Category: News Feeds

Professor Stephen Bainbridge is quick to point out that he’s “no Darth Vader” when it comes to internal Federalist Society politics, but the UCLA professor is still eager to pass along some of the worst ideas circulating. So maybe it’s more fair to cast him as the Kylo Ren of this operation — just out in Darth Vader cosplay taking all the wrong lessons from Vader’s arc.

As with everything these days, this is a tale about COVID-19, a subject where a Corporations professor is decidedly not an expert. But he’s got takes!

Dude, he can’t even get the animals right. While the “bat” still enjoys a lot of play in the right-wing echo chamber, the prevailing wisdom is that it was pangolin consumption that carried the disease to humans. Regardless of the specific animal, despite the fervent desire among the American right-wing to construct the pandemic as the result of “backward” cultural forces in China, most Chinese citizens are already in favor of regulating or banning this practice and far from a “traditionalist” practice, the market for these goods suggest that wildlife consumption is increasingly the domain of the upwardly mobile classes flaunting wealth. In a sense, it’s not too different from the American hunting culture where it’s the wealth management VPs dressing in designer camo to take down walking venison steaks.

While trafficking in “oooh, they eat wild animals” tropes may conveniently distract from the role economic liberalization and a dangerous commitment to small government and slashed public health expenditures played in all this, it’s not particularly informative except as a means of scapegoating an other for eating “the bad wild animals” as opposed to Americans who eat “the good wild animals.” Which are good animals because we kill them with our constitutional rights, obviously.

But he thought Twitter might be a good place to muse that his Chinese students may have given him COVID-19:

No one else at the school got sick, but he still thought despite this that it was worthy of posting to a public forum that one of his Chinese students might have given him the virus. Let that sink in. As a matter of professional judgment, he thought it was a good idea to suggest that students at the school were spreading the disease even though he had no evidence to support this claim and, admittedly, compelling evidence that it wasn’t true.

Except they were Chinese, so… here we are.

As he maintains, Bainbridge is no Darth Vader. He didn’t come up with this xenophobic shorthand. He just passes it along through his feed. But it’s almost as if the original source of the bad idea isn’t as troubling as those who choose to continue spreading it without thinking about it. If only there were some sort of scientific corollary to someone acting as a vector to spread something so we could see how repeating bad ideas is as problematic as being the original source.

Barring that sort of instructive analogy, maybe just don’t go around Tweeting accusations about students.

Blaming China for coronavirus isn’t just dangerous. It misses the point [The Guardian]

Earlier: Law School Profs Throw Fit On Twitter Over Having To Answer Basic Reporter Questions

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Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

Hey, all you cool cats and kittens! How was your weekend? I sure hope it was relaxing and you were able to put a pin in all of the bad news the pandemic has brought to your door. But whether you had a great holiday weekend or if you (understandably) couldn’t put the creeping horror to bed for the weekend, more Biglaw austerity news is sure to ruin your Monday morning vibe.

The latest firm to enact cost-cutting measures is Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton. The Biglaw firm notched $450,324,000 in 2018 gross revenue, making it 78th in the 2019 Am Law 200 ranking. But as we’ve repeatedly seen during the COVID-19 economic downturn, no amount of previous success can really insulate you from cash flow concerns during the pandemic.

So what, exactly, is going down at Kilpatrik? The firm is cutting partner draws by 10 percent. Associates and other attorneys are seeing a 5 percent pay cut. Hourly staff members are having their hours trimmed by 20 percent. Staff who cannot work remotely have been furloughed.

The firm reportedly had the following to say about the “proactive” cost-cutting measures:

“We have decided to take some proactive steps to adjust our expenses that we feel are prudent under these circumstances,” Kilpatrick said in the statement. “On the financial front, we are a fiscally conservative firm that is well-positioned to work our way through this challenging time.”

Kilpatrick is making the cash-conserving pay reductions after a healthy fiscal performance in 2019 that the 640-lawyer firm said extended through the first quarter of this year. “We had a very strong first quarter and were running at full speed before the pandemic,” it said in the statement.

“We, like most if not all law firms, anticipate that our revenues will decrease as a result of the economic turmoil that the COVID-19 global health crisis is causing. Our goal is to find the best way to build a bridge over the anticipated economic downturn and come out strong on the other side,” the firm’s statement said.

