PRECAUTIONARY MEASURES TO MITIGATE EMPLOYEE HEALTH AND SAFETY RISKS

6.10.1. National departments, provincial governments, municipalities and institutions of traditional leadership are directed to:

1. Provide frontline staff with the materials or equipment necessary to prevent person-to-person transmission, including soaps, sanitizers, facial masks, and latex gloves.
2. Prioritise electronic document handling measures to minimize person-to-person transmission through document and stationary handling.
3. Provide frontline and general staff with training on hygiene and sanitizing of workspaces and on COVID-19 risk identification and response protocols.
4. Ensure cleansing and sanitising of reception areas / community service centres, offices, lifts, vehicles, biometrics and ablution facilities, and all other objects that are generally touched by persons utilising the facilities, including handles and taps.
5. Disinfect floor and work surfaces of municipal offices periodically, at least twice-a-day during working hours.
6. Assign officials (including service providers) who will sanitise hands of people entering public facilities.
7. Install secured alcohol-based sanitizer dispensers at all points of entry, exit, workstations and in the passages /corridors.
8. Issue all officials at reception, admission and operational areas with appropriate protective equipment with immediate effect (as per the Standing Operating Procedures of the Department of Health).
9. Ensure that gloves are sanitised between searches.
10. Provide bins for the disposal of biohazardous material.
11. Temporarily suspend the provision of services to the public in instances where there is no sanitising or protective clothing equipment available, other than the provision of essential services, as define by the relevant regulations.
12. Establish mechanisms for reporting of identified cases of transmission and infection, without raising public alarm and fear.
13. Provide protective materials and or equipment for prevention of person-to-person transmission for general workers and operators of municipal equipment and vehicles as a precautionary measure.
14. Ensure that sufficient stock is available for the duration of the national state of disaster.
15. Direct inquiries about COVID-19 to relevant health authorities, if it cannot be addressed by the municipality.