ZANU PF owned two companies, one called National Blankets and another one called Kango. National Blankets had machinery and employed people to produce blankets. But because National Blankets can no longer compete with people that are protected who import these quilting kits. National Blankets; to all intents and purposes has closed shop; it is no longer there. All of us in this House, when we grew up, we remember the kind of plates and pots which were called Kango. Kango is a company that was owned by ZANU PF. Kango has closed shop because of imports of plates like this for two cents and sell it for whatever price, Kango cannot compete because they must buy material and come up with a plate like this via a manufacturing process.
I will bring it closer to home even further. Cone Textiles is the company that used to do most of these materials. It is now done by a company called Waverly Blankets. Waverly employed 1800 people but when these imports started coming into Zimbabwe, they have retrenched and now employ about 400 people. What it means is that 1400 jobs have been exported to China who do not pay corporate tax, Pay As You Earn, et cetera.
Madam Speaker, what we want to do is, we need now to say, the Chinese companies that are operating in Zimbabwe, how are they registered? Who are they doing their banking with? Does the Reserve Bank and ZIMRA know that they are importing and exporting? When they get bond notes, they simply go on the streets of Harare and harden the money into US dollars and the money is spirited out of the country. It is very easy to take money out of Zimbabwe. If you have $200 000, you simply go to Charles Prince Airport, you charter a plane and you fly into South Africa. It is that simple. You do not use Air Zimbabwe and South African Airways because Harare International Airport security limits the amount of money that you must take out. That is how money is leaving this country. It does not really matter how much policy and regulations the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe is going to put into place, money will still leave the country.
The fact of the matter is that, we must start now to investigate all companies. I am talking across sectors. If you go into the brick molding sector, Chinese companies that are molding bricks are selling those bricks at a price such that Willdale Limited, a Zimbabwean company cannot survive. A Chinese company that is selling fast foods does it in such a way that a Zimbabwean company that is in that industry is not able to survive.
Madam Speaker, the textile industry in Zimbabwe to all intents and purposes is dead. Hon. Nduna from Chegutu can vouch for me. There is no way that David Whitehead can come back if we have this kind of thing. These are cheap imports but what I want to reiterate today is that these people who are doing these things are protected by senior Government officials.
Today I hear that one of the Chinese people and a Member of Parliament of Zimbabwe are trying to borrow money from CBZ so that they resuscitate National Blankets. You will not be able to resuscitate National Blankets as long as there are cheap imports that you are going to compete with. You are not going to revive the textile industry for as long as there are cheap imports that you are going to compete with. You are not going to revive Kango for as long as there are these imports coming into Zimbabwe that are equally good but are selling at a quarter of your input into production.
Continued next page
(763 VIEWS)