The good news, such as it is, is that the firm has established a hardship fund where employees who need additional assistance during the global pandemic can apply for moneys. A reduced-hours schedule is also available for “anyone having challenges working a full schedule in a remote-working environment.”

If your firm or organization is slashing salaries, closing its doors, or reducing the ranks of its lawyers or staff, whether through open layoffs, stealth layoffs, or voluntary buyouts, please don’t hesitate to let us know. Our vast network of tipsters is part of what makes Above the Law thrive. You can email us or text us (646-820-8477).

If you’d like to sign up for ATL’s Layoff Alerts, please scroll down and enter your email address in the box below this post. If you previously signed up for the layoff alerts, you don’t need to do anything. You’ll receive an email notification within minutes of each layoff, salary cut, or furlough announcement that we publish.

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Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

The former New England Patriots and current Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback, Tom Brady, has filed a couple of trademark applications with the United States Patent and Trademark Office that are generating quite a bit of buzz. Brady has filed to register the marks “TOMPA BAY” and “TAMPA BRADY” with the stated intention for use with the sale of clothing, headwear, and footwear.

Brady filed the applications under his corporate entity, TEB CAPITAL MANAGEMENT, INC., which has successfully applied for and registered numerous “TB12” trademarks that cover commercial use for everything from dried fruit and nut-based energy food bars to bedsheets. He also previously failed miserably in an attempt to register the mark “TOM TERRIFIC” for use with apparel, trading cards, and posters.

Brady said that he regretted filing to register the “TOM TERRIFIC” mark after many people expressed anger that the name instead belongs to Hall of Fame pitcher Tom Seaver. He also admitted that it was a “good lesson learned” and that he would “try to do things a little different in the future.”

Filing trademark applications to register “TOMPA BAY” and “TAMPA BRADY” is Brady’s first attempt to do things a little differently with regard to boosting his intellectual property portfolio. Has he learned from his mistakes of the past?

When Brady filed to register “TOM TERRIFIC” he did so only in an attempt to prevent others from using it. In fact, he indicated that he did not like the nickname and did not truly have an intent to use it in commerce. Thus, Brady tacitly acknowledged that he filed the trademark applications for an improper purpose.

An applicant must demonstrate a bona fide use of a mark in commerce for a trademark application to progress from pending status to becoming registered. While an applicant has the right to file an intent-to-use application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the application means little to nothing if it never becomes registered, and it cannot be registered unless the applicant eventually offers a statement of use that demonstrates the applied for mark being used in commerce in connection with the goods or services listed in the application.

While Brady apparently never intended to actually use “TOM TERRIFIC” in commerce, he seems to be genuinely interested in receiving registrations for “TOMPA BAY” and “TAMPA BRADY,” even joking with New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees that he never understood why Brees was not making Drew Orleans shirts. This time, people are not taking issue that Brady is palming off another person’s notoriety, as was the case with “TOM TERRIFIC,” but Brady is still the butt of many jokes surrounding the filings.

Gotham Sports Network associate editor Brett Herskowitz tweeted, “Anyone who wears a ‘Tompa Bay’ shirt deserves to be shunned from society.”

Jokes aside, Brady has a strong likelihood of succeeding on registering his two new filings. That is true even though The Dan Patrick Show had been selling “TOMPA BAY” T-shirts on its official website prior to Brady’s filings and despite two individuals applying to register the mark “TOMPA BAY” before Brady submitted his paperwork with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

On March 18, an Arizona man named Todd Borowsky filed an intent-to-use trademark application to register “TOMPA BAY” for use with athletic apparel. On March 31, a Florida man named Vincent Scotti also filed to register the mark with intended use in conjunction with the sale of hats and shirts. Each application, while it remains pending, could stall Brady’s filing from proceeding. The examining attorney who is eventually assigned to Brady’s “TOMPA BAY” filing could issue a Suspension Notice that would stall the filing while Borowsky’s and Scotti’s applications are reviewed. However, neither Borowsky’s nor Scotti’s application has any real chance of success.

An example of why neither Borowsky nor Scotti should succeed comes by way of NBA veteran Jeremy Lin, who was affiliated with the term “LINSANITY.” Another individual jumped the gun and tried to register “LINSANITY” for use with eyeglasses and lenses. The examining attorney at the United States Patent and Trademark Office rejected his application for the same reasons that examining attorneys, once they are assigned to the applications filed by Borowsky and Scotti, will likely discard the previously filed “TOMPA BAY” applications.

