The govt is again asking for exemption letters, technology would have made this a smoother process

Garikai Dzoma Avatar
Zimbabwean Police, ZRP, Roadblock

Despite the government not explicitly admitting it, Zimbabwe is in the throes of a third wave. Ever since the month began, the country has been recording thousands of cases daily, with hundreds of cases coming from each town. Faced with such a spike, the government has now decided to go back to a well-tried and tested formula. Lockdown and exemption letters.
The nation is advised that the exemption mechanism, which was used during the first lockdown in 2020, will be reactivated with immediate effect.

The nation is advised that the exemption mechanisms which were used during the first lockdown in 2020 will be reactivated with immediate effect.

Given the above challenges, Cabinet has directed that the Treasury urgently releases the first tranche of $368.2 million it had committed to funding the enforcement of Level 4 lockdown measures.

This will reinforce the current efforts of containing the spread of COVID-19. Stiffer penalties will be imposed for violations of COVID-19 restrictions, including the withdrawal of business operating licences.

As you might be aware, the entire country is now under Level 4 lockdown, following the surge in COVID-19 cases.

Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister Monica Mutsvangwa speaking on the issue in a press briefing yesterday

The letter problems

It has been a while now, but if you recall there have always been some kinks when it came to the letters. Initially, they were supposed to be issued by your employer, provided your employer was in the essential services. That led to a lot of abuse of the system and forgeries abounded. It was also impossible for police officers manning a given checkpoint to know if the said company even existed and did what the letter said it did.

To clear all this up, the police came up with a solution-centralisation. Instead of having officers at each checkpoint waste time and create congestion by attempting to verify each letter, all those in the essential sector who were not government employees or in the health sector would instead go to their neighbourhood police station, present their issue and get an additional letter from the officer in charge.

There is just one problem. Thanks to a lot of centralization and bureaucracy, officers in charge are busy creatures. You would be lucky to find an officer in charge at your local station, let alone get him to approve thousands of people from your suburb. So in the last iteration of the requirement, the problem was thrown at the Ministry of Industry and Commerce.

Surely the ministry knows what essential company falls under its ambits? Now assuming they do, and I am being generous here, how are they going to get each company to submit a list of essential personnel, verify this list, create a letter and send it back to the company that made the request? How will security personnel manning checkpoints verify that each letter presented to them is not a forgery?

All these issues could have been solved using technology. The bulk of people who are in the essential sector probably have a smartphone. An app from the ministry would have fixed this. If an employee is part of essential services, a pass is pushed to their phone through the app. To verify authenticity, security personnel simply scan the app. There are probably much more elegant solutions than this, but that example serves to show that technology can play a vital role in this.

We have already seen technology being adopted here in Africa through COVID passes. Hopefully, the government sees the light and makes life easier for everyone. The checkpoint app could even be part of a whole national COVID app that can be used for contact tracing.

,

11 comments

  1. 2 Boy jr

    Well. You are right. But a lot of corruption is happening in our country. Even when you are not an essential worker. You just go to them with $5US and they will give you the letter

  2. FlySidd

    Ndaona officer in charge vafa namari

  3. Imi vanhu musadaro

    368 million availed by government for Covid, 360 million bond notes released by RBZ… 🤔

  4. Gcinani

    Hell

  5. Gcinani

    Thanks again

  6. Collen Mahachi

    Govt has been slow at eracing technology we remain far behind as a country

  7. Tinashe G

    Is this an offline app
    What will happen when you are in outskirts, where there is poor network connection

  8. Anonymous

    They will still require to scan the app and verify if you are the person the app says you are.

  9. Michael Mukute

    Kuturira mutoro Kuma charge office Sargents munenge ma promota corruption more, ivo vakuru ve police vakawandirwa nevanhu muma cues vachapedzisira voti une kamari ndiye unogadzirirwa.zvematsamba siyanai nazvo almost 90% yevanhu munyika havashandi, asi chimiro chetsamba chakarevesa vazhinji nhema, ndinoshanda kokuti, tazviona pakawanda muroad umu, chero mota yakafa, unemvosva ndeasina yokudhiza.simbisai chete ye social distancing, masking up ne sanitizing

  10. Anonymous

    Ha patsamba hapashande apa dai mangoti social distance mask up nekut vanhu vachengetedze nguva dzakatarwa nehurumende dzekuvhara mabusiness cz tofa nenzara mudzimba umu ma1 tikurarama nekukiya kiya

  11. Simb Nyakud

    Haa vano dyairr vanh tsamb inobatsir chiko pkufamb hnty munh anogo pfeke mask n keep social distance ndo ma sports e corona

Join Waitlist We will inform you when the product arrives in stock. Please leave your valid email address below.