South African based company, Bigtime Strategic Group has extended assistance in the form of 1 100 food parcels to 400 Zimbabweans repatriated from that country.
In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, Zimbabwe has been receiving hundreds of nationals returning home to escape the hazards of the lockdown in their host countries.
BigTime will also distribute food parcels to the elderly and orphans in Gwanda, where the company’s Group Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Justice Maphosa, was born and raised.
The provisions – which include mealie-meal, rice, cake flour, sugar, cooking oil and beans and soap – would be distributed at the COVID-19 centres in Bulawayo and Harare.
“We gave away 1 100 food parcels, the 400 are for the people who are on the bus (from South Africa). When they finish, they will take some food parcels with them to share with their families. It covers 25kg mealie-meal, 2kg rice, 2kg sugar, 2litre cooking oil and soap. The same food items are for 700 people in my hometown, Gwanda. As I remember everyone who is struggling, I remember the people from the community that raised me,” Maphosa said in a statement.
Bigtime Strategic Group, headquartered in Pretoria also funded the hiring of buses to bring Zimbabweans back home, their food during the trip as well as Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) to the returnees while in quarantine in Zimbabwe
“The only criteria that is non-negotiable is the food set aside for the Gwanda community – is only for the elderly and the orphans, there must never be a mistake. By elderly, I mean someone who is a pensioner, with no other source of income and over the age of 60,” he added.
The company also donated 3 000 gloves and masks as well as sanitizers enough for all the returnees quarantined in Bulawayo and Harare.
“They will each receive one pair of gloves and a mask for each day they are in quarantine so that they are able to change them,” Maphosa said.
Bigtime is a diversified group of wholly-owned Black South African companies with business interests in the ICT sector.
The company is well known for organising Gwanda International Gospel Festival in the mining town where locals are treated to music from local and South African artists.
