The government has said the sudden tightening of lockdown measures by state security agents was not meant to frustrate essential and exempted workers but to ensure unnecessary movement of people is curtailed.
Since Monday this week, the police and army were reportedly barring people from access central business districts in major towns.
This is despite President Emmerson Mnangagwa opening the economy to the informal sector.
But Minister of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services, Monica Mutsvangwa yesterday told journalists that it was part of law enforcement measures to contain the spread of Covid-19.
“The prevalence of security checkpoints was consistent with the directive of the Covid-19 National Taskforce to ensure that people stay at home if they had no essential business to conduct,” said Mutsvangwa.
“We are also making sure to prevent gatherings. The President has announced that we are still at Level Two, which still prohibits big gatherings, beyond 50 people. As much as our President has opened the economy to make sure that industry operates, we still have to make sure that we do adhere to the containment measures, otherwise the disease will spread. And we are still telling our people to stay at home, and only go out there when it is very important,” said Mutsvangwa.
“What the police is doing is in line with what the taskforce has put in place and we are all singing from the same hymn book. If there are particular cases being referred to, we would be interested as a ministry to get that information so that we can deal with that particular case. Otherwise we still stand with the containment measures of level two,” she added.
Police and the army were at some roadblocks turning back people, in some instances even those with letters of exemption.
National police spokesperson, Assistant Commissioner Paul Nyathi attributed the increased presence of police and other security details to the need to prevent unnecessary movement of people.
“We have to remind people that we are still under lockdown, and we have realised that there are many people that simply want to do their business in town when they are not in essential services.
“That is why we have had the situations we have had in the past few days,” Ass Comm Nyathi said.
He appealed to members of the public to avoid unnecessary movements and to cooperate with security forces as they do their job.
Nyathi said anyone who had grievances with the conduct of the police was free to approach senior officers for redress.
