By A Correspondent- Harare North MP Allan Norman Markham (MDC Alliance) and human rights activist Mfundo Mlilo have dragged President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his ministers to court to force them to provide safety nets for struggling Zimbabweans and cushion them during the 21-day lockdown.
Tendai Biti represented the applicants and cited Mnangagwa, ministers Mthuli Ncube (Finance), Obadiah Moyo (health), July Moyo (Local Government) and Joel Biggie Matiza (Transport) as respondents.
The other cited officials were Kazembe Kazembe (Home Affairs), Oppah Muchinguri (Defence) and Police CommissionerGeneral Godwin Matanga.
Biti said the government was obliged to provide residents with potable water, food, money and other essentials during the lockdown, adding that it was folly to impose such measures on people without providing essentials.
“We were arguing that the Constitution provides for the right to life, right to health and if you are going to lock down people in a country where 95% of the people are unemployed, where 79% of the people in a country are leaving in extreme poverty then you have a problem,” he said.
“If you are going to lock people in, give them food otherwise they will go out and that will be a threat to right to life itself and the right to health so safety nets should be provided for by the State.”
The application, Biti said, was not opposed to adding that he remained hopeful the court will issue an order allowing the executive to issue a statutory instrument that recognises safety nets. Biti said authorities have no basis for extending or not extending the lockdown as they have no adequate data.Loading…
“We are not testing, unfortunately. Zimbabwe so far has done 500 tests, so in the absence of data, the authorities do not have the basis of making a decision of extending or not extending. In our view, there is no point in locking down people unless you are actually testing. The whole idea of a lockdown is to enable the cycle and in those 14 days you are not testing, there is no basis for lockdown, massive tests are missing in Zimbabwe,” Biti said.