Chinamasa quizzed over bond notes-insists that’s the best solution for Zimbabwe to recover

 HON. CHAMISA:  On a point of order Mr. Speaker.  Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones.  The Minister should desist from the habit of thinking that he is the sole repository of knowledge because we will then expose him for what he is.  Hon. Speaker, please protect your members.  The Minister cannot hide behind the veneer of wanting to introduce education.  Yes, we have no problem with education but he is the one who should actually be educated because that is the region of lower concentration – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.]-

THE HON. SPEAKER:  Order, order.  Well the point of order has been answered by Hon. Chamisa himself because he has correctly interpreted the use of the word ‘educated’ – ‘to be informed’, that is what the Minister is saying.  It is not being derogatory.  You can google that and you will find that it means ‘to be informed’.

HON. CHINAMASA:  Mr. Speaker Sir, I thank you very much for coming to my rescue.  The reason why questions are asked is so that we give answers which are informative – [AN HON. MEMBER: Not education.]- It is the same thing.

Let me inform the Hon. Member of Parliament that bond notes are not being introduced to build confidence.  They are being introduced like I said, to enhance exports so that we have more available foreign currency here.  We earn our foreign currency primarily through exports.  If we have no exports, we have no US dollars to transact business, to use for importing goods and also to use as a medium of exchange.  So, the thrust of the introduction of the bond notes is to support the hens that lay the golden eggs – the exporters.  That is what we are looking for.  The more exports, the more foreign currency that will be available and the more we have foreign currency to pay ourselves the wages, because all of us do not make US dollars.  We do not export, yet we earn it as far as salaries are concerned.

With respect to building confidence, confidence is built by a multiple of factors which include clarity on our policies.  We try to avoid inconsistencies in our policies and those are the issues that we take in building confidence.  The measures that we are taking Mr. Speaker Sir, to improve the ease of doing business, all those things go towards improving confidence levels by our Zimbabwean citizens and also by people from outside. That is the issue, so I want the Hon. Member to separate.  Bond notes are being introduced primarily for two reasons, to give incentives to our exporters so that we increase the availability of foreign currency.  The problem here is whether what foreign currency we earn will not go the same way, we think not because we are moving away from an over liberalised foreign exchange market to a managed one and all exports are acquitted through the Reserve Bank.  So, we know what we have earned in foreign currency and the Governor of the Reserve Bank has already established a committee to do allocation of that foreign currency, giving priority to things like importation of fuel, raw material, capital goods and so on.

I want us to be very clear that bond notes are coming, not for building confidence.  Confidence building is the responsibility of all of us.  What we say is what builds confidence to external investors.  I thank you Mr. Speaker.

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