With “LINSANITY,” the examining attorney refused registration because the mark included a name of a particular living individual (Jeremy Lin) whose written consent to register the mark was not of record and because the mark falsely suggested a connection with Lin.

“[T]he term LINSANITY points uniquely and unmistakably to Jeremy Lin and the phenomenon surrounding his accomplishments,” stated the examining attorney’s Office Action. “Therefore, goods bearing the term LINSANITY will be associated with Jeremy Lin because he is so well-known that the public would assume a connection.”

It would be very surprising if Borowsky and Scotti do not receive similar Office Actions, rejecting their applications because of a false connection and a lack of Brady’s consent to register the mark. Brady is more well known to the general public than Lin and “TOMPA BAY” is unmistakingly connected to Brady. There is no prior pending application for “TAMPA BRADY,” and thus Brady should have no issue receiving a registration for that mark once the application progresses and a statement of use is submitted.

Similarly, Dan Patrick’s use of the mark in commerce should not lead an examining attorney to refuse Brady’s “TOMPA BAY” filing based on a likelihood of confusion with Patrick’s sale of apparel. This would be true for the same reasons set forth above. Patrick could be alleged to have been using a mark that is so connected to Brady that Brady’s consent is required. Further, there is arguably a false connection being made.

That said, hopefully Brady did learn some good lessons from the “TOM TERRIFIC” filing and makes the choose to not be a trademark bully with Patrick.

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Darren Heitner is the founder of Heitner Legal. He is the author of How to Play the Game: What Every Sports Attorney Needs to Know, published by the American Bar Association, and is an adjunct professor at the University of Florida Levin College of Law. You can reach him by email at heitner@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter at @DarrenHeitner.

Law students and legal educators continue pushing states to consider alternatives to trying to jam a bunch of applicants through a ramshackle Fall bar exam period and it looks like one state has heard the call.

After appeals by Utah Law dean Elizabeth Kronk Warner and BYU’s Gordon Smith, Utah is looking to adopt a model that’s come to be called “diploma privilege plus.” Under the proposed order, which is undergoing a public comment period right now, grads from ABA-accredited law schools “that posted a first-time bar passage rate on last July’s exam of 86 percent or higher” will be eligible to be admitted in Utah without taking the bar exam. Per Law.com:

To qualify for the diploma privilege, they must have graduated between May 2019 and June 2020, not have previously sat for a bar exam, and already been registered to take the July exam in Utah by April 1. They also must complete 360 hours of legal work under the supervision of an attorney licensed in the state by the end of the year to be admitted to practice.

The case for the bar exam as a licensing tool is somewhat dubious. Why, exactly, test subject matter mastery in a system that requires applicants to already have a degree from an accredited law school? Granting that there may be law schools out there that don’t deserve accreditation — a problem exacerbated by conservative legal activists challenging the ABA’s standards — this is one of those cases where you don’t fix the burnt-out bulb by buying a new chandelier. If law schools aren’t up to snuff, fix the law schools, don’t keep us chained to a redundant exam designed for an era before law schools were really a thing.

This crisis offers legal education a crossroads moment to figure out what our ideal model of education and licensure looks like. This is a temporary step, but it’s giving Utah an opportunity to see if maybe there’s a better way to structure the profession. Every jurisdiction should be so open-minded.

Utah Poised to Let Law Grads Skip the Bar Exam Amid COVID-19 Pandemic [Law.com]

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Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

As we all know, the coronavirus can’t stop Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg from hitting the gym with her trainer. But just imagine if the Notorious RBG were like everyone else and had to try to squeeze in her workouts at home while under quarantine and practicing social distancing.

Having trouble? Kate McKinnon of Saturday Night Live at Home can help you out. This weekend, she portrayed the SCOTUS justice in “RBG’s Workout Corner,” where she handed out helpful tips and tricks to stay fit and healthy and demanded that Dr. Anthony Fauci slide into her DMs. Check it out, below:

In all seriousness, stay safe and be well, Justice Ginsburg. We need you.

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Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

The models show the number of deaths due to COVID-19 in the United States reaching their apex. We may have successfully flattened the curve, and fewer people may die in the United States than anticipated. (I’m still deeply concerned about the developing world, but that’s another story.)

