“I can see the light”, Mthuli Ncube tells Zimbabwe Senate

We are dealing with them, but we also dealt with the other thing which was a retention issue.  We changed retention ratio from 45:55 to 70:30 in favour of the miner.  So at least we have done our part as Government.  We still have to deal with the illicit side.  So when we say gold output has gone down, it is not really correct.  Technically, in a sense, it is about official deliveries to Fidelity but the actual gold output out there has gone up.  We know that only that pane matsotsi, otsotsi bayakhupha igolide leliyana.  That is our problem, but the future is bright with the mining sector, Madam President.

Now if you turn to the sector that has been hit the hardest, in our view it is the tourism sector.  Virtually shut down.  We had arrivals and room bookings literally drop by as much as 90% and that is a global phenomenon.  It is very serious on the whole sector because it is not just hotels and tourism, the distribution sector together.  We are expecting a decline of about -7.4% although what is happening is that the retail sector is then buoying the rest of the sector countering that negative decline in tourism and also the airline industry.

Looking at the transportation sector; that again has been impacted because once we have a drop in activity in the other sectors, then there is less to transport.  So that also has calmed down, but I must say as I say this, there are other sectors that have benefited, for example the health sector.  In any health related supplies into the economy, that has benefited whether looking at chemical sector in terms of the production of sanitisers and face masks.  So those sectors have benefited but also the ICT sector has also benefited.  We are trying to track the terabytes, as they may call them, that have been used in the last six months. Those have gone up by as much as 3% and continue to go up because clearly, that is how meetings are being held, that is how conversations are being held.  It is through virtual ICT platforms and this trend I am describing about our economy is very similar to the trend globally where the same similar sectors are behaving in a similar way.

I must say, Madam President, our projection for GDP growth is -4.5%.  If you recall at the beginning of the year or rather end of last year, we said it is +3% but everything has changed.  COVID-19 has just changed, it is a new normal now.  We do not recognise people anymore, everything is a face mask.  That is why I wore something transparent.  At least I can be seen but everyone has masks.  You cannot tell people apart.  So growth is -4.5% for the year but next year we expect it to be brighter.  For the rest of the world, Madam President, we are expecting a growth rate of -5% for the whole world, but within that, the developed countries are going to be hit the hardest.  Their average rate of growth is going to be -8%.  So with -4.5%, we have negative growth, but you can see that we are slightly better off than the developed world, but we all expect recovery in 2021.  So our GDP growth looks like that; the sharp drop in 2020, then a sharp recovery again in 2021.  So for Zimbabwe, we are expecting a growth rate of +7.4% in 2021.  Again we pray for no more. I think they call them black swan events.  I think that is the phrase for it – something that hits you out of the blue from nowhere.  That is exactly what COVID-19 did to us.  So we expect a brighter 2021.

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