Ngoni Dapira

MUTARE’s leading manufacturing firm, Mega Market, last week became the first local company to really feel the potential adverse threat of covid-19 on business, after it was forced to completely shutdown operations when confirmed positive cases of the global pandemic were identified among some of its employees.

The fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) production and distribution company last week Friday underwent a thorough three-day disinfection exercise that ended on Sunday. The disinfection exercise, which was funded by the company was conducted by officials from the Ministry of Health and Child Care and City of Mutare. This followed the confirmation of six covid-19 positive cases among its employees.

Mega Market (Pvt) Ltd aerial view.

Mega Market human resources manager Keven Munhenga confirmed that their company that employs over 500 employees including contractors, closed for three days last week from Friday to Sunday. He said it was a total shutdown of all departments with no exceptions, to show how serious the company values the health safety of its employees and stakeholders.

However, after the three days as recommended by the Ministry of Health and City of Mutare Health department officials, the company reopened on Monday. Munhenga could not put monetary value on the business loss but admitted that closure for three days only was evidently  strenuous on their  operations.

“I might not be able to have monetary value of the amount of business lost. But what I can only say is that we had a lot of orders that our customers were waiting for, but we had to put business at stand still so that we give priority to the disinfection exercise. But indeed business was lost, however for us we didn’t read much into it because our goal was to guarantee maximum safety to our employees, customers and stakeholders,” said Munhenga in a telephone interview with Easterntimeszim on Wednesday.

He however said disinfection will now be an ongoing exercise. “Depending with the places, some we will have to disinfect everyday as we leave work. For instance the canteen area needs frequent disinfection because it is a place where every employee goes at least twice a day. So it’s important to disinfect there after every meal, but for our offices because they are very much decongested and we are not taking visitors we are disinfecting once,” he said.

Disinfection inside the offices.

Munhenga said it is encouraging that except for the six, all other employees that were tested for covid-19 came out negative and are ready to come back to work when their eight days of self-isolation are over. He said those in administration have been working from home.

“We had six confirmed cases and out of the six only one was sick or had symptoms. All the six were put in isolation by the Ministry of Health working together with the City of Mutare. Their welfare and wellness together with their contact tracing is being managed by the Ministry of Health and City of Mutare. As a company we are working with them to ensure that all the standards and recommendations are met,” said the HR manager.

To ensure combating the pandemic Munhenga said the company has intensified mandatory temperature checking at the gate for everyone entering, mandatory wearing of face masks on its premises for everyone, mandatory hand sanitization on entrances of all warehouses and administration offices and RDT (rapid diagnostic tests) testing for every employee every week.

City of Mutare director health services Dr Antony Mutara said for all institutions where covid 19 positive cases are recorded, disinfection is now a mandatory continuous process.

“For mass disinfection of institutions we are using a chemical called hydrogen peroxide, but for the regular cleaning of hands that is where alcohol based sanitizers can be used. Where there are known positive covid-19 cases, it’s now mandatory for us to disinfect or oversee the disinfection process, be it a private company or government institution. Even where organisations have been doing their own disinfection, we have to inspect standard procedures and systems,” said Dr Mutara.

Dr Mutara also urged residents to report cases of homes that are not disinfected after confirmed covid-19 positive cases would have been recorded. He said disinfection is important to combat further infection of other people who will be at risk if they touch surfaces touched by the covid 19 positive patients.

“Most companies have been doing screening tests in the form of rapid diagnostic tests but given the upsurge in covid-19 cases they should use PCR test kits especially in high risk areas like what was done at Mega Market, which is why we allowed it to open,” he said.

On the other hand, Mutare Government Complex was also on Saturday closed for disinfection of the premises after an unstipulated number of employees tested positive to Covid-19. Easterntimeszim could not get details of the actual number of positive employees by time of going to press. However a communique put up this week told employees that every Friday disinfection would be done as a precautionary measure which means employees will work from home, showing how serious the matter is.

The complex houses several Government departments, including the Office of the Minister of State for Manicaland Affairs and Devolution. As of Wednesday Manicaland has so far recorded 206 covid-19 positive cases with seven new cases, of which six were locally transmitted and one foreign. 128 active covid-19 cases, 71 recoveries and seven deaths. The seventh death was recorded on Tuesday of a 79 years old male from Mutare. Manicaland is now the province with the third highest number of deaths in the country after Harare (39) and Bulawayo (21) respectively.

Mutare’s Mega Market staff receiving the Investment of the Year award from the Minister of State for Manicaland Provincial Affairs and Devolution Dr Ellen Gwaradzimba at the ZNCC Manicaland business awards last year.

The Mutare based fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) distribution company Mega Market (Pvt) Ltd has over the years grown to become one of the largest distributors in the country.Although there were a few existing warehouses at the old COTTCO plant bought by Mega Market, the company has over the years built more modern warehouse facilities such as the 1000sm warehouse for rice packaging, 3000sm for rice storage, 2000sm for the rice packing plant, 11000sm for general storage of goods, 40-foot reefer containers for the storage of frozen and chilled products as well as a milling plant where they are milling mealie meal. He added that a wheat mill is in the process of being constructed for flour production set to soon begin.

Some of the Mega Market products

The covid-19 threat on business closure is a global concern. Unemployment across Europe has risen due to the coronavirus pandemic with airline companies and the automobile sector making some of the biggest job cuts. In Zimbabwe the tourism sector was the most affected, but with the increase in local transmission cases in the past month, manufacturing companies are at high risk of shutting down especially those with congested, labour intensive operations.