Zimbabwe Chamber of Informal Economy Associations (ZCIEA) has raised concern that the current 30-day lockdown measures allowed certain sectors to trade whilst the informal sections have been closed.
The lockdown comes at a time when the informal workers and traders who mainly feed from hand to mouth are still struggling to resuscitate after the 2020 restrictions in trade.
The organisation in a statement says, “We feel Informal economy traders have a big bracket of essential services provision at the community level e.g. vegetable market places.”
“We also feel that the 30-day lockdown measures should have straight away moved bi-laterally with a social safety net scheme to cushion the most vulnerable in society.”
The largest group of the workforce in Zimbabwe is the informal sector according to statistics.
ZCIEA says, “We would want the government to incorporate us as an Informal Economy Organisation in policy and implementation move in the fight against COVID-19 where we concentrate on rescue, awareness, resuscitation, and developmental agenda which has a strong pillar of disaster preparedness to support efforts of the informal economy.”
“This is part of the socio-economic inclusion of informal economy activities into mainstream activities as we march into the 2030 Agenda through the National Development Strategy (NDS 1).”
“We are looking forward and prepared for an engagement with the key arms of the government to participate in the development of Zimbabwe.”
The current lockdown has been characterised with alleged reports of members in the informal sector secretly doing businesses in the backyards.
