HARARE, April 19 — Zimbabwe’s 21 days of lockdown to save the country from further infections from coronavirus have hammered the country’s cross-border traders who operate from this country into the neighboring countries in the region.
South Africa, known for accommodating cross-border traders from Zimbabwe, shut its border between the two countries closer to a month ago and only traffic moving essential goods and services is being allowed to cross the border.
This Southern African nation’s Cross-Border Traders’ Association (CBTA) has been on record in the media saying about 10,000 cross-border traders have been traveling to South Africa daily.
But, with the lockdown actuated by the coronavirus, the travels by cross-border traders from Zimbabwe came to a halt and hard times have hit the country’s migrant traders.
“Our members have fallen on hard times because they can’t, for now, cross borders to do their trade although cross-border trading is their only source of income,” Jameson Tumbare, a member of the Cross Border Traders Association, told Ubuntu Times.
Meanwhile, as Zimbabwe went into the 21-day lockdown last month on the 30th of March, president of the Cross Border Traders Association, Killer Zivhu said ‘the message is that let’s heed the President’s call and avoid traveling outside the country for the next two months.’
But, thousands of traders who have relied heavily on ordering goods for resale from neighboring countries here have claimed they face hard times as they can’t cross the borders to do business.
“This lockdown means poverty for us as we are not in business anymore and we get no support from government,” one of the cross-border traders based in Harare, 33-year old Melinda Chiundura, told Ubuntu Times.
However, it may be until the COVID-19 scare is over that Zimbabwe’s cross border traders may be allowed to ply their trade, according to Zivhu.
Government officials have insisted cross-border traders would have to abide by the lockdown to help the country contain further spread of the feared COVID-19.
“We have millions of cross-border traders and it’s just too early to open the border for them because surely they will be at risk of infection because more often than not they have to shop or sell in crowded places each time they cross borders,” a top government official from the Ministry of Home Affairs, told Ubuntu Times on condition of anonymity as she was unauthorized to speak to the media.
Coronavirus broke out towards the end of last year in Wuhan, a city in China in the Asian country’s Hubei Province before it spread to hundreds of countries across the globe, killing thousands and infecting over two million people.
In Zimbabwe, so far four people have died from coronavirus, with the country having 25 cases of people who have tested positive for the dreaded disease by Saturday recently amid widespread reports the poor African country is conducting very few COVID-19 tests.
Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa declared a 21-day lockdown which began at the end of last month in a bid to contain the spread of the coronavirus, which he has also extended by two weeks this Sunday in the face of rising cases of the pandemic here.
The decree by Mr. Mnangagwa ordered all Zimbabweans, including the country’s cross-border traders to stay at home ‘except in respect of essential movements related to seeking health services, the purchase of food or carrying out responsibilities that are in the critical services sectors.’
According to a 2018 International Monetary Fund report, Zimbabwe’s informal economy, which also includes cross-border trading, is the largest in Africa, and second only to Bolivia in the world.
The informal sector here accounts for approximately 60 percent of all of Zimbabwe’s economic activity.
HARARE — Moved by the rising positive cases of the dreaded coronavirus, Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa today extended the national lockdown against coronavirus by 14 days.
The Southern African nation’s 78-year old leader said his country has not yet been able to meet the benchmarks set by the World Health Organisation (WHO) for any country to be considered ripe to emerge from a lockdown.
“Guided by these realities and to allow ourselves greater leeway to prepare for worse times which are lurking ahead, government has decided to extend, with immediate effect, the national lockdown by a further 14 days,” said Mr. Mnangagwa.
He (the Zimbabwean President) said ‘worldwide cases of infections continue to gallop with the world health organization counseling against relaxing lockdowns currently adopted by almost all countries of the world.’
As of Saturday recently, Zimbabwe’s COVID-19 cases had reached 25 positive cases, with three deaths recorded so far nationwide.
Meanwhile, 2,226 tests have been conducted so far in Zimbabwe, with more tests still expected to be carried out.
Despite his government facing criticism for brutalizing civilians amid the lockdown, Mr. Mnangagwa also said his country’s security forces would continue to ensure full adherence to the measures set to be adhered to during the stretched lockdown.
Coronavirus broke out last year in Wuhan, a Chinese city in the country’s Hubei Province before spreading to various countries across the globe.
So far, according to WHO, over 162,000 people have died from COVID-19 globally, while more than two million people have also been infected by the disease which has been confirmed to have spread to at least 185 countries the world over.
Over 604,000 people have recovered from coronavirus worldwide, according to WHO.
CHITUNGWIZA, Zimbabwe — He now moves around with the aid of a wheelchair, himself a common feature now at a shopping center in Chitungwiza, a dormitory town in Zimbabwe, 25 kilometers south-east of Harare, the country’s capital.
But, not so long ago, the 42-year old Gerald Gundani was able-bodied, often leading from the front anti-government protests that took place in his hometown although he has never been a member of any of the country’s political parties.
Now, following a brutal encounter with suspected members of the Zimbabwean military early last year, Gundani has become disabled, both his legs broken.
Even after he reported to police his encounter with the alleged soldiers, no arrests have been made over one year down the line.
“Life will never be the same for me again; soldiers actually seized me from my home in front of my wife and children; they beat me so badly for days at a place I still don’t know, leaving me with broken legs,” Gundani told Ubuntu Times.
A demonstrator with members of the civil service readying for protests against government as they are demanding better wages. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo / Ubuntu Times
He (Gundani) was part of a group of protesters that took to the streets in January last year after the government hiked fuel prices by over 150 percent.
Then, the protesters comprising ordinary citizens and a blend of opposition political activists burnt tires and blockaded roads with rocks in protest against government decision to hike fuel prices.
The demonstrations that resulted in many casualties like Gundani, forced the country’s security forces to fire live ammunition at them (the demonstrators), killing 17 people amid reports that about 17 women were also raped during the military crackdown.
Gundani is merely one of many Zimbabweans that have been victimized by the country’s notorious security agents despite Section 59 of the country’s Constitution allowing people like him to demonstrate.
In fact, some 50 Zimbabweans, primarily political opponents and union leaders, have been kidnapped in Zimbabwe in 2019 alone, according to Human Rights Watch, a global organization that investigates and reports on abuses happening in all corners of the world.
