Zimbabwe

HARARE, May 22 (NNN-AGENCIES) – Zimbabwean President, Emmerson Mnangagwa, expressed Zimbabwe’s gratitude to the visiting team of Chinese medical experts, for sharing their experience and knowledge with Zimbabwe’s front-line medical staff in fighting the COVID-19.

He extended the appreciation in a letter, read out by Zimbabwean Health Minister, Obadiah Moyo, at a joint press conference at the conclusion of the team’s two week visit to the country.

He said, Zimbabwe’s medical staff had benefited immensely from the team’s front-line knowledge in fighting COVID-19.

HARARE, May 16 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Zimbabwe’s second biggest city of Bulawayo limited access to tap water to just one day a week as reservoir levels fall to dangerously low levels amid the country’s worst drought in years.

After a devastating drought in 2019 and patchy rains this year, water shortages have worsened in Bulawayo, in the west of the country, forcing families to trek to unsafe wells as taps run dry.

HARARE, May 13 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A team of 12 Chinese doctors have arrived in Zimbabwe to help in the fight against coronavirus.

The southern Africa nation has confirmed 36 cases in total and four deaths.

The doctors, from China’s Hunan Province, arrived in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, on Monday with test kits and protective gear, the state-run Herald newspaper reports.

The 12 doctors have “front-line experience in the prevention and control of Covid-19”, Chinese state-owned China Global Television Network reports.

Harare, Mar 27 (AFP/PTI) Zimbabwe has re-introduced the use of foreign currency for domestic transactions in what was seen as a bid to tap into private forex savings as the country gears up for the battle against the novel coronavirus.

In a statement the central bank governor John Mangudya said the move is part of "measures to mitigate the devastating impact of COVID-19 on the Zimbabwean society and the economy".

HARARE, March 25 (NNN-XINHUA) — With demand far outstripping supply, prices for essential products needed to contain the spread of COVID-19 are on the rise as the virus takes its first life in Zimbabwe.

In most supermarkets at the capital Harare, face masks and sanitizers were in acute short supply, and in all the pharmacies they were available they were being offered at exorbitant prices.

HARARE, March 19 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa has declared the coronavirus pandemic as a national disaster.

He said this could help the government mobilize resources. Mnangagwa also cancelled Independence Day celebrations and international sporting events to curb spread of COVID-19.

“The government has postponed the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF), all previously scheduled national independence celebrations and international sporting events on hold until the coronavirus threat dissipates”, Mnangagwa said.

HARARE, March 14 (NNN-AGENCIES) — They figure on Zimbabwe’s national flag, banknotes and official documents: stone statues representing birds taken away by the European colonialists more than a century ago.

The eight original sculptures hold great spiritual value for people of the southern African nation, and have been made into national emblems.

Six of the large carvings were stolen from the ruins of Great Zimbabwe, an imposing stone complex built between the 11th and 13th centuries and attributed to pre-colonial King Munhumutapa.

VICTORIA FALLS, Zimbabwe, Feb. 26 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations on Wednesday warned that the recently-launched Africa Continental Free Trade Area Agreement (AfCFTA) faces climate change risks that could prevent the continent from gaining maximum trade benefits from the agreement.

The gains from the AfCFTA were not guaranteed due to the impact of climate change, said David Luke, a senior trade expert of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), at a side meeting of the sixth Africa Regional Forum on Sustainable Development in Victoria Falls.

HARARE, Feb 11 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Zimbabwe’s Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube has warned that traders who continue to demand payment in US dollars will face prosecution.

In June, the country abandoned the use of the US dollar for its official currency the Zimbabwe dollars; reintroducing a local currency that was scrapped 10 years ago.

But a shortage of local currency and its rapid decline in value has resulted in businesses – including grocers and fuel stations – demanding payments in US dollars.

Zimbabwe imports most of its goods including fuel and food.

HARARE, Feb 3 (NNN-AFRICANEWS) — The Zimbabwean government and civil servants have reached an agreement for the immediate increase of salaries.

According to Cecilia Alexander, head of the public employees’ trade union confederation, “the provisional agreement” reached with the government provides for a “salary adjustment based on the cost of living from 1 January 2020.”

The purchasing power of Zimbabwean civil servants has been seriously eroded by endemic hyperinflation, forcing them to take to the streets to vent their anger.