The Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Professor Mthuli Ncube has revealed that Government is assessing and calculating figures to measure the impact of the Covid-19 and subsequent lockdown on the economy.
He said this during the post cabinet press briefing at Munhumutapa offices yesterday.
“We are working out on the cost of the pandemic as we see things. It’s not an easy exercise, the channels of exercise are numerous. We have got the impact of the prevention measures which is the lockdown and social distancing,” said Ncube.
The Minister said the tourism sector has also been impacted negatively by the absence of arrivals.
“There is a channel through tourism and that sector has been impacted by the absence of foreign travel and also the airlines which are not flying. It is quite a complex exercise so we are working on that and we have just extended two weeks of the lockdown, we are factoring that in mind and we will be able to share in the fullness of time what that cost is.”
He said this will mean targeted growth figures will be revised and forecast from the IMF and World Bank shows Zimbabwe will be affected.
“We have to revise our growth figures. What has been done so far for the whole sub- Sahara region from the World Bank and IMF is growth of an average of -1, 5% so those are the growth figures that we kind of expect in Zimbabwe. They could be slightly worse or better. We should expect an impact, once we have concluded the impact of the pandemic we will be able to revise.” said Ncube
The Covid-19 has brought most economic activities to a standstill thereby affecting an already ailing Zimbabwean economy.