Police donning riot gear get ready to thwart a demonstration by Zimbabwe’s civil servants in Harare, the Zimbabwean capital. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo / Ubuntu Times
Gundani has been amongst these at a time the country’s security forces stand out widely accused of perpetrating rights abuses.
With the country’s security forces apparently keen to crush any anti-government protests, even as the country’s leaders brag about honoring human rights here, anti-government marches are fast fading into oblivion, according to civil society leaders here.
“People are now living in fear and with soldiers and police always on the lookout for any anti-government protests, marches or gatherings, I can tell you such rights are fast melting away,” Claris Madhuku, director of the Platform for Youth Development Trust, told Ubuntu Times.
Just earlier this year, as anti-government protesters prepared to storm the streets in memory of the 17 demonstrators murdered by police and soldiers last year, police in riot gear armed with baton sticks and teargas canisters, descended on the marchers, beating them randomly, injuring many in the process.
Now, even for Zimbabwe’s ordinary imbibers like 36-year old Thomas Mupandutsi based in Chitungwiza’s Seke area, people like him have become objects of state repression as well.
“These days it has become common for soldiers to storm bars or nightclubs beating people for no apparent reasons, often telling people to just go home,” Mupandutsi told Ubuntu Times.
Riot police in the Zimbabwean capital Harare, stand in the middle of the road as they bar protesters from demonstrating against government authorities. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo / Ubuntu Times
On 01 August 2018, soon after Zimbabwe’s first election without former President Robert Mugabe contesting, soldiers shot and killed six civilians after protesters stormed the streets demanding the release of the presidential election results.
Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa ordered a Commission of Inquiry to probe the military violations.
However, to this day even as the Motlanthe Commission completed its findings and ordered soldiers accused of perpetrating the rights abuses to be investigated and prosecuted, nothing has happened.
Instead, many Zimbabweans like Gundani have had to continue nursing indelible wounds of state repression, living in fear.
So, as rights abuse continues in Zimbabwe, even comedians have not been spared, with their comics perceived as hostile to the country’s political leaders.
Opposition political activists in Zimbabwe backing the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), gather at Africa Unity Square in Harare in readiness to stage protests against government. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo / Ubuntu Times
Such are females like Samantha Kureya, better known as Gonyeti.
“At one time after I was kidnapped by members of the secret police; I was told straight away that I was too young to ridicule the government and accused of being paid to mock the government,” said Kureya.
She (Kureya) is one of many Zimbabwean comedians who have clashed with authorities for her anti-government theatrics.
And so for her and many other comedians, as Zimbabwe’s security agents scale up rights abuses, it is no joke being a comedian in Zimbabwe.
“Honestly, we are citizens of a country where politics is the order of the day and therefore when people in authority do bad things, as comedians, we speak out, but unfortunately as a result, we then become enemies of the state,” another comedian known as Prosper Ngomashi, better known as Comic Pastor, told Ubuntu Times.
Hordes of opposition political activists coming from Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Alliance party, throng Africa Unity Square in Harare the Zimbabwean capital awaiting a signal to march in protest against Mr. Emmerson Mnangagwa’s failed government in Zimbabwe. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo / Ubuntu Times
Yet, for ordinary Zimbabweans, as known people like Kureya and Ngomashi fall prey to rights abuse, people’s fears are worse off.
“As an average citizen, I now fear to express myself because I have seen worse things happening to very popular individuals, celebrities in fact, who oppose government,” Prichard Muhaka, a 30-year old street vendor hawking sweets and cigarettes in Harare, told Ubuntu Times.
Just last year alone, in Zimbabwe, twenty people were charged with treason under Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa, according to rights defenders.
According to the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, which has handled most of the cases, the number of people charged with treason, which carries a death penalty here, rose to 20 in less than a year since Mnangagwa came to power.
Showing a whipped back in a hospital bed last year, Patson Dzamara apparently looks dejected after brutal encounter at the hands of some secret cops. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo / Ubuntu Times
Yet, even to this day, cases of human rights violations are escalating in the Southern African nation, this according to the January 2020 monthly report by human rights watchdog, the Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP).
“The month of January 2020 saw an increase in reported human rights violations from 119 to 185. Harassment and intimidation were the highest recorded violations at 96. Mashonaland Central province recorded the highest violations at 34,” said ZPP in its latest report.
Rattled by Zimbabwe’s human rights abuses, the UN’s outgoing coordinator in Zimbabwe, Bishaw Parajuli last year called on the country’s government to bring to justice perpetrators of human rights violations although nothing of the sort has taken place.
GOKWE, Zimbabwe — A one-room home structure made of poles plastered with mud, roofed with a single zinc sheet, with a gaping wooden door stands side by side with a thatched kitchen hut, also made of poles plastered with mud.
46-year old Denford Chagwiza calls this home, where he lives with his family, the children each evening converting the kitchen hut into a bedroom.
This is in Gokwe, in Zimbabwe’s Midlands Province.
In Harare, 25 kilometers east of the Zimbabwean capital, lies Epworth, an urban settlement where 42-year old Hebert Nhari’s two-roomed cabin home, made from planks, is located.
An aging thatched kitchen hut side by side with an equally aging house plastered with cement in a village called Sidakeni in rural Gokwe in Zimbabwe’s Midlands Province. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo / Ubuntu Times
Here, Nhari dwells with his wife and five children.
Chagwiza and Nhari epitomize Zimbabwe’s grinding rural and urban poverty.
“This has been my life over the years and we have become used to it. Food is our daily struggle because crop yields are always poor, owing to droughts,” Chagwiza told Ubuntu Times.
Although Zimbabwe’s cities have been in the past not known to be infested with poverty, many like Nhari have not been spared by the poverty scourge in the country’s urban areas — the same headache for Gokwe’s Chagwiza.
Amid grinding poverty in Zimbabwe’s towns and cities, slums have become a common trend in Epworth, an urban informal settlement, 25 km east of the Zimbabwean capital Harare. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo / Ubuntu Times
“I live in this cabin with my family and even if it rains we have nowhere to run to because this is our home; I have no job and together with my wife and children at times we get casual jobs to support ourselves,” Nhari told Ubuntu Times.
