MR. CHIMANIKIRE: Thank you Mr. Speaker. Firstly, I would like to thank the hon. Minister for her eloquent presentation. However, there are areas of concern hon. Minister, the banking sector all round is collapsing. In your presentation, I did not get the impression that the SMEs are also undertaking processes where they will start banking or own a bank. That is an area of concern. The general feeling is that people are selling and putting money in suitcases and therefore, money in circulation hence this general shortage. Could you enlighten the House on the idea of promoting banking through SMEs. The other issue is you talked about 5.7 million people being employed. Our concern is, this is unorganised labour in a country where there is a Labour Relations Act. We are worried as Members of Parliament about conditions of service, remuneration and social working conditions. Yes, you may formalise and join NSSA but how about their working conditions on the other end?
The other worry that we have as Members of Parliament based in urban areas is what we perceive as a partisan nature of approach on this whole process of SMEs, where people sometimes demand that you have to be a card-carrying member of this party or you should wear a t-shirt for you to be able to work in a certain area. So if you could also enlighten the House on how we can address some of those issues.
Then we have the issue of corruption, I agree with you hon. Minister. We have Mupedzanhamo where Jim Kunaka is collecting funds from tables and exploiting SMEs in certain areas of Siyaso and so on. I do support the idea of addressing the issue of corruption. Thank you Mr. Speaker.
MRS. NYONI: Thank you Mr. Speaker. I would like to thank the hon. member for pertinent issues that he has raised. First of all, you are right that the banking sector is not friendly to SMEs. A lot of them are not going to banks because of the rates and also the conditions that they are given when they get to banks.
On Wednesday last week I launched a new SEDCO Board which is being chaired by Professor Kajese. The mandate that I gave them was that the first deliverable they must give to the Ministry is the formation of an SME bank. I am going to supervise that aggressively and we are going to do everything possible to make sure that an SME bank is established. A lot of people are asking me what will be the difference between this SME bank and other banks. The difference is that with the SMEs, we are already organising them into SACOS; Savings and Credit Groups or Co-operatives. Therefore, their savings now will go into this bank and we will try to have friendly regulations different from what the conventional banks are having in consultation also with the SMEs. So be rest assured hon. member that that is on course.
You talked about unorganised labour, I agree with you. This is why I made this statement that we are now formalising because if labour is unorganised, end up with a shadow economy which is an economy whereby everything happens in the dark. We want now everything to happen openly. People should have good working conditions where they are proud to go to work and also to produce better goods. This is why we are doing this and we are doing it together with the Ministry of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing to make sure that people are housed properly.
On the Labour laws and also the labour conditions, I want to agree with you, it is one of the concerns of the Ministry and the Advisory Council has been tasked to look into the Labour laws. Hon. member, let me say, the Labour laws do not only apply to SMEs, they apply also to big companies and other agencies. How many people are at work today and are not being paid? So I think the whole country needs to look at Labour Laws and how we treat our workers. I do take your point and the Ministry will take that into account.
Your insinuation that SMEs operations are partisan, I do not know about that. My Ministry responds to SMEs and my Ministry does not start SMEs. SMEs approach us and we respond to them. If you have SMEs hon. member, that would like our assistance they should not be afraid just because they are not ZANU PF. When people come to my office or when my officers go to meet and service the SMEs, they do not ask for political affiliations. So I think that is just a thread of a shadow. You try us, let people come to us and they will be welcome.
On corruption, thank you, we really want to assist our people because corruption is not only among the SMEs. It is also among those who give services to SMEs. We want to protect the SMEs when we formalise so that they are not chased out of the workplace because someone decides that they are in the wrong place and they just go and victimise them. We want to curb corruption from both the side of SMEs and those who provide services and those who are just malicious and decide that they want to raid this street and collect the goods from SMEs. That is inhumane; that is unacceptable and that must stop so that SMEs are also treated with dignity. They are men and women of this country who are out there trying to make a living honestly. They are not going mugging people or stealing. They are selling, manufacturing and they are trading in an honest way. I thank you.
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