Drug testing campaigns on government employees: CAOA

CAIRO - 28 August 2017: Mohamed Gamil, head of the Central Agency for Organization and Administration (CAOA) issued a decision on Sunday to launch surprise drug testing campaigns for the administrative staff of the state.

The decision, which was announced during the launching workshop of the program of mechanisms to implement the system of assistants of ministers, was welcomed by members of the Parliament. Punishments that are to be implemented on employees if proven to be abusing drugs with repeated drug analysis will face dismissal from their jobs, according to the Civil Service Act.

Over the course of the last three years, the Fund for Drug Control and Treatment of Addiction (FDCTA), a subsidiary of the Egyptian Ministry of Social Solidarity, were executing random drug testing campaigns on school bus drivers in a number of governorates to make sure that no drivers are taking drugs, so as to not endanger the lives of the children. The campaigns aimed to test 4,000 school bus drivers during the 2016/2017 school year and about 105 drivers tested positive for drugs.

According to a 2014 study by CAPMAS, 10 percent of the population uses drugs, which is double the global rate, but only 2.5 percent are drug addicts, which is on par with the global rate. Twenty-seven percent of drug users and addicts are women.

The use of recreational drugs among residents of Cairo over the age of 15 has increased from 6% to 30% since the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, according to Egypt’s National Council for Battling Drug Addiction.

A number of campaign ads promoting anti-drugs have ran recently, including the FDCTA ad that aired on TV last Ramadan featuring Liverpool F.C. player Mohamed Salah. The drug addiction hotline (16023) in Egypt received over 37,000 calls since the beginning of the current year, a surge compared to 2016, as a result of the ad campaign starring the young football star.