Even as he is domiciled in the country’s capital city, like Chagwiza’s, Nhari’s children are all school dropouts and they have to spend much of their time idly roaming around their homes’ vicinities.
So, in essence, with poverty-stricken citizens like Nhari and Chagwiza, independent development experts like Jimson Gandari say ‘Zimbabwe now teams with rural and urban poverty.’
A rural home made up of a single thatched hut built using wood in Makoni, a remote district in Zimbabwe’s Mashonaland Central Province. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo / Ubuntu Times
According to the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), more than 90 percent of this country’s approximately 16 million people are unemployed.
Formed in 1981 through the merger of six trade union centers, ZCTU is the primary trade union federation in this Southern African nation.
For civil society activists like Catherine Mkwapati, ‘unlike in the previous years, poverty in Zimbabwe’s rural and urban areas have become common.’
A rather squashed village with a mixture of thatched huts fenced with grass and other home structures poorly roofed with zinc sheets, in Makoni, a district in Zimbabwe’s Mashonaland Central Province. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo / Ubuntu Times
“You can’t tell the difference now; on one hand when you come to Zimbabwe’s town, you are met with slums, even thatched slums and on the other hand when you go to the countryside, you meet similar structures — signs of poverty,” Mkwapati told Ubuntu Times.
Mkwapati is the director for the Youth Dialogue Action Network, a Zimbabwean civil society organization.
According to the Poverty Reduction Forum Trust (PRFT), emerging trends show that poverty in both rural and urban areas here is shooting up.
“Urban poverty has turned to be an emerging reality in Zimbabwe in recent years, but also remains more widespread in the rural areas, with rural and urban household poverty statistics approximately standing at 76 percent and 38 percent respectively,” Judith Kaulem, director at PRFT, told Ubuntu Times.
A single thatched hut home built from stones and rocks plastered with mud, standing opposite bundles of spare grass to re-thatch the home, in Makoni district in Zimbabwe’s Mashonaland Central Province. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo / Ubuntu Times
Founded in 2008 and inspired by the vision of a Zimbabwe Free from Poverty in which every human being lives a dignified, secure and decent life that conduce sustainable human development, PRFT is a civil society organization which seeks to influence the formulation of ‘pro-poor’ policies by conducting research on poverty-related issues and engaging with policymakers.
For Zimbabwe’s rural dwellers like Chagwiza, according to PRFT’s Kaulem, ‘lack of food security and lack of sustained income opportunities in the face of climate change remain key livelihood challenges being faced by the rural poor.’
But, with joblessness haunting urban dwellers like Nhari, Kaulem also said poverty was now an equal menace to Zimbabwe’s rural and urban dwellers.
However, said Kaulem, ‘as statistics show even now, it’s the rural dwellers still suffering most at the hands of poverty.’
To her (Kaulem), ‘poor access to basic services such as food, health, transport, water and sanitation greatly affects the lives of women and children in rural areas.’
“With above 70 percent of Zimbabweans living in rural areas and heavily dependent on agriculture, it remains very important to invest in evidence-based approach to improve rural livelihoods and access social services by all layers of the society,” Kaulem told Ubuntu Times.
In Zimbabwe, inflation hovers above 300 percent, based on statistics from the International Monetary Fund last year.
In the Zimbabwean capital Harare’s Mabvuku-Tafara high-density suburb, makeshift homes have become common as urban dwellers battle to contain mounting poverty, with some even pitching tents as homes. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo / Ubuntu Times
This, many rural and urban dwellers like Chagwiza and Nhari, have had to contend with, but in vain, and so according to civil society activists like Owen Dhliwayo, ‘poverty lampoons the poor in Zimbabwe from left, right and center whether in cities or villages.’
He (Dhliwayo) is a program officer for the Youth Dialogue Action Network.
Now, as Zimbabwe’s economy teeters on the brink of collapse amid growing urban and rural poverty, civil society activists like Dhliwayo have warned that ‘soon there would be no sanctuary for the country’s rural or urban dwellers.’
Nutritionists like Melody Charakupa working for a top non-governmental organization in Harare said ‘whether in rural or urban areas, challenges like malnutrition have become Zimbabwe’s new foes to contend with.’
In fact, by last year, the UN agency had already piloted a food assistance program in many Zimbabwean poor urban spots like Epworth, home to many like Nhari, one of Harare’s poorest high-density settlements, feeding over 20,000 residents.
As things stand, according to official numbers from the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency’s Poverty Income, Consumption and Expenditure Survey, an estimated 76 percent of Zimbabwe’s rural households are poor, while 23 percent are deemed extremely poor.
Yet, in reality, rural households have been the worst affected by poverty in comparison to urban households — pegged at 76 percent rural and 38 percent urban households.
A derelict isolated house in the village with peeling off cement-plastered walls in Gokwe in Zimbabwe’s Midlands Province. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo / Ubuntu Times
The current Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee Report has said the number of food-insecure people here last year was projected at 28 percent; apparently, 2.4 million people who were unable to meet their food needs as to the completion of the consumption year last year.
Consequently, the Zimbabwean government last year went on record in the media claiming
that 7.5 million people or half the population would be food-insecure, whether in rural or urban areas.
Yet, the food question is not the only hurdle facing Zimbabweans — accommodation is another headache either in rural or urban areas.
An estimated one in four of Zimbabwe’s urban population, or about 1.25 million people, live in slums, according to the 2014 United Nations data, with the World Bank estimating that Zimbabwe’s urban population, currently numbering about 5 million people, is increasing by two percent annually.
In fact, for many Zimbabwean rural and urban dwellers like Chagwiza and Nhari, living conditions are horrendous, with many of the dwellings built entirely of grass.
According to the UN, a combination of drought and economic demise by last year left 7.7 million Zimbabweans like Chagwiza and Nhari — approximately half the population — hunger-stricken.
MARANGE — His two thatched huts lay side by side overlooking a stream beyond which stood mounds of soils dug up from the diamond mining claims in the vicinity of his home.
Yet, over the 14 years since the diamonds were discovered in Marange, 56-year old Tenson Gowero has never tasted the sweetness of the country’s diamond wealth despite living in the midst of the gems.
