Police officers and other authorities enforcing the coronavirus lockdown measures can still demand exemption letters from citizens even under Level 2, a government official has said.
Nick Mangwana, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services said that police officers have the right to ask citizens for proof on where they will be going, for example, a death certificate when someone is travelling for a funeral. Said Mangwana:
We are still in lockdown but at a scaled-down level. Administratively, authorities policing the measures may ask for evidence of your right to be up and about or be going where you are going. That can be anything from death certificates for a funeral to exemption letters.
Mangwana’s statement, however, contradicts the government’s stated position that exemption letters are no longer needed under the relaxed measures.
In his special address to the nation on Friday, President Emmerson Mnangagwa announced that businesses may reopen provided employers provide rapid testing for their employees and social distance and sanitisation at their premises.