MM Business consultants

On the February 11, 2020, WHO officially declared COVID-19 a global pandemic making it a public health emergency of international concern. The Government of Zimbabwe responded by placing a series of extraordinary measures and Statutory Instruments to combat the pandemic. Some of the extraordinary measures introduced by the President to combat COVID-19 had impacts on the general public, business and everyone in the Zimbabwe.

Authorities in Zimbabwe responded with drastic measures after the first confirmed COVID-19 case in mid-March 2020, closing borders, schools, limiting travel and prohibiting most group functions. However, the impact of the pandemic in Zimbabwe thereafter remained unclear. Well its been two years now and people have learned to survive in this pandemic but a lot had to compromise innovate and come up with new ideas to survive thus people have adapted to both hindrances put together by the government and the corona virus.

As is known that pandemics cause a short-term fiscal impact and a long-term economic impact on the nations around the world. Efforts to curb the pandemic include imposing quarantine, preparing health facilities, isolating infectious cases, and tracing contacts involving public health resources, human resources and implementation costs. It also involves health system expenditures to provide health facilities to infectious cases and the arrangement of consumables such as antibiotics, medical supplies, and personal protective equipment.

Public finances have been negatively affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. The closing of economies and reduced lending opportunities has decreased the value of local currencies making repayment of dollar-denominated debt harder with the Zimbabwean currency loosing currency as of now it makes repayment of national debts eve more costly. Governments are also facing a fiscal deficit due to increased social protection expenditure for the unemployed and poor and reduced tax revenues. The debt from Covid-19 is different from that of the financial crisis of the 1980s or 2007–08 and will not be explainable through the international development paradigm.

Digitalization

A positive impact of COVID-19 on third world economies has been the increase in digitalization. With the increasing threat of infection transmission through physical contact, the virtual space of transactions has gained popularity . The chance of its spread through social contact has accelerated online working platforms and digitally organized logistics. With online transactions and digital platforms for work, there is an opportunity to develop a centralized database that can serve as an economic asset. It has become essential to be a part of the global digital drive for improved socio-economic fortunes and mitigate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic through digitalization All though with data Tariff in Zimbabwe are the main limiting factor to this advancements

ECONOMIC IMPLICATIONS OF CORONA VIRUS WHERE

• Increased unemployment and retrenchments
• decline business profits and revenue mainly as a result of lock downs
• decline in provision of public services like water supply and waste management probably because of strain in the public funds

The unprecedented effects of the pandemic on the already pressured economy cannot be overstated. According to a statement issued by the Finance Minister during his presentation of the mid-term budget and economic review, July 2016, Zimbabwe’s economy is set to shrink by 4.5% GDP growth in 2020 against an initial budget projection of 3% growth due to negative impacts of COVID-19 (Xinhua, 2020a, 2020b). The outbreak of the coronavirus stands to bring the world into a recession, with the current growth in sub-Saharan Africa, Zimbabwe included, already significantly impacted and is forecast to fall sharply from 2.4% in 2019 to − 2.1 to − 5.1% in 2020, bringing the region into its first recession over the past 25 years (World Bank, 2020). According to the World Bank, 2020 report, the region is set to lose between US$37 billion and US$79 billion in output losses as governments come up with measures to cover COVID-19 costs.