TENDAI BHEBE IN BULAWAYO
The Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) Matabeleland Chapter has applauded the government’s vaccination rollout programme saying the industry has been badly affected by the deadly Covid-19 pandemic, Business Times can report.
CZI Matabeleland Chapter president, Raymond Shoniwa, said industries have lost their revenue owing to the pandemic.
“The industries have felt the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic since the beginning of 2020. The pandemic caused some closure of certain sectors of industries, resulting in loss of revenue, increased health and safety costs and loss of skills through sickness and death from the pandemic,” Shoniwa said.
He said the targeted herd immunity will help curb transmissions of the virus and revive the economy.
“Well, we welcome the vaccination programme rollout by the government together with other protocols introduced. We hope the targeted herd immunity can be reached as this will curb the transmission of the disease,” Shoniwa said.
“While it is early days to access the impact of the programme will have on the industry, it is anticipated that some form of normalcy will return where production will not be hindered by the negative effects of the pandemic as trade between suppliers and customers will be done without fear of infection and critical skills currently being lost will be preserved.”
Shoniwa said Zimbabwe ’s private companies are in the process of gathering information on the number of workers and the size of their families before committing resources to procure Covid-19 vaccines for them as part of augmenting government efforts in its fight against the pandemic.
He said CZI will continue to partner government to ensure that the targets set are achieved.
