A file photo for state employees. Reuters
The enforcement of the law comes after the end of a six-month grace period given to employees to confidentially report their addiction and receive free of charge treatment since the approval of the law in June.
The treatment was provided by the Ministry of Social Solidarity through its Addiction Treatment and Abuse Fund.
According to the law, state employees and civil servants will be subjected to annual random drug testing and those who test positive will be fired at once without the need for judicial measures.
Any state employee who tests positive for drugs will be suspended for more than 3 months or until the result of the second confirmatory analysis is provided. As per the law, the employee will receive half of their salary till the results of the second confirmatory analysis are received. If the second sample is also positive, the employee’s service is terminated.
The law gives state employees who test positive for drugs the right to appeal the dismissal decision by going to forensic medicine to give a final say on whether they really take drugs or not.
The law stipulates that those who are seeking jobs in state authorities, state administrative units, public sector companies, public utility management companies, rehabilitation centres, kindergartens, schools, and hospitals must also test negative for drugs.
The social solidarity ministry’s Addiction Treatment & Abuse Fund stated last week that its confidential hotline for drug treatments received 9,329 calls from state employees asking for treatment.
According to the fund, 448,000 employees were tested for drugs from March 2019 till November 2021 in different ministries and its different institutions and directorates in all governorates.
The fund added that the drug abuse rate decreased from 8 percent to 1.7 percent since the start of the campaign to test state employees for drugs in 2019.
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