The government has given the green light to restaurants to open for selling take-away food in their licensed hours, without having to close at 4.30 pm as is the case with other businesses.
Responding to a question raised at the National Taskforce on COVID-19 press briefing in Harare on Monday, Attorney-General Prince Machaya revealed that restaurants were not covered under the COVID-19 working hours for non-essential formal businesses since they were providing an essential service. He said:
The situation regarding restaurants is governed by Statutory Instrument 83 published on March 28.
The whole objective of this provision was to ensure that there were food outlets open to serve those people considered to be an essential service under the lockdown order in question, who may need to buy food at varying hours of the day.
And implicit in that provision was that restaurants can operate within their permitted hours as per their operating licences.
Machaya said restaurants were not covered by the hours (8 AM – 4:30 PM) introduced under level 2 of the national lockdown for ordinary formal businesses.
The 8 AM – 4:30 PM working hours apply to businesses in the formal commercial and industrial sector that are not essential service.