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The Herald
Paidamoyo Chipunza Senior reporter
Zimbabwean citizens who returned from the UK on Monday on Ethiopian Airlines will be required to stay at Belvedere Technical Teachers’ College, as the Government was unable to guarantee alternative accommodation.
The returnees agreed to stay at the university on Monday on condition that the government secure a “better place.” .
The University of Zimbabwe (UZ) was suggested, but the fact that UZ is already being used as a Covid-19 equipment manufacturing center does not allow it to be a quarantine facility. Other people, some of whom are involved in the production of the Covid-19 materials, also stay on campus.
The secretary of the Public Service, Labor and Social Welfare, Simon Masanga, said yesterday that the Government was now working to take advantage of the water from the well for returnees to drink, adding that the university already had running water from the local authority.
“The institution had running water, but what they wanted was well water and we are in the process of solving it,” he said.
However, today we will organize bottled water for them. Since we couldn’t assure them accommodation in the UZ, that means that we will have to work with what is there. They will have to stay at Belvedere Teachers ’College, after all this is just a temporary arrangement.”
Masanga said that those who intend to obtain their personal blankets and bedding from their relatives are free to do so, but no interaction between them and their relatives will be allowed.
“If any of them sit or visit a friend’s cubicle, it will be at their own risk, but we have made efforts to maintain social distance even while sleeping,” he said.
The government had a difficult time on Monday trying to negotiate with returnees to accept the mandatory quarantine.
The returnees insisted that the quarantine facility was below standard and habitable and only agreed to sleep at the university on the condition that they be transferred the next morning.
Yesterday, videos and photos of bedrooms, beds, and ablution facilities rounded social media, but most Zimbabweans were unable to take any of that, insisting that the government should not compromise the mandatory quarantine.
The anger of most Zimbabweans emanated from confirmed cases of Covid-19 that involved returnees who failed to comply with self-isolation rules and instead wandered the streets, exposing other people to the virus.
