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.