COVID-19 Intensified Lockdown, the Education Sector and Finding Lasting Solutions
The third wave is upon us with national statistics showing a worrying upward trend in the infection rate. In the past week confirmed cases shot up to 47 284 with 842 on Monday 28 June, representing over a 100 percent increase from the previous Monday’s number of 416 cases. With the government announcing yet another lockdown, including postponement of schools reopening, expanded curfew hours and tighter restrictions on public gatherings and business trading hours, we call upon the authorities to engage all stakeholders in a conversation that begins to think long-term. We are already one and a half years since the first lockdown and it appears the pandemic will be with us for a while. Short-term thinking will not help us in dealing with a prolonged crisis. In thinking long-term, the government needs to come up with mitigatory measures that are sustainable, particularly with regards to the education sector, hospitality industry, daily wage earners and other affected sectors. This includes planning for prolonged distance learning programmes that leave no one behind, especially the many disadvantaged pupils in the rural areas. Equally, we call on the government to accelerate the vaccine roll out programme. While we commend the current efforts to acquire 6 million vaccines by September, we submit that this target is inadequate. The government should be targeting 10 million vaccines delivered by September in order to reach herd immunity as soon as possible. Furthermore, we reiterate our call for the government to invest in a sustained multi-stakeholder platform for consultation and engagement to co-create lasting solutions that work for everyone. In our view, sustainable solutions to such an all encompassing crisis can only come from collaborative thinking.
Need for a Social Protection Plan
COVID-19 has worsened an already dire socio-economic situation for the majority of Zimbabweans. Thousands have lost jobs in the hospitality industry and other sectors, businesses are struggling to survive and those in the informal economy have had their incomes massively reduced. According to the latest statistics from the World Bank, 1.3 million people were added to the category of extremely poor, bringing to 7.9 million citizens in this category representing 49% of the population. It is time that the government, working with all relevant stakeholders, urgently puts in place a genuine social protection system to ameliorate the suffering. This week’s cabinet briefing mentions that covid recovery funds have been paid out to some 50 SMEs and 10 women-run SMEs; this is woefully inadequate given the magnitude of the needs on the grounds. We are calling on the government to prioritize available public resources and support from development partners to immediately put in a place a robust system of social grants to support citizens in need, including providing unemployment benefits. If other countries can use their resources to provide unemployment benefits for up to two years, why can’t we? Once again, the Citizens’ Cabinet reiterates the urgent need for the government to adopt a multi-stakeholder consultative approach in its formulation, implementation and review of policies and measures designed to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.
IMF Special Drawing Rights and National Priorities
In the next few months, Zimbabwe is expected to access close to USD$1 billion in IMF Special Drawing Rights (SDR). We are aware of the government’s ongoing discussions with actors in the international community on how best to utilise the money. We note, with great concern, the emerging view that the money should be directed towards servicing the country’s debt to the World Bank (WB) on the pretext that this would unlock new lines of credit. Given the dire current situation in the country, we object to prioritizing repayments to international lenders at the expense of pressing socio-economic needs. In any case we hold international lenders culpable in the country’s unsustainable indebtedness. We demand that the government uses the new fiscal space to attend to pressing social needs including investing in the public health and education sectors. People come first! Fundamentally, we maintain that the choking debt that the country is experiencing, together with limited domestic resource mobilization and the rampant illicit financial flows is an indictment of the international financial architecture which, as currently constituted, is grossly unfair to countries in the Global South and is long overdue for reform. To that end, we support global voices calling to reform the international financial system to entrench economic justice and fairness.
Threats to Civic Space
We note with the gravest of concerns efforts by the government to clampdown on the operations of civil society in the country. We are extremely concerned by the statement attributed to the provincial coordinator for Harare Metropolitan province, which effectively imposes impossible operating conditions and reporting requirements on civil society organizations. We have seen similar moves in other provinces. This trend represents a serious attack on our bill of rights and the basic tenets of democratic society and must be resisted with vigour by all democratic minded people. We call on the government to create platforms to openly engage civil society on any concerns and avoid knee-jerk reactions that threaten to set the country back to the dark ages of unbridled authoritarianism. Our Constitution recognizes the freedom to associate, freedom of assembly, freedom of speech and the freedom for citizens to organize. We call for respect of our Constitution, Country and Citizens. We urge all democratic minded people to speak out against this latest attempt to cripple the work of civil society – including those in government, the ruling party, opposition parties, civic society, churches and the private sector. Government must recognize civil society’s role as a valuable partner in the democratic development of the country and create the necessary enabling environment for unhindered civic participation.