Zimbabwe is already in lockdown mode since the 1st of August 2018, the People’s Party has suggested in a series of statements of which the below is the latest.

The party says: “our economy is informal and most informal traders live from hand to mouth on a daily basis, buying food from their earnings at the end of the day. It is irresponsible of government to simply lock these people indoors without providing a solution for their upkeep during such a prolonged period of economic inactivity.”

Full text:

The nationwide lockdown, which is due to come into effect Monday, March 30, is a necessary step in containing the coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak. However, the proposal in its current state is poorly considered as the supporting measures around it are inadequate. The government cannot just copy and paste policy from South Africa without taking into account our peculiar and troubled circumstances.

In particular, our economy is informal and most informal traders live from hand to mouth on a daily basis, buying food from their earnings at the end of the day. It is irresponsible of government to simply lock these people indoors without providing a solution for their upkeep during such a prolonged period of economic inactivity.

There is already a humanitarian food-aid campaign being led by the World Food Programme in the country; government must work with the WFP to include the bulk of the urban population which is especially vulnerable. Given the limited logistics capacity as well as the risk of corruption, the ideal intervention would be a crediting of all distressed mobile money accounts with the market equivalent of US$5 per person with parents able to register their children using birth certificate numbers, via the USSD menus provided by the mobile money services.

This amount of money would hardly be enough, and the authorities should go further by suspending VAT and the 2% Intermediated Money Transfer Tax which would immediately increase the buying power of the public.

In addition, all financial obligations falling within or immediately after the lockdown period should be delayed by a period of at least 30 days. This will include utility bill payments, rentals, taxes and any such obligation. In the case of rentals, landlords must be allowed to apply for tax credits against defaults arising from the lockdown period if such a default persists past 45 days.

Finally, we urge the Zimbabwe Defence Forces to conduct their enforcement operations with restraint and respect for human rights.