Marange is a district in Zimbabwe’s Manicaland Province, West of Mutare, a town at the country’s border with Mozambique.
Home to many poverty-stricken villagers like Gowero, Marange is also an area of widespread small-scale diamond production in Chiadzwa, again west of Mutare, the Manicaland capital.
Even as Marange diamond fields were known to the public over a decade ago, the lives of many villagers here like Gowero have not changed for the better amid claims locals like Gowero himself were overpowered by migrant artisanal miners who descended on Marange diamonds salivating for the gems.
“I have nothing to show as a sign that I live in an area that houses the country’s diamond wealth; my children dropped out of school and I have no job even as some of my colleagues found employment at local diamond mining firms, I couldn’t because I know nobody there,” Gowero told Ubuntu Times.
Hordes of slums dot gold-rich Shurugwi where mining corporations have over the years extracted the precious metal, however neglecting the general outlook of the communities whose gold wealth has enriched them. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo / Ubuntu Times
In 2006, diamonds were discovered in Marange, home to Gowero, triggering a diamond rush that lasted for three to four years, but even then Gowero claims that never turned around his fortunes.
“I have remained poor although it is known all over the world that my area sits on the country’s bulky diamond wealth,” said Gowero.
Yet, in a 2013 report, Zimbabwe’s Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Mines said it ‘observed with concern that from the time that the country was allowed to trade its diamonds on the world market, the government has still not realized any meaningful contributions from the sector.’
Besides the poverty that has pounded many villagers like Gowero, rights abuses have also accompanied Zimbabwe’s diamond wealth.
In fact, at the height of artisanal diamond mining in Gowero’s village, in particular, around 2008 an estimated 40,000 artisanal miners and diggers lived in the Marange diamond fields.
But, without warning whatsoever, the Zimbabwean government under the leadership of late President Robert Mugabe, deployed the military into Marange in November 2008 to violently put an end to artisanal mining.
Located in Venture, a place in the mining town of Kadoma in an area called Patchway in Zimbabwe’s Mashonaland West Province is a poor home consisting of two accommodation features — a mud-plastered single room house roofed with a single zink sheet and a thatched kitchen hut built from sticks plastered with mud although the home stands in the midst of gold wealth. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo / Ubuntu Times
Subsequently, what ensued was a holocaust of local diggers and dealers.
But, for many Marange villagers like Gowero, even as brutality reigned supreme on Zimbabwe’s mines, poverty for them surpassed all and even to this day, he (Gowero) still bewails the grueling poverty that has gripped many like him despite living in a diamond-rich section of Zimbabwe.
Instead, according to civil society organizations like the Platform for Youth Development (PYD), criminal gangs made up of artisanal miners with links to Zimbabwe’s governing politicians, have seized parts of the diamond mining areas in Marange.
“Local villagers since the days the diamonds were discovered have rarely had the turn to directly benefit nor enjoy the diamond wealth of this country as armed gangs from other provinces like the Midlands Province seized the opportunity to run the show on the diamond fields,” Claris Madhuku, PYD director, told Ubuntu Times.
In Zimbabwe’s Midlands Province, machete-armed artisanal gold miners better known as mashurugwi because of their origin in Shurugwi town in the Province, stormed Manicaland’s Marange diamonds fields 14 years ago, elbowing out many locals like Gowero from the opportunities to mine the gems, rendering them further poorer.
Meanwhile, the Midlands Province itself, with a population of approximately 1.6 million, even with its gold wealth, 70 percent of its population is living in poverty, according to the Zimbabwe Statistics Agency (ZIMSTAT).
In Manicaland, where Marange diamond fields are located, 65 percent of the area’s population of 1.7 million as of the 2012 Zimbabwean census, are poor — many like Gowero, despite the people living in the midst of the country’s diamond wealth.
In Patchway, a gold-rich area in Zimbabwe’s Kadoma town in Mashonaland West Province lies an old thatched house built from mud-plastered sticks where some people here have called home for years despite being resident in a gold-rich area. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo / Ubuntu Times
According to human rights activists like Elvis Mugari of the Occupy Africa Unity Square, a rights organization that was led by the missing journalist-cum activist Itai Dzamara, ‘in all the mineral-rich areas in Zimbabwe, criminal gangs have gained control, barring poor people from accessing the minerals.’
In order for ordinary persons to mine either gold or diamonds, or any other precious stones, to Mugari, ‘they have to bribe criminal gangs before they are permitted to mine, and so only the financially able can mine at the end of the day.’
So, Gowero said ‘as villagers, we have not only been robbed of diamonds but also of our freedom and we are now worse off than we were before diamonds were discovered here.’
As such, many poor villagers like Gowero even as they live amid plentiful diamond wealth, face twin hurdles to contend with — poverty and rights abuse.
To regional human rights defenders like Dewa Mavhinga, the Southern Africa Director with the Africa Division at Human Rights Watch, lack of effective national policies to help locals benefit from natural resources in their areas, have helped fan poverty around Zimbabwe’s mineral-rich spots.
“Communities on mineral-rich areas of Zimbabwe continue to live in extreme poverty for several reasons, including the absence of effective devolution and decentralization that would otherwise allow local communities to benefit from their indigenous resources,” Mavhinga told Ubuntu Times.
He (Mavhinga) also said ‘the centralization of control of mineral resources disempowers local communities and deprives them of an equitable share of the benefits from mining.’
In a gold-rich mining area called Patchway located in Kadoma in Zimbabwe at a place called Venture, lies a poverty-ridden home, made from pole and mud despite the residents here domiciled in the gold-rich spot where the precious stone is being extracted every day. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo / Ubuntu Times
In March 2016, in his televised 92nd birthday, former Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, while providing no evidence, told the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) that diamonds worth over US$15 billion had been looted in Marange.
However, to this day even after the former President kicked the bucket, no one has been held accountable for the alleged diamond heist.
But, evidently, Marange’s villagers like Gowero have had to remain behind testifying of the resultant poverty.
The Centre for Natural Resource Governance, (CNRG) which works with Marange community activists, petitioned the Parliament of Zimbabwe in 2017 to “ensure diamond mining contributes to the development of the health, educational and road infrastructure of the Marange community, especially areas affected by diamond mining.”
