You can’t lockdown a country repeatedly, set your priorities right- Ngarivhume tells Mnangagwa

Transform Zimbabwe leader Jacob Ngarivhume has bemoaned the continued reverting to lockdowns as a way to deal with the upsurge of Covid 19 by Zimbabwe, saying this is counterproductive.

He says the country needs to plan ahead and set right priorities, should things get worse, implying that lockdown should be the last resort.

“We cannot lock down the country repeatedly and indefinitely. We need a plan should things get worse.

“The urgent priority is to cut wasteful spending and boost funding to health care,” he says.

Ngarivhume adds that it is unfortunate that there is lack of transparency, which means citizens have no way to adequately track government policy decisions and actions, adding that this needs to change.

He says there is very little transparency in the handling of the vaccination program.

“We have a finance minister with a tenuous relationship with the truth. How many vaccine doses have we actually purchased vs received as donations?” he says.

Meanwhile, a political analyst Elder Mabhunu concurs saying lockdown should be the last option after exhausting other possible measures.

He says should lockdown be the only option, there should be social safety measures in place to mitigate the citizens’ suffering, pointing out that during the previous lockdown the social no one got state assistance.

MDC Alliance Secretary for Health, Henry Madzorera agrees:

“Lockdowns have been overvalued in this fight with Covid-19, it is not the default answer, a lockdown should be the last option, there are many other steps that we can take before inducing a lockdown.”

-Zwnews