The Business Fighting Covid-19 Trust (BFCT) is rallying corporates to join the fight against the novel coronavirus, saying the government alone cannot stop the pandemic.
BCT representatives Nqobile Munzara (NM), Lance Mambondiani (LM) and Sacrifice Chirisa appeared on the latest episode of Alpha Media Holdings chairman Trevor Ncube’s (TN) online show In Conversation with Trevor where they spoke about their activities.
Below are excerpts from the interview.
TN: Lance, let me start with you, explain to us what the thinking is behind the formation of this organisation, Businesses Fighting Covid-19.
LM: thank you, Trevor. As Business Fighting Covid-19, our position on this is that, there comes a time in history where we face a challenge, which is bigger than our calling.
It doesn’t matter what station or post you have, all of us and the way we build business has been impacted by the same, whether it’s in Zimbabwe, the United Kingdom or the United States of America, and we have been unified by one common thing.
The BFCT is really to complement efforts that we have seen from government in mobilising and channelling resources where they are needed.
We know it’s something that can’t be done by one entity, one government or organisation.
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Imagine what we can do collectively if we have to bring all those skills and passion together, that is the essence as we put forward our best foot, and address some of the challenges affecting us in Zimbabwe.
TN: Dr Chirisa, let me come to you now. As a medical doctor, you are part of the coal face of the pandemic. Speak to us about the challenges you are encountering as an organisation when it comes to fighting Covid-19.
SC: I think it is important to look at the whole picture, looking at the health facilities we have both private and government, they are below standard, especially if we are to deal with Covid-19 and its complications.
That was a big threat, every country had a similar threat worldwide, and everyone was protecting what they have.
There’s no opportunity for everybody to go out, it really gave us a wake up call and said we might have neglected our health facilities for too long and now it has come to bite us.
We have these problems, but what can we do? This is the time to put our heads together and say what can we do? That’s really the essence of our thinking, that’s really our aim and what we are pushing for.
TN: Nqobile, tell us about your involvement and role that you are playing in this trust. What got you to jump onto this noble initiative?
NM: I support the trust as the secretary, just to make sure from an administrative perspective everything happens smoothly and from a constitution perspective one of the best impacts that happened was that soon after the lockdown, people who relied on day-to-day vending, selling, income-generation activities could no longer do that and the number of vulnerable people increased.
The first call by the Trust was the call for donations in terms of food.
I came on the Trust to help in the distribution of mealie-meal to a lot of vulnerable people.
There were old people’s homes that we donated to, and Musasa Project was also one of the beneficiaries.
TN: Lance, what’s been the response like from business? Are you happy with the response you are getting from business? Secondly, what would you want to see more coming from the business community to support this noble initiative?
LM: Trevor, as we speak to you right now, are you aware that there are nurses at Parirenyatwa who are demanding more assistance as far as remuneration is concerned?
People in the frontline are looking for things you and I forego, not the common things that we require, but in short, the response from the business community has been encouraging.
My call to the business community is, we can do more to help in the plight of doctors and nurses.
We are having some problems in Victoria Falls and Beitbridge where there are returnees. We would like just to call on the business community to assist wherever possible.
TN: As a businessman sitting at home, listening to you now, I would be asking: What is it that BFCT would want from me, what is it you want to see business jumping in with?
LM: Right now, we are joining hands with a hospital, but we are in immediate requirement of 10 beds.
At one of the hospitals under refurbishment, we require beds, ventilators and even foodstuffs.
If people are looking to donate they can donate in cash or directly in the area they would want to.
BFCT is a mobilisation tool and our intention is to mobilise resources and channelling them where they are needed.
We have a little bit of an insight of what is going on and our ability of channelling those resources where they are needed the most.
TN: Nqobile, if I could turn to you now. Do you have people coming to the organisation saying, could we have test kits or it is a question of you and members of the trust going out and finding out what it is that is required?
NM: At the beginning, soon after the lockdown, we had both happening.
We had people coming through and we also went out to identify those especially with the food needs.
We reached out to hospitals to give us lists of what they require in terms of PPE and other equipment and that’s the list we are using to look for donations from businesses.
TN: Dr Chirisa, obviously on the medical side, the issues relating to PPE that your colleagues have highlighted, there’s testing, the country is not testing enough, but I want to get a sense from you, when you sit as a trust, is there something you are doing in that regard and is the private sector coming in, in terms of testing?
The second issue is contact tracing. Is this an issue that the private sector is involved in? Lastly, the isolation centres, is there anything that you as a trust are doing when it comes to the isolation centres?
SC: When it comes to PPE this is the basis of ensuring the health service providers do not get infected and what we have seen in other places was a lot of cross-infection from patients to the service providers, there is a huge gap in terms of the PPE provisions.
We were speaking to one of the biggest hospitals in the country and they were saying they have PPE to last for two weeks.
The amount of PPE that is needed is really a lot so the PPE drive needs to be maintained.
Right now, the country at large, it seems as if the fear for Covid-19 has gone down, but as we can see the cases are going up, if we do not maintain the vigilance, the push, we might get ourselves in a reversal of situations.
I would really want to urge everybody to maintain vigilance even though we know that the economy is opened.
When it comes to testing, are we testing enough? Obviously the answer is no and the reason is the availability of the testing kits and the pricing of the testing kits even within the private sector.
Obviously they are doing what they can, but US$65 is quite inhibiting for most people especially at this current level, so the testing level is really behind.
What we have seen is that quite a number of corporates have started testing and that’s why you then see the testing figures going up.
TN: Dr Chirisa, the testing that is done in the private sector, is it included in the cumulative numbers that the government shares daily?
SC: Ideally when you test you are supposed to be given a certificate by the national lab.
When you go to the lab, they give access to the database so some of the figures you are seeing are actually a result of the testing that is being done in the private sector.
When it comes to the isolation centres, when they started they were very few, but in a very short time there is a massive proliferation of isolation centres in every district, we have the key isolation centres, but generally they are just so many.
TN: If there was one thing you would want them to jump around and address, what would it be?
SC: I will speak with bias, being a medical practitioner myself.
One thing we have noted is the remuneration of frontliners.
That, if it is not corrected, will put everything we are doing in jeopardy.
Some form of real substantial risk allowance, risk factor will be key in order to make sure that all these things we are doing are safeguarded because we are going to end up having the infrastructure without human resources.
LM: The inability of business to repay their loans as well as inability to provide working capital as well as their struggle to pay salaries. Government has done a lot in securing rentals, but rentals are just one aspect of the firm, but what happens to businesses?
There are a number of things that are fundamentally problematic; there are also some real-life issues we are dealing with on the business front.
l “In Conversation With Trevor” is a weekly show broadcast on YouTube.com//InConversationWithTrevor. Please get your free YouTube subscription to this channel. The conversations are sponsored by Titan Law.