But, to this day, the 89 km road from Marange to Mutare is derelict, with its longest stretch unpaved over 10 years after Chinese diamond mining firms descended on Marange.
CNRG is a research and advocacy civil society organization whose mandate is to promote good governance of natural resources.
HARARE — At the top of a hill, bulldozers and caterpillars maneuver their way, slicing off the hill of its remaining sections as they almost approach an enormous concrete council water tank perched above the hill.
Here in Warren Park, a high-density suburb seven kilometers west of the Zimbabwean capital Harare, the business of gravel soil digging above the hill has become a brisk one.
But, come rain season, environmental experts like Happison Chikova, a holder of a degree in Environmental Studies from Midlands State University, have complained that the dug areas below and atop the hill in question have had to be gradually washed away.
“Harare faces serious trouble from these gravel soil scavengers. After they dig up whatever they get, the remains at each rain season are washed away and they go straight to water bodies like Lake Chivero, leading to siltation of the lake,” Chikova told Ubuntu Times.
Hill in Warren Park a high-density suburb in Harare the Zimbabwean capital, has been chewed away by gravel soil diggers, with gravel soil remains to be later on washed away by rains into water bodies. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo / Ubuntu Times
Lake Chivero supplies water to the entire Harare city and other neighboring Zimbabwean towns like Chitungwiza, a dormitory town south-east of the Zimbabwean capital.
Amid thriving gravel soil and sand poaching around Zimbabwe’s towns and cities, lakes like Chivero have not been spared from the maladies of siltation, which experts have blamed for the continued water deficits facing Zimbabwe’s towns and cities.
For instance, according to the Harare City Council, siltation into Lake Chivero has reduced its total storage capacity by an estimated 20 percent.
“Pumps at Lake Chivero are being blocked up by severe sedimentation resulting in them frequently malfunctioning; we have been facing challenges with pumping water from the reservoir here because siltation has now overburdened the intake pumps,” Clifford Muzofa an official from the Harare City Environmental Department, told Ubuntu Times.
Not only gravel soil or sand poaching is to blame for the intensification of the country’s water bodies.
A maize field right by the roadside showing maize ready for harvest despite the grown maize obscuring vehicles on the road. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo / Ubuntu Times.
Even rising urban farming in this Southern African nation has also impacted negatively on the water bodies, according to environmental activists.
“People are having mini fields all over the city, for example here in Harare, be it on hills, mountains or across or downhill, and that is causing serious problems into the city’s water bodies, the same problem which is occurring across other towns,” Mevion Chaguta, a member of the Zimbabwe Environmental Lawyers Association, told Ubuntu Times.
Based on Zimbabwe’s Urban Councils Act, it is a punishable offense for anyone to be found practicing urban farming on council land.
Nevertheless, thousands if not millions of urban dwellers across Zimbabwe are involved in urban agriculture, people like 56-year old Tichaona Mugwisi of Mabvuku high-density suburb, east of Harare.
“I’m personally without a reliable source of income and in order to supplement my family’s food, I have made sure that we plant maize at some open space not far from my home,” Mugwisi told Ubuntu Times.
For many like Mugwisi, even the country’s dire economic straits have left them with no choice as they can’t afford buying meal-mealie, their staple food, amid ballooning inflation.
A mini maize field in a high-density suburb of Harare the Zimbabwean capital, Glen Norah, stands out ready for harvest despite council bylaws prohibiting urban farming in Zimbabwe. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo / Ubuntu Times
Inflation in this country, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) last year hovered around 300 percent and to evade this, many like Mugwisi have had to turn to urban farming to produce their own food.
An ordinary 10 kilogram of maize meal in Zimbabwe now costs about 200 dollars, an equivalent of approximately 12 USD, which many like Mugwisi can only dream to have.
To the Environmental Management Agency (EMA), since last year anyone caught digging or transporting sand or gravel illegally faced a fine of up to $5,000 (300 USD) or one-year incarceration.
Based on EMA regulations, anyone who wants to engage in commercial sand extraction here also has to obtain an EMA operational license, without which it is a criminal offense to extract sand or gravel.
But, even this has not deterred gravel and sand poachers across Zimbabwe’s towns and cities, a move civil society leaders say has not augured well with the country’s water bodies.
“People who do sand poaching are rarely arrested in this country because they have links to the political leadership of this country and therefore they place themselves above the law, doing whatever they want without being questioned, even destroying the environment,” Milton Ziora, a member of the Harare Residents Trust, told Ubuntu Times.
Land degradation which is leading to the siltation of Zimbabwe’s water bodies is getting worse and worse across towns and cities. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo / Ubuntu Times
Established under Zimbabwe’s Environmental Management Act [Chapter 20:27] and enacted in 2002, EMA is a statutory body responsible for ensuring the sustainable management of natural resources and protection of the environment, the prevention of pollution and environmental degradation.
For the Zimbabwean government’s land officers like Jimson Chauruka based in Masvingo, the country’s oldest town, ‘land degradation besides siltation of water bodies has become the order of the day because of both sand poaching and urban farming.’
“Precisely, owing to gravel soil and sand poaching as well as urban farming, Zimbabwe’s growing urban population is being left without adequate land to build homes,” Chauruka said.
According to EMA, currently, 10 percent of Zimbabwe’s soil is under high risk of erosion from land degradation, desertification, and drought.
HARARE, ZIMBABWE — In 2015, at the age of 14, Mirirai Chaunza lost her parents and two siblings in a road accident in which a bus they traveled in tumbled over after hitting a huge pothole along Harare-Beitbridge road as the family traveled from neighboring South Africa.
Now, Mirirai who survived the disaster — domiciled in Harare, the Zimbabwean capital, is the only one left in her family.
To her (Mirirai), the blame rests solely on Harare-Beitbridge highway, due to its derelict state.
“Potholes, narrowness of the road, and all other factors related to the bad shape of the highway has contributed to the loss of so many lives along the highway,” said now 19-year old Mirirai.
Over the years, the Harare-Beitbridge highway has been earmarked for a facelift, with government conducting a number of groundbreaking ceremonies to commence work on the country’s busiest road which connects a number of African countries to South Africa.
