The Sunday News
Thupeyo Muleya, Beitbridge Bureau
AUTHORITIES in Matabeleland South have called on the Government to urgently avail more Covid-19 quarantine and isolation centres and to upgrade existing facilities to enhance their capacity to handle Zimbabweans returning from Botswana and South Africa.
Those that are coming from Botswana are being handled in Plumtree, while those coming from South Africa are kept in Beitbridge and Esigodini. The Plumtree centre carries 200 people while the Beitbridge and Esigodini centres can accommodate 150 and 100 at any given time. The provincial Covid-19 Taskforce chairperson, Ms Sithandiwe Ncube pleaded with Finance and Economic Development Minister, Professor Mthuli Ncube that they needed more capacity and centres.
“We are running out of quarantining space and resources with many Zimbabweans arriving from Botswana and South Africa. The state of affairs here is not pleasing, we are on the frontline of carrying the national burden and we have limited space and resources. We appeal through your office to ensure that we have more quarantine and isolation centres, more Covid-19 test kits to deal with those at the centres and the communities living along the border areas. At times we are having shortages of test kits and this presents challenges when it comes to accommodating all the unscreened people before transferring them to their respective provincial centres.”
Ms Ncube said in Beitbridge they were handling close to 500 returnees on transit from South Africa daily while Plumtree was receiving 200 Zimbabweans. Upon arrival at the borders, the returnees are screened, fed, accommodated or transferred to various Covid-19 centres in the country. The official said the quarantine space had been worsened by the fact that they may not use learning facilities as quarantine and isolation centres considering the imminent opening of schools.
“If we don’t up our game, we risk being the epicentre as a province. The few that we are testing are coming through the formal borders, but are having others crossing through illegal entry points from Botswana and South Africa. So, we wish to maximise our testing capacity and educating communities in the borderline areas on health and safety issues, and these need the Government to capacitate us,” said Ms Ncube.
She said the Government should also consider including returnees in its saving livelihoods programmes. The official said most of the returnees had no sources of income.
However, Prof Ncube said Treasury had since availed $200 million for the upgrading of quarantine and isolation centres and that the task team should benefit from the initiative to address their challenges.
“The concerns are valid and well noted. I will engage my colleagues in Government especially those from the Ministry of Health and Child Care so that we look into availing more testing equipment to critical ports of entries. Recently we released $200 million to upgrade quarantine centres and enhance capacities. These are the funds we need to direct to areas in urgent need including Beitbridge and Plumtree towns,” said Prof Ncube.
