Chronicle Editor
Munyaradzi Musiiwa, Midlands Correspondent
MIDLANDS Province has released more than 300 returnees who came from South Africa and Botswana and were quarantined at Gweru Polytechnic and Mkoba Teachers’ Colleges in Gweru.
Midlands Social Welfare provincial officer, Mr George Mavhima told Sunday News the returnees who were released last week were provided with bus fare and travelling documents to enable them to get to their respective homes. The returnees had spent the stipulated 21 days in the centres, a requirement under the Covid-19 regulations to curb the spread of the virus.
“There are 112 returnees who were discharged from Gweru Polytechnic College, 180 have been discharged from Mkoba Teachers’ College and the other nine from other quarantine centres. We have also received $150 000 as bus fare that we are giving to returnees that would have been released from quarantine centres and we have so far disbursed more than $54 000. As a province, we have so far received a total of 591 returnees mostly from Botswana, Zambia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, Swaziland and South Africa,” he said on Friday.
Mr Mavhima said the province has also identified six quarantine centres as it prepares to move the returnees from schools and colleges in preparation for the schools opening. He said the province requires more than $15 million to refurbish and upgrade the new quarantine facilities.
“We have also identified other possible quarantine centres in the province as we prepare for schools opening. In Gweru we have Senga Training Centre which has a capacity of 70 people and in Zvishavane we have Dadaya.
We also have Kaguvi Training Centre which was identified for ex-convicts. We have also identified Nyamuroro Vocational Training Centre in Gokwe North. In Kwekwe we have identified Torwood Hospital which was initially an isolation centre. We have also identified Sebakwe Primary old site along Mvuma Road. We did our assessment and costs for the refurbishments and upgrading of the new centres. We need $4 million for Senga, almost $350 000 for Dadaya, about $3 million for Kaguvi, Nyamuroro requires about $4,8 million, Torwood about $ 3 million while Sebakwe $230 000 in order for them to be habitable,” he said.
Mr Mavhima said there was adequate food in quarantine centres that is being provided by the Government.
“We also had food challenges in the past few days. The arrangement we had was that the ministry (Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare) would deposit money so that all the quarantine centres will have food from OK Zimbabwe. Some of the money was not deposited but that has been rectified,” he said.
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