Just before his ouster in 2017, late Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe had conducted another groundbreaking ceremony to mark the beginning of works on the popular road, but that never took place anywhere.
With shoddy work done on the country’s tarred roads in Zimbabwe, dereliction is visiting the poor roads, fast converting them into dusty roads. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo / Ubuntu Times
Soon after seizing power from Mugabe, President Emmerson Mnangagwa also took to conducting another groundbreaking ceremony to commence work on the Harare-Beitbridge road.
Still, nothing meaningful has happened on the country’s busiest yet deadliest road ever, according to development experts like Millicent Muhombekwa.
“Even as several groundbreaking ceremonies have been held to make sure work commences on roads like Harare-Beitbridge, nothing has really happened so far save for potholes and small tributaries that have begun to emerge on the highway,” said Muhombekwa who holds a degree in development studies from the Women’s University in Africa here in Zimbabwe.
Not only does this country have to contend with poor roads, but the infrastructure at public hospitals as well.
Underfunded road projects have become an eyesore across many places in Zimbabwe mostly in towns and cities. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo / Ubuntu Times
For instance, at Parirenyatwa General Hospital, Zimbabwe’s biggest hospital in the capital Harare, the mortuary has become too small to accommodate the dead bodies stashed and piled in the mortuary daily.
“Bodies have to be arranged even on the floor because they can’t fit into the mortuary trays which only accommodate a few bodies; it’s so sad and disgusting,” said a mortuary attendant who requested to remain anonymous for professional reasons.
At the maternity side of the Parirenyatwa hospital, most toilets are broken down and expecting mothers have to bring their own buckets in order to then fetch water to use in maternity wards’ water system ablution facilities.
“Everything about our public hospitals is broken down and dysfunctional; the entire national public hospitals infrastructure here needs complete overhaul in order for the system to work all over again,” an anti-government activist, Elvis Mugari said.
But, even as activists like Mugari are for the overhaul, still, the road to do it is not an easy one.
As such, there are 214 hospitals in Zimbabwe of which 120 are government hospitals run by the Ministry of Health and Child Care while 66 are mission hospitals, with the remaining 32 being privately run.
Meanwhile, laden with a population of approximately 16 million people, Zimbabwe’s government hospital system includes six central hospitals, eight provincial hospitals, and 63 district-level hospitals, with the rest being rural hospitals.
At Harare Central hospital, with the hospital infrastructure falling apart, even work for the medical staff has been made difficult.
“Imagine coming here to attend to a patient who is admitted, but in a ward with a broken ceiling above, broken windows and cracked floors with potholes; it’s pathetic,” said a senior medical doctor working at Harare hospital, requesting to remain anonymous for professional reasons.
Despite inheriting one of the best infrastructures at independence, Zimbabwe’s hospitals have over the decades failed to perform at expected levels like in years before independence due to the country’s struggling economy.
Cars maneuver their way, avoiding potholes in a high-density suburb called Warren Park D in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo / Ubuntu Times
Other public hospitals like Neshuro in Mwenezi district south of the country, hardly have running water, with communities in the vicinity of the hospital having to bring water for their admitted patients.
So, to local secondary school teachers in Mwenezi like 46-year old Denis Muzondi, a History teacher at one of the secondary schools in the impoverished districts, Zimbabwe’s healthcare system is in a dire state of decay.
“Our public healthcare infrastructure is on its way to the Iron Age era; we are making history in reverse gear, meaning we are on a return leg to the olden past instead of moving forward in terms of our public healthcare infrastructure,” said Muzondi.
In fact, according to structural engineers in Zimbabwe’s public service like Edwin Mhungu based in the capital Harare, ‘roads and hospital infrastructure are equally derelict across most places countrywide and generally unfit for any use.’
“The condition of Zimbabwe’s road network had deteriorated since the last condition survey a decade ago in 2010,” said Mhungu.
According to the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural Development, only 10 percent of the country’s surfaced (tarred) national road network is in good condition, with 30 percent in poor condition while 57 percent is in fair condition.
Vehicles evade gravel-filled potholes at some road found inside a high-density suburb in Harare, Zimbabwe. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo / Ubuntu Times
Yet, making the country’s road network look better would cost a fortune, according to infrastructural financiers in the African region.
Therefore, according to the African Development Bank’s Action Programme for Infrastructure that runs until 2030, Zimbabwe requires 34 billion USD throughout the next decade, meaning Zimbabwe requires approximately 3.4 billion USD every year for the next 10 years to build robust infrastructure in order to catch up with its regional counterparts.
African Development Bank (AfDB) has been on record saying Zimbabwe’s road maintenance alone would require 43 million USD.
As such, for orphaned young women like Mirirai Chaunza, due to the derelict Harare-Beitbridge highway which claimed the lives of the entire members of her family, hope has slithered away.
“Maybe just like my parents and siblings, I will perish on the road one day,” Chaunza said.
MUTARE — At first, it was a dense timber forestry. Then came the 2000 land reform program at the advent of 76-year old Obson Nyahanga into the picture, taking over the once-thriving timber plantation. Now, the 140-hectare timber plantation has over the past few years become a shadow of its former self.
This does not worry Nyahanga an inch, however, surprisingly.
“What is important is that I now own the land which we fought for during the war. Why should you be worried about what is on my land?” said Nyahanga.
He (Nyahanga) is a veteran who fought in the war against British colonial rule during the 1970s liberation war.
Irked by their deteriorating standards of living, thousands of Zimbabwean war veterans like Nyahanga around the year 2000 stormed the country’s once-thriving white-owned commercial farms like the timber plantation he (Nyahanga) occupies to this day in the country’s Manicaland Province.
But, Nyahanga’s touch on the timber plantation was a disastrous one, which to this day has left no single tree standing.
With rare or no electricity, Zimbabweans in urban areas have turned to timber for their energy. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo / Ubuntu Times.
Yet, Zimbabwe’s liberation war heroes like him (Nyahanga) still pride themselves even as they are not making meaningful developments on the farms they seized.
“How we use our land which we took back from the white oppressors should not bother anyone; I have used the timber here the way I wanted, even as firewood at times and that has satisfied me and I still own the land even as there is no more timber,” he (Nyahanga) said.