President Donald Trump says that he’ll restart the economy quickly, and he’d like to restart it all at once. Once again, he’s smoking something. But perhaps slowly, after we get widespread testing in place, we can restart parts of the economy, maybe in late May or June. There may then be a second wave of disease, of course, but perhaps something resembling an end (or at least a pause, until COVID-19 resurfaces in the winter) will soon appear on the horizon.

So today I’m asking: What about pent-up demand? Will that help the law? Affect public health? Fundamentally change the economy?

In the law, I’m not sure that you’ll see too much pent-up demand. For the past couple of months, COVID-19 has raised lots of questions about employment law, landlord-tenant issues, and defaults on loan covenants. But that’s not where Biglaw’s bread is buttered. Litigation has fallen off, and mergers and acquisitions have died as corporations (and private equity firms) conserved capital.

Litigation will be able to start up again, perhaps in June or July, as courts reopen and folks can travel. But we lost the months from March through (maybe) June. That’s a big chunk of the year, and I doubt that pent-up demand will offset the loss. Litigators won’t be taking two depositions simultaneously; hours lost in March and April won’t be worked in July and August.

Transactional work will begin only very slowly. Corporations and private equity firms will continue to hoard their cash as we wait to see how the disease unfolds. No one is going on a spending spree.

Pent-up demand won’t help the law very much.

What about fields of which I’m ignorant? (Ignorance has never stopped me from making predictions before, and I’m not going to let it stop me now.)

How about pent-up demand in medicine?

No one with any sense has visited the doctor for routine medical issues in the past six weeks. That’s an awful lot of untreated high blood pressure, diabetes, asthma, and all the other routine ills that have been displaced by the virus.  People who have lost their jobs may not have had money to pay for medications. I hope we don’t see an increase in routine morbidity as we see a decrease in the extraordinary mortality caused by COVID-19.

How about the economy as a whole?

Many people who have lost their jobs will take a while to get back to work.  You won’t find your quick spending there.

Even those who kept their jobs will not replace all of the lost spending:  When you’re allowed to go out to eat again, many people may choose to do so. But I don’t think they’ll be eating extra meals out to replace the uneaten restaurant meals of the past few weeks. People who have been working from home in their pajamas probably won’t be giving unspent cash to the local dry cleaner.  The cruise ship industry could be slow for a long, long time. People who deferred buying an appliance won’t now buy two to make up for the loss.  There’s an awful lot of deadweight loss to the economy that will never be made up.

And what, I wonder, about the massive national debt that we’ve incurred?

Half of me says that we’re due for deflation: Unemployment is way up; spending is way down; this is a recipe for prices to decline.

But the other half of me says that the federal government is spending money like there’s no tomorrow. We’ve now incurred an extra couple of trillion in national debt. We’ve heaped that debt onto a federal government that already couldn’t afford to pay its bills. How the heck is the federal government (and the state governments) going to cope with that burden?

If you were thinking practically, one word would answer the question:  Inflation.

One way to pay back trillions in debt is to inflate the currency so that the trillions you pay back tomorrow are worth only millions in today’s dollars.

If so, that’s dangerous news for folks on fixed incomes or approaching retirement: A fixed income will be worth less as inflation eats away at purchasing power, and the millions one saved for retirement will be worth only pennies in today’s dollars after the inflation is through.

Maybe we get deflation in the short term and inflation in the long term?

I’m not sure about any of this, of course. I’m not even qualified to speculate about it.

But I’m allowed to scratch my head. And unusual times, coupled with ample time to think, trigger some unusual thoughts.

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Mark Herrmann spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and is now deputy general counsel at a large international company. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Drug and Device Product Liability Litigation Strategy (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at inhouse@abovethelaw.com.

* Michael Avenatti has been temporarily cut loose from prison amid COVID-19 concerns. Avenatti is prohibited from using a computer during his release, so I guess he won’t be sending me another email anytime soon. [AP]

* 3M alleges in a new lawsuit that a company charged 600 times the ordinary price for N95 respirators. [MSN]

* The Kansas Supreme Court has upheld the governor’s executive order limiting the size of religious services. [NPR]

* Fox News is facing a lawsuit in Washington State alleging that it violated the law when it called COVID-19 a “hoax” in February and March. [Forbes]

* Many attorneys are stepping up and offering pro bono services amid the COVID-19 pandemic. [New York Post]

* Julian Assange fathered two children with his lawyer while holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. They must have some interesting ethics rules overseas… [Reuters]

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Jordan Rothman is a partner of The Rothman Law Firm, a full-service New York and New Jersey law firm. He is also the founder of Student Debt Diaries, a website discussing how he paid off his student loans. You can reach Jordan through email at jordan@rothmanlawyer.com.

