THE hotel and catering industry is poised for a restart
following government’s licensing of private quarantine facilities countrywide,
particularly targeting self-sponsoring returnees, the NewsDay can reveal.
The development also comes as a relief to the Zimbabwean
government amid an outcry as its under-resourced isolation facilities struggle
with returnees already in the country.
Strict hygiene and security measures top the long list of
licensing prerequisites for potential players to be certified by authorities on
security, health, hotel and catering.
In an interview on Thursday the director of environmental
health in the Health ministry Victor Nyamandi said about 26 applications for
private quarantine facilities had to date been received from Harare, Bulawayo
and Victoria Falls.
More were expected from other parts of the country as the
Health ministry extended the new product to all provinces. This development
could signal the rise of the hotel and tourism industry from the
COVID-19-induced slumber.
“We have started processing licences for private
quarantines and these are from operators registered by the Zimbabwe Tourism
Authority. Premises to be approved should meet strict health and security
requirements that will be certified by government arms handling security and
health,” Nyamandi said.
“Business premises to be licensed must have adequate water
supplies, self-contained rooms for occupants who should be in their confinement
with individual or separate toilet facilities, well-ventilated, well-lit,
proper interior and exterior security, among several other strict
requirements,” Nyamandi said.
The facility should also have accommodation for government
security personnel on deployment and should not carry out any other business
that is not quarantine related, he added.
“All workers and guests at these premises should have
exclusive use of their personal protective equipment which should not be
shared,” Nyamandi said.
The centres must maintain registers of guests and their
destinations after the quarantine period. These guests are expected to fund their tests for COVID-19
after the quarantine period.
A private coronavirus test ranges from US$25 to $100. The
private quarantines are as a result of inquiries from Zimbabweans wishing to
return home from the world over but do not have faith in poorly-resourced
government-run facilities.
Centres such as Belvedere Teachers College are
under-resourced, with inmates living in deplorable conditions.
The first group of returnees housed at Belvedere requested
hotel accommodation at government’s expense which was then said to be out of
reach for the broke administration that has failed to cushion millions of
starving citizens, mostly in urban areas.
“We are not interfering with their pricing, but as we move
forward we are going to license more low-cost facilities to give returnees a
wider choice. We should bear in mind that these returnees are citizens of the
country like us and we cannot deny them choice,” Nyamandi said.
A Zimbabwean based in the United States, Kennias Chikerema
said he had already booked for accommodation with one of the first three hotels
to be registered.
“They have a variety of packages but I am worried about
what is quoted as an amount for COVID-19 tests, I think is way too high,” he
said.
The test was quoted at US$90. Newsday
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