With many Zimbabweans like Nyahanga apparently unconcerned about the state of the country’s forests, Zimbabwe’s timber plantations are fast being rendered extinct, with officials from the country’s Forestry Commission protesting without any response from the culprits responsible for unleashing destruction on the country’s forests.
Timber loads have become a common feature on vehicles in towns and cities in Zimbabwe as people contend with power woes while some ferry the timber for their carpentry ventures. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo / Ubuntu Times.
As such, Zimbabwe loses about 330,000 hectares (815,450 acres) of forests annually, according to Forestry Commission spokesperson Violet Makoto.
Soon, if not very soon, officials foresee Zimbabwe being reduced to an importer of timber.
In fact, last year in March, Zimbabwe’s Forestry Commission general manager Abednigo Marufu told parliament that unrestrained deforestation would see Zimbabwe importing timber by 2030.
Last year, Zimbabwe’s timber declined from 120,000 to 70,000 hectares due to illegal settlers on timber plantations, miners, veld fires and the chaotic land reform program, according to Timber Producers Federation.
Displayed unprocessed and processed timber have become common across towns and cities as entrepreneurs make money from felled trees that are hardly replaced. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo / Ubuntu Times
The Forestry Commission is a parastatal under Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Environment, Tourism and Hospitality Industry, with the commission contributing to national socio-economic development through regulation and capacity enhancement in the utilization and management of forest resources.
And so as much timber keeps being lost, environmental activists like Tony Hurudza based in Harare the Zimbabwean capital, said ‘there seem to be no respite nor efforts being made to replenish the vandalized tree plantations.’
“War veterans occupying some of the once-thriving timber forests even boast of using the timber as firewood, saying it’s theirs and nobody can ask them,” said Hurudza.
Sounding rather stubborn, Nyahanga even said ‘we don’t eat timber and therefore we have to clear more land for agriculture to prepare for each farming season.’
So, consequently, timber forests are fading fast, with it (timber) now being added to a list of commodities running short countrywide for many who depend on it like carpenters, for instance.
“It’s not easy to find timber these days because suppliers always say they don’t have stock,” Naison Gombe, a carpenter based in Harare, said.
An estimated 70 percent of Zimbabwe’s population of 16 million people reside in remote areas without electricity, with many having to turn to firewood for cooking, adding a strain on the country’s dwindling timber forests.
Small pieces of timber lying on the ground after timber poachers recently descended on timber forests around Ashdon Park in Harare the Zimbabwean capital. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo / Ubuntu Times
Meanwhile, forest and woodland resources now cover 45 percent of Zimbabwe’s land area, down from 53 percent in 2014, according to the Forestry Commission.
To Makoto of the Forestry Commission, ‘this is a pointer to major deforestation’.
But, she (Makoto) also said under Zimbabwe’s Forest Act, anyone who cuts, damages, destroys, collects, takes or removes trees or timber without a license faces a fine of about 100 dollars or two years in prison.
However, the bulk of resettled farmers who are war veterans, even with the Forest Act in place, they remain untouchable, according to civil society leaders.
“No police nor authority can stand up to war veterans who are plundering timber plantations here because they will be terrorized by these resettled farmers who claim they personally own this country,” said Claris Madhuku, director of the Platform for Youth Development, a civic society organization in Zimbabwe.
HARARE — Five years after the abduction of Zimbabwe’s human rights activist Itai Dzamara on 9 March 2015, his wife, Sheffra has petitioned the country’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa over the abduction and disappearance of her husband.
The journalist turned pro-democracy activist went missing after he was abducted by suspected State security agents at a barbershop in his home area called Glen View, a high-density area in the Zimbabwean capital Harare.
In a petition handed at the President’s office at Munhumutapa government building in the capital Harare, Sheffra said she was hurt by not knowing her husband’s whereabouts since his disappearance five years ago.
“My name is Sheffra Dzamara, I am the wife of Itai Peace Dzamara who was forcibly disappeared on the 9th of March 2015 and still remains unaccountable for,” read part of the petition handed to the office of the President.
Sheffra, a mother of two — Nokutenda and Nenyasha, in her petition to Mnangagwa noted “I once wrote you a letter in 2018 and did not receive a response from your office. I then made that letter an open letter.”
Meanwhile, Itai Dzamara was one of the most vocal critics of late Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe before he (Dzamara) was whisked away by his captors from a barbershop in Glenview, his home area.
Five years later, his loved ones — wife and the daughters are still waiting for answers.
But reacting to the petition soon after Mrs. Dzamara handed it into the Zimbabwean President’s Office, Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Information issued a press release.
“…every Zimbabwean counts. It is therefore diplomatically unhelpful and misleading to insinuate that the government does not intend to shed light into Mr. Dzamara’s disappearance as if it had a hand in it,” said the press release.
HARARE — A suspected coronavirus patient who is a Thai citizen and recently came to Zimbabwe, allegedly bolted out of Wilkins hospital in the Zimbabwean capital where the patient had been isolated ahead of treatment and tests to determine whether he suffered from the dreaded global pandemic.
The patient escaped from the hospital before tests could be carried out on him and his whereabouts are unknown.
Wilkins is a Zimbabwean Hospital in the capital, Harare, run by the city council as an Infectious Diseases Hospital where all suspected coronavirus cases are being referred to.
The Thai suspected coronavirus patient had been quarantined at the Zimbabwean infectious diseases hospital in order for medical authorities to conduct tests on him for coronavirus, a disease that has drawn much attention across the globe.
Before tests for the disease could be done on him, the Thai national somehow vanished from the medical authorities superintending over him at Wilkins hospital, and it is not yet clear how he escaped and the medical authorities are yet to reveal the details.
The great escape from the hospital in Zimbabwe by the Thai national allegedly suffering from coronavirus is coming at a time Zimbabwe’s neighbors, South Africa, have recorded seven positive cases of the feared disease which has so far led to the death of some 3,888 people worldwide, infecting over 111,753 people globally.
However, in South Africa, coronavirus has not killed anyone.
In fact, South Africa’s first patient who tested positive for coronavirus has been successfully treated even though many have been speculating on whether African governments are capable of containing the coronavirus.
