Govt mulls more stakeholders in Covid-19 task-force

Harare (New Ziana) – Government is considering expanding the Inter-Ministerial task-force on Covid-19 to include non-government actors so as to broaden views and sharpen the Coronavirus national response, President Emmerson Mnangagwa said on Wednesday.

The task-force, headed by Vice President Kembo Mohadi, is responsible for monitoring and managing the response to the Covid-19 outbreak and identifying gaps for corrective action.

But due to the nature of the pandemic, President Mnangagwa said broader stakeholder involvement in the task-force was important.

“We set up a task force headed by one of my Vice Presidents, VP Mohadi who is here. It is constituted mainly of Ministers but I was thinking today as I was sitting in my room there that it is necessary to broaden it,” he said.

“I think we need to broaden it and have people from the private sector, the public sector, from the Churches and youth organisations. So we have realised that the more people we have at the table, the more we are exposed to more wisdom. We will debate that at another fora.”

President Mnangagwa said the fight against Covid-19 could only be won through concerted efforts.

“No one is too big, no one is too small, we all have to put our shoulders to the wheel,” he said.

He said measures imposed by the government to counter the spread of Covid-19, including the nationwide lockdown, were necessary despite the negative consequences it has had on the economy.

“We are a country without (adequate foreign currency) reserves, a country which depends on what we produce. For nearly two decades we have been on our own and we will continue to be on our own surviving on our own domestic resources, our own innovations as a people but then it is critically important that if we preserve life, a day might come when we can say the pandemic is behind us now let us look at reconstructing our economy,” he said.

“There are those that feel that we should open up, there are those who say before the pandemic came into existence people died, what is the difference, but I think that it is critically important that where we know we can put in measures to mitigate against massive deaths in our country, we should choose to save lives than to continue to promote production.”

Meanwhile, President Mnangagwa received various donations in cash and kind from various local companies and organisations for use in the Covid-19 fight.

Some of the companies that donated included, retailer OK Zimbabwe, which donated $5 million worth of Personal Protective Equipment, Nestle Zimbabwe which donated cash and food staffs, Allied Timbers which presented a $2 million cheque and Ariston Holdings which donated five tonnes of tea to be distributed to various isolation centres.

President Mnangagwa commended the companies for heeding government’s call to mobilise resources for the Covid-19 fight.

“You are not helping government, you are helping the people of Zimbabwe,” he said.
New Ziana