Zanu PF has spent 40 years honing their model, which has hardly changed despite the army coup against Mugabe. And they are not going to change their methods now. Why shoud they if they are working?

The other day the British Embassy urged all UK citizens in Zimbabwe to return home immediately even though the daily death toll from the coronavirus here was now touching 1,000 and Zimbabwe’s Deputy Information Minister Energy Mutodi claims that the probability of coronavirus gaining a foothold in Zimbabwe is ‘next to zero’. (See: https://www.zimeye.net/2020/04/09/mutodi-pours-cold-water-on-chamisas-unwise-suggestion/.)

A bold claim and we would be relieved if it came true. But we doubt it, especially given Zimbabwe’s inadequate medical service and that so many people are malnourished and without adequate water or the capacity to self-isolate to prevent infection, which appears to have been the key to fighting off the virus everywhere else.

The government has been criticised for approving the use of traditional herbal treatment for coronavirus patients. We would not scoff at traditional medicine but note that Dr Nyika Mahachi, the President of the Zimbabwe College of Public Health Physicians, said the government’s decision was unwelcome and that it was important to stick to the World Health Organisation guidelines on how to contain the virus (see: https://www.voanews.com/science-health/coronavirus-outbreak/zimbabwes-government-says-herbal-treatment-ok-covid-19).

The reality is that, even if the government is serious about the pandemic, it does not have much room to manoeuvre, given that the International Monetary Fund says that Zimbabwe only has US$109 million in foreign exchange reserves – enough for only one week’s imports – because the virus threatens tobacco sales, the second biggest source of foreign exchange (see: https://www.zimbabwesituation.com/news/zimbabwe-dollar-zwl-usd-news-fx-shortage-to-worsen-on-virus/).

While the United Nations tries to raise money to feed Zimbabwe, it is disturbing to read of the all-too-familiar tactics by Zanu PF to hijack a social welfare programme funded by the World Bank to cushion informal traders against the lockdown (see: https://www.zimbabwesituation.com/news/zanu-pf-hijacks-wold-bank-funds/).

Of course the country’s main source of revenue is mining but this has for long been under the control of the military and the Zanu PF bigwigs. An article by Kudzai Chimhangwa in Open Democracy gives a useful update on the looted resources behind the Zimbabwe emergency – money which could have saved us from the looming disaster (see: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/will-zimbabwes-diamonds-be-forever-a-glimpse-into-a-nations-resource-rich-curse/).

Of one thing you can be sure: the military will be able to keep order whatever happens. They have all the bullets necessary. And they have the support of SADC and AU and the embrace of fellow tyrants from China to Venezuela (see: https://www.theindependent.co.zw/2020/04/10/military-in-us90m-murky-weapons-deals/).

Other points

• We were saddened to hear of the death of Mike Auret, he former MDC MP, and one of the people who inspired the Vigil. Mike chaired the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace which exposed the extent of the Gukurahundi genocide carried out by Zanu PF in the 1980s.
• Our condolences to Vigil Co-ordinator Esther Munyira at the passing of her father.
• Because of the coronavirus we can no longer physically meet outside the Zimbabwe Embassy in London, so we have started a virtual Vigil. We asked our activists to put on Vigil / ROHR / Zimbabwe regalia and take a photo of themselves holding an appropriate poster reflecting our protest against human rights abuses in Zimbabwe. The photos are uploaded on our Flickr site (see: https://www.flickr.com/photos/zimbabwevigil/albums/72157713848220758). Our virtual Vigil activist today was Charles Mararirakwenda who kindly contributed to Vigil funds.
• For Vigil pictures check: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zimbabwevigil/. Please note: Vigil photos can only be downloaded from our Flickr website.