The World Health Organization has been on record saying the outbreak of coronavirus was first reported on 31 December last year in Wuhan, a city in China’s Hubei Province.
In Zimbabwe, there has been no confirmed case of positive coronavirus yet, with the country’s Ministry of Health and Child Care just recently issuing out a statement saying it ‘…would like to assure the nation that to date, there is NO confirmed case of the COVID-19 in Zimbabwe.’
HARARE — The Zimbabwean government has been widely criticized for downplaying coronavirus in the country amid recent reports that a Chinese national succumbed to the disease.
The now late Chinese national was a suspected victim of coronavirus. The woman was said to have arrived at a private clinic in Harare showing symptoms of coronavirus, with a Chinese doctor donning a mask and gloves to prevent getting infected.
“A Chinese woman arrived here at a city private hospital being pushed on a wheelchair and suffering severe shortness of breath, subsequently scaring off medical staff at the top private clinic, who fled from their work stations after they heard the patient was from China,” said a senior doctor at the clinic that admitted the deceased.
However, the Zimbabwean government has been widely suspected of seeking to cover up the existence of the currently dreaded disease.
According to the Ministry of Health and Child Care, the deceased patient who suffered from what was thought to be coronavirus and died at Wilkins hospital was said to be from Mutare.
Wilkins hospital is a local authority infectious diseases hospital in Harare, the Zimbabwean capital.
With the government insisting the deceased was not a victim of coronavirus, symptoms associated with the disease manifested on her.
Symptoms of coronavirus on an individual are coughs, fever and breathing difficulties while in severe cases there can be organ failure.
Yesterday, Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Health issued a statement claiming ‘to date Zimbabwe has not had any confirmed cases of COVID19 (coronavirus).’
To the Zimbabwean government, ‘the latest suspected case is that of a woman who returned from China more than a month ago on 24 January 2020.’
That statement from the government was debunked by documentary makers like Hopewell Chin’ono, also a former Harvard Nieman Journalism Fellowship.
“Can you stop this nonsense of calling a Chinese national a Mutare woman. This was done to appease the Chinese at the cost of your own citizens knowing the truth! Coronavirus will affect anyone, so the silly idea of hiding identity is foolish,” Chin’ono tweeted recently.
Professor Jonathan Moyo, a former Information Minister in Zimbabwe, now living in Kenya on exile, tweeted ‘why do you call a Chinese woman, “a Mutare woman?” Not to upset your Chinese friends?’
“So, Mnangagwa would rather put Zimbabweans at risk to appease the Chinese?” added Professor Moyo.
HWANGE — A 40-year old Zimbabwean man was recently killed and eaten by a lion in Hwange, a district in Zimbabwe’s Matabeleland North Province.
The deceased, Thomas Muputsa who worked for the National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ) was said to have disembarked from a car and was scheduled to attend a funeral wake of his father in the village in Dete area in Hwange.
According to official sources, the deceased whose few remains were discovered swarmed by a troop of vultures, had disembarked from the car in Dete area about one kilometer from his scheduled station when disaster struck in the early hours of the fateful day.
He (the deceased) was dropped from the car about one kilometer from his scheduled train station when disaster struck in the early hours of the fateful day.
“It is with great sorrow and deep sadness that a 40-year old man was killed by a lion in Hwange on Tuesday morning,” said Tinashe Farawo, spokesperson for the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (ZIMPARKS).
ZIMPARKS operates under Zimbabwe’s Act of Parliament, the Parks and Wildlife Act of 1975, managing one of the largest estates in the country, with a mandate to manage the entire wildlife population of Zimbabwe on private or communal lands.
Farawo said as ZIMPARKS they were yet to locate the lion that killed the former NRZ employee, which he said committed the tragic action at the border between the side of Hwange National Park which housed lions and a communal area where people resided.
If found, Farawo said the lion would either be shot and killed or confined to one of the protected zones in the National park.
The case of human-wildlife conflict has been on the rise in Zimbabwe over the past few years, with the country’s parks authorities saying since last year they recorded that 40 people lost their lives to wild animals, with crocodiles accounting for 25 deaths.
HARARE — Amid mounting fears for coronavirus which has killed thousands of people in China and other countries, the Zimbabwean government has with immediate effect banned overseas travel.
According to an announcement made by the Southern African nation’s President Emerson Mnangagwa, citizens here will now not be allowed to travel to countries outside the African continent.
Mr. Mnangagwa made the announcement Wednesday evening while addressing his governing party, Zimbabwe Africa National Patriotic Front (Zanu PF) politburo meeting in the capital, Harare.
He (Mnangagwa) said ‘I have now restricted travel outside Zimbabwe, in particular outside the continent.’
The President also appealed to ordinary citizens to limit travel outside the country in order to lessen exposure to the dreaded virus.
At the moment, Zimbabwe has dealt with only two suspected coronavirus cases after travelers came into the country from countries where there are confirmed cases of the disease.
But, the two suspected coronavirus cases have since tested negative, however with the suspects kept under strict medical surveillance.
Last year in December, coronavirus broke out in Wuhan City in the Hubei Province of China.
Then, the World Health Organisation was informed of pneumonia cases related to unknown causes detected in the Chinese city, which later became known as coronavirus, scientifically called COVID-19.
After the overseas travel ban announcement by President Emerson Mnangagwa, government spokesman, Nick Mangwana tweeted ‘President Mnangagwa has restricted international travel especially outside Africa, while civil servants have been banned from foreign trips as Government takes measures to minimize the risk of exposure to coronavirus.’
Apart from banning overseas travel, the Zimbabwean government recently announced that people visiting the country from areas affected by coronavirus without valid medical certificates showing they are negative will be repatriated at the port of entry.
Over 3,000 people have died due to the coronavirus following the first outbreak recorded in the Chinese city of Wuhan.
In Zimbabwe, more than 6,000 travelers have been screened of the disease at ports of entry like Robert Gabriel Mugabe and Victoria Falls International Airports.
But, reacting to the overseas travel ban news, an ordinary Zimbabwean, Tendaivanhu Madzikanda tweeted ‘you don’t want civil servants to travel yet you allow people from risk countries to come into the country. Really.’
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