The Cyprus Employers & Industrialists Federation (OEB) expresses its satisfaction for today’s decision of the Council of Ministers to announce part of a roadmap for the gradual lifting of the restrictive measures imposed due to the corοnavirus pandemic.
Part of the decisions taken earlier today, concurs with the scientific, technocratic and socially responsible proposals of OEB, as they were submitted to the President of the Republic on Friday, April 24th.
The Government has decided. Now is the time for business responsibility.
The pandemic has not been annihilated, the danger remains amongst us and the threat to the lives and health of our fellow citizens and especially those vulnerable, remains disproportionately high.
OEB calls on all its Members to once again demonstrate the highest degree of corporate social responsibility. We call on all businesses to utilise all means at their disposal to ensure that the protection measures for workers, suppliers, customers, partners and the public are realised and observed.
The joy of returning to our work should not lead to the slightest relaxation of the measures related to hygiene, self-protection and other protective measures.
Our jobs will not, for a long time yet, be performed and organised in the way we functioned before they were suspended.
We do not return to the previous state of affairs. We return to a new normality. It will depend on the behaviour of primarily each individual citizen and our businesses, whether we will secure the process of the relaxation of the restrictive measures or whether we will return to lockdown conditions.
Every business should:
- immediately update their risk assessment in order to be aligned with OEB’s Health & Safety Checklist on Covid-19, which was approved by the Ministries of Labour and Health,
- adjust the health and safety plan accordingly,
- train employees on the new state of affairs,
- provide each employee with all the necessary resources and equipment to protect themselves and the work environment,
- closely monitor and ensure that the instructions on how to perform the work safely and the rules of hygiene are constantly applied,
- proceed without the slightest delay in reporting to the competent authorities, restricting and properly managing any suspicious incident of an employee or other person at work.
Any unjustifiable increase in coronavirus cases will lead to setbacks and consequences for each individual business and for the economy as a whole, which will not be manageable.
OEB calls on every entrepreneur, every professional, every self-employed person, every employee and every citizen of this wonderful country, to work, move around and socialize as if each one is infected by the virus and as if any other person around them is also infected by the virus. Citizens must protect themselves and every other person by faithfully following the instructions of the Authorities.
Now is the time for business responsibility.
The Government has decided to trust us. They trusted the businesses and the sense of social responsibility of Cypriot businessmen. We have no other choice but to honor that trust. So as to continue with the implementation of the roadmap. So that the return to normalcy is not interrupted. So that we can return to our lives sooner.
OEB will continue to stand by businesses through this new phase of the crisis, working ceaselessly to regain as quickly as possible what the virus has stolen from us.
