GWANDA – Matabeleland South Provincial Affairs Minister Abednico Ncube and several top civil servants in the province have gone into isolation after testing positive for Covid-19.
Ncube was conspicuous by his absence at the burial of the late Rabelani Choeni, the party’s provincial chairman who succumbed to Covid-19 related complications at his Beitbridge home last Friday.
Zanu PF Politburo member Aaron Maboyi and his wife, the deputy minister of home affairs Ruth Maboyi, were the only notable Zanu PF officials who attended Choeni’s burial conducted by health workers from the ministry of health.
“Ncube is not well, he’s in isolation after testing positive for Covid-19, but he’s recovering,” a Zanu PF official said at the event on Tuesday.
Ncube was not returning calls and messages left on his phone had not been answered.
Top Zanu PF officials in the province have embarked on restructuring exercises, conducting meetings in defiance of Covid-19 regulations.
Provincial Development Coordinator Latiso Dlamini, whose office is in the same building with Ncube’s, is also out of office fighting the virus.
Matabeleland South has seen a surge in Covid-19 cases and deaths since the beginning of this month.
A disease surveillance report released by officials from the Ministry of Health indicates that in Gwanda, for every hundred people tested, one in four was positive.
At least 40 people succumbed to the virus since the beginning of the month.
Zimbabwe’s government on Tuesday ordered all its workers to take a Covid-19 vaccine. Only 10 percent of civil servants should work from offices, with the rest working from home in a bid to curb the spread of the virus.
