Kaduna Launches Model to Increase Workers’ Involvement in Agriculture

The Kaduna State government has introduced a four-day working week model to increase workers’ involvement in agriculture.

The development was disclosed in a statement issued on Monday by Muyiwa Adekeye, the Media Adviser to the governor of the state, Nasir El-Rufai.

According to the statement, the model was “designed to help boost productivity, improve work-life balance and enable workers to have more time for their families, for rest and for agriculture”.

Under this arrangement, public workers will work from home on Fridays, while the legal framework for transition will be implemented from December 1st.

“The measure also reflects lessons learnt from managing the Covid-19 pandemic which required significant relaxations of old working traditions and the ascendance of virtual and remote working arrangements.

“Kaduna State Government will begin implementation of the transitional arrangements in the public service of the state from 1st December 2021. From that date, working hours for public servants are adjusted to 8 a.m-5 p.m, Monday to Friday.

“However, all public servants, other than those in schools and healthcare facilities, will work from home on Fridays. This interim working arrangement will subsist until the government is ready to move to the next stage of the transition which will culminate in the four-day week across all MDAs in the state.

“Senior officials are working on detailed guidelines to ensure that the emergency services and the education and health systems in the state continue to deliver services 24 hours a day, seven days a week during the transition and beyond.

“The government will also ramp up its efforts to give public servants access to digital devices and platforms to enable them to work effectively from home.

“Given the significant investments the state government is making in ICT, it will ensure that most of its automated services deliver the levels of performance required to give citizens seamless access”, the statement read in part.

The move by the Kaduna state government is one of many efforts by state governments to ensure its workforce is involved in food production.

Recall that the Benue state government in 2020, had declared every Friday from November 6 till January of this year, work-free for its civil servants.

This, it said, was to enable the workers to harvest their produce and consequently, increase food supply in the state.