would be given up to five years of unpaid leave without affecting their seniority or pensions.
The move is aimed at encouraging more people to get foreign jobs and send money back to the island, which is labouring under a critical shortage of foreign currency to buy imports.
Sri Lanka has defaulted on its $US51 billion ($A73 billion) foreign debt and is in talks with the International Monetary Fund for a bailout.
Public protests have demanded the resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa over the mismanagement of the country’s economy and the severe hardships facing its people.
Mr Rajapaksa introduced sweeping tax cuts soon after coming to power in November that have been blamed for leaving the island without the means to pay for essential imports.
The cash shortfall was worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic, which ravaged the local tourism industry and cut remittances sent back home by Sri Lankans working abroad.
Colombo, 20 June 2022