Notices

• The Restoration of Human Rights in Zimbabwe (ROHR) is the Vigil’s partner organization based in Zimbabwe. ROHR grew out of the need for the Vigil to have an organization on the ground in Zimbabwe which reflected the Vigil’s mission statement in a practical way. ROHR in the UK actively fundraises through membership subscriptions, events, sales etc to support the activities of ROHR in Zimbabwe. Please note that the official website of ROHR Zimbabwe is http://www.rohrzimbabwe.org/. Any other website claiming to be the official website of ROHR in no way represents us.
• The Vigil’s book ‘Zimbabwe Emergency’ is based on our weekly diaries. It records how events in Zimbabwe have unfolded as seen by the diaspora in the UK. It chronicles the economic disintegration, violence, growing oppression and political manoeuvring – and the tragic human cost involved. It is available at the Vigil. All proceeds go to the Vigil and our sister organisation the Restoration of Human Rights in Zimbabwe’s work in Zimbabwe. The book is also available from Amazon.
• Facebook pages:
  Vigil: https://www.facebook.com/zimbabwevigil
  ROHR: https://www.facebook.com/Restoration-of-Human-Rights-ROHR-Zimbabwe-International-370825706588551/
  ZAF: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Zimbabwe-Action-Forum-ZAF/490257051027515

Post published in: Featured

Auret was the first MDC MP for Harare West. In a statement posted on their official Facebook page the MDC said:

MDC Alliance Mourns Mike Auret Snr

It is with great sadness that the MDC Alliance family has learnt of the death of Micheal Theodore Hayes Auret Senior, a revolutionary, a stalwart and the party’s first MP for Harare Central constituency.

Since his early days in the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP), he fought and resisted the oppression of the racist colonial government of Ian Smith.

Indeed, the late Auret Snr was a man of compassion and unstinting wisdom, who resisted oppression in all its forms wherever he saw it.

Together with Senator David Coltart and others, he participated in cataloguing the Gukurahundi massacres in the seminal work, “Breaking the Silence: Building True Peace” In 2000, Auret Snr stood in Harare Central to become the MDC’s first MP for the constituency.

After his retirement, he continued his love and service to the Catholic church in Ireland where he settled with his family. He often dwelled on the subject of the enduring struggle for freedom and democracy in Zimbabwe.

As a People’s party, we feel that the democratic struggle is poorer without this gallant stalwart for democratic change, who served as Vice Chairperson to our late icon the late President Morgan Tsvangirai in the National Constitutional Assembly when it was founded in 1997.

The MDC family conveys its sincerest condolences to the widow Diana, his wife for 63 years and the entire Auret family.

Indeed, Zimbabwe’s democratic struggle has been robbed of a hero and a patriot.

The late Auret Snr shall be sorely missed by all.

MDC Communications

Post published in: Featured

Since the outbreak of the coronavirus, countries across the globe have invested billions of dollars toward efforts to contain the virus, and ultimately find a cure. The budgets and spending are staggering, with some nations digging deep into their reserves to try and keep their economies and health sectors functioning.

It’s been a different story for Zimbabwe though.

Hardly a day passes without President Emmerson Mnangagwa, alongside his two deputies Constantino Chiwenga and Kembo Mohadi, having their photos posted on social media receiving donations from well-wishers.

No matter how small the donation, the three of them always seem to be at hand at the president’s official residence, State House.

State-owned media recently posted a picture of President Mnangagwa and his deputies receiving 10 000 face masks from Timber Care of China. On another occasion, the three were pictured accepting an ambulance worth US$90 000 from a car dealership company.

Zimbabweans are not amused by all this.

Which other country lines up a President, his two deputies and other VVIPs daily to receive donations, asked a former minister in late President Robert Mugabe’s government, Walter Mzembi.

Questions have also been asked on what exactly government has done to fund the fight against the impact of Covid-19 pandemic.

On March 30, Zimbabwe’s Treasury said it had availed Z$500 million and redirected the country’s 2020 capital expenditure budget towards fighting Covid-19. A National Disaster Fund has also been set with a target of at least US$2.2 billion, equal to the country’s 2020 National Budget, using the fixed exchange rate of 25 local dollars for every American dollar.

To some, the photos of President Mnangagwa and his deputies receiving donations is confirmation of how bad things are.

Hit by two consecutive droughts and with what the International Monetary Fund has described as policy “missteps”, Zimbabwe was always going to struggle with the impact of coronavirus.

