Times of COVID-19 Pandemic and its Impact: Rethinking the Public Sector Practices in Zimbabwe.

International Journal of Research and Scientific Innovation (IJRSI) | Volume IX, Issue II, February 2022 | ISSN 2321–2705

Times of COVID-19 Pandemic and its Impact: Rethinking the Public Sector Practices in Zimbabwe.

Zvimekria Clive Mukushwa¹, Enock Chikohora^2
1 Ph.D candidate in Local Governance Studies, Midlands State University, Gweru, Zimbabwe
² Lecturer: Department of Peace, Leadership and Conflict Resolution, Zimbabwe Open University, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe

Abstract
The public sector is widely recognised as one of the strategic providers of goods and services to ameliorate public welfare. Besides this, the public sector also formulates and implements macro-socio-economic policies to create a predictable, consistent and transparent investment climate. However, the advent of COVID-19 pandemic abruptly in late 2019 in China has undoubtedly reconfigured the traditional working landscape of the public sector internationally. Zimbabwe is no exception. One ponders how Zimbabwe weathered to this magnitude global catastrophe to be ahead of the curve and stay operational since its traditional practice were almost made redundant. There is still paucity of literature on COVID-19 pandemic and public sector governance. Hence, this paper assessed the impact of COVID-19 pandemic and government regulations to the public sector practices in Zimbabwe. It also evaluated the efficacy of COVID-19 preventative measures in suppressing the virus. This paper was largely qualitative study hinged on document analytic approach and snap survey. This paper argued that for public sector institutions to cope with the ‘new normal’, they should strategically rethink its philosophy of public sector practices. Analysis of recent literature that show that this global threat has unprecedentedly forced the government to trim its workforce to work physically and deferment of development projects as well as caused deaths of critical expertise and loss of revenue, among others. Debatably, the advent of COVID-19 pandemic is a wake-up call for Zimbabwe to learn some critical lessons and insights to capitalise on new opportunities presented to modernise its practice. Even though innovative digital strategies were adopted minimally, this paper further recommends that the public sector institutions should strengthen the espousal of contemporary digital systems sustainably to stay afloat in hard times of this crisis and post-COVID-19 bane.

Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic, Public Sector Practices, Government regulations, Zimbabwe.

Introduction
Public sector entails governments and all publicly controlled or publicly funded agencies, enterprises, and other entities that deliver public programs, goods or services (The Institute of Internal Auditors, 2011). In our context, they include ministries, parastatals, departments and agencies. In Zimbabwe, the public sector has a chequered history with footprints that dates back to pre-colonial era, which means the public has travelled through various phases of reformations to improve its effectiveness and response to prevailing international best practices. During the colonial era, the public sector was largely designed to benefit the white minority at the expense of African indigenous community (Chimbowu, 2010). The attainment of political independence in 1980 witnessed the introduction of legal, institutional and policy frameworks to reform the nature of the inherited public sector systems which was characterised by segregation. As observed by Betchoo, 2016 & Therkildsen (2001), the earlier public sector reforms were aimed to spearhead socio-economic development to benefit the previously peripherised black indigenous citizens. These reforms did not happen to Zimbabwe only, but in other African countries that were trying to recover from decades of colonisation. The public sector reformations were also inspired by the New Public Management model (Larbi, 1998 & Hood, 1991). New Public Management was designed to cut public sector costs, ensure private sector-style of management practices are applied to increase flexibility in decision-making, competition in the public sector (through term contracts and tendering) must be increased, decentralisation of powers and responsibilities to increase competition amongst them and explicit standards and performance measures must be established. The Public Sector Reform (PSR) implemented globally was also a vehicle to improve performance, mostly through improving state capability to sustainably generate and distribute public goods (Gwata-Charamba, 2020). More so, the adoption of Economic Structural Adjustment Programmes (ESAPs) around 1990s to liberalise the economic structures among other issues also immensely contributed to public sector reforms (Brotchwey, Collier, Gunning & Hamada, 1998). Thus, the sector of public institution prior to the advent of COVID-19 pandemic (coronavirus disease) should be understood within this historical context in Zimbabwe.

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