Policy confusion, corruption and poor economic management has left the country with a huge debt of more than US$9bn – mostly in arrears, which has prevented it from accessing some of the international financial packages other countries can access.

The 2018 to 2020 drought, coupled with controversial land policies, resulted in a poor harvest. This, according to Mnangagwa’s government, has left 7.7 million citizens food insecure.

In a humanitarian appeal made last week, Mnangagwa said a total US$955.6 million is needed as a response to food insecurity in the country.

The United Nations World Food Programme, meanwhile, this week made its own appeal for Zimbabwe and requested for US$130 million, “to sustain through August an emergency operation to prevent millions of the country’s most vulnerable people plunging deeper into hunger”.

The impact of the coronavirus of Zimbabwe is not yet clear, but is expected to be significant, with the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange taking a pre-emptive decision to say all listed entities are now trading under cautionary.

Listed companies were also given a grace period of up to 15 May 2020 before they can disclose the full impact of the coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent 21-day lockdown.

According to a weekly snap survey conducted by representative body the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI), production and trading volumes have declined by 36% on average, mainly as a result of reduced workforce, temporary closure of the firms and disrupted supply chains.

The snap survey results showed that “81% of the surveyed firms experienced supply chain disruptions”.

“This has affected raw materials supply which is needed to keep industry rolling,” said CZI.

Alex Siyavora, the chief executive of Zimbabwe’s biggest supermarket chain, OK Zimbabwe, said his main worry was to source supplies, as only a few items remain on the shelves after customers stocked up in readiness for the lockdown.

“It would be good for quick recovery to benefit from a stimulus package, but sustainable recovery would come from improved supply of products for sale,” Siyavora said.

While OK Zimbabwe has been allowed to keep its outlets open, it had still closed six in Harare’s central business district where the number of customers under lockdown rules does not justify opening the stores.

People are barred from going to the central business district unless they offer essential services.

His counterpart and Truworths chief executive officer, Themba Ndebele, was not so lucky, as the clothing retailer was forced to temporarily close during the lockdown.

Ndebele is however less concerned about the lockdown period. He is worried about the overall economy where aggregate demand has been waning since 2019.

“Once your demand is not there and people are not going to work, there is nothing you can do about it,” he said.

He said salaries of government workers, who make up the bulk of Truworths’ customers, had not gone up at the same pace as the cost of living.

Government coffers empty

Zimstats on Wednesday released statistics saying a family of five persons requires Z$5 293 per month to get by. This is at a time the lowest paid government worker gets less than $3 000 per month.

Government itself said it had set a target to make cash transfers of just Z$200 per person per month as a way of cushioning a targeted 1 million vulnerable people for the next three months. This is in a country where bread costs Z$30 a loaf.

Analysts said this is a clear sign that government coffers are empty.

Most of the spending that is needed now requires foreign currency and government has very little in its reserves at the moment.

This has seen it relax some of its laws on the use of foreign currency, which is believed to be available at household level. People are now allowed to use foreign currency for local transactions, hardly a year after this had been outlawed.

Just last week, President Mnangagwa gave a directive that Money Transfer Agencies be opened three days per week, to facilitate receiving of remittance from the diaspora during the lockdown period.

Remittances are however expected to be much lower than usual.

According to the World Bank’s latest Africa Pulse April 2020 report, a significant downturn in South Africa will affect the flow of financing to remittance-dependent countries like Zimbabwe where they constitute 8% of GDP.

Zimbabwe’s other channels of earning foreign currency are also facing their own headwinds.

The tobacco industry, which is Zimbabwe’s second biggest single forex earner, is yet to be sold, with the 21 lockdown having extended an already delayed selling season.

Issues of health at the often-crowded floors has always been of major concern and a lot will have to be done to bring the floors to the hygienic and social distancing standards of fighting the spread of Covid-19.

Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board chief executive officer Andrew Matibiri said by telephone from Harare on Thursday that the industry was still “developing guidelines on how we can go about our business of opening tobacco auction floors under the circumstances”.

He said since 2009 the country earned between US$550 to $750 million per season from the selling of tobacco.

“This year we are looking at over 145 000 farmers to come and sale their produce,” he said.

Industry experts say while some of the money had already come through inputs as the bulk of the farmers are under contracts, farmers and government rely a lot on tobacco earnings which they can only receive after selling.