THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Your time is up Hon. Mliswa.
HON. MADZIMURE: I move that the Hon. Member’s time be extended by ten minutes.
HON. TEKESHE: I second.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Your time is extended by five minutes Hon. Mliswa.
Motion put and agreed to.
HON. T. MLISWA: We go to agriculture. Hon. Togarepi indeed praised the maize but agriculture means nothing when the producer price is poor. The wheat that we are talking about, they are paying the farmers now and this was money that they were supposed to get during the 2022 season. No wonder why there is no maize. We do not see a lot of maize because people were relying on their wheat money and the wheat money is coming now; late disbursement and poor pricing. How can you give a wheat farmer now when he wants to use that money to buy fertiliser for the 2023 agriculture season? You are giving them now as you saw in February, zvakamboitika kupi?
So now what are we doing that we have a shortage of maize? Whether it is a set up or strategy or cartel but they are going to import more maize, especially going towards elections they pay more for importing. Let us talk about the maize price in this country alone that the farmers got. It was US$90 or RTS$100 000 or if you look at it, it is $140/150 000 but they are importing at US$320/340. Honestly, where have you ever seen a successful agriculture agenda when farmers are paid this much? For you to continue with agriculture and you are a farmer, the cost of inputs must be replaced through production. That is it, and if that does not happen, this is no wonder why there is so much downsizing in the country. It is not because people cannot farm but there are no resources. You can downsize but for as long as you are not given resources, the subsidy, where is the subsidy? There is no agriculture which can triumph without subsidy. Look at Zambia and Malawi. You are buying $13 for a bag of fertiliser and the Government pays the difference. It makes sense. You now have a situation where in terms of agriculture, the pricing model where there is no inflation does not make sense. How many times have we said let us dollarise but the economy is dollarised quietly and they cannot admit because once they admit, they will say oh Hon. Biti was correct and that hits them hard. We are all dollarised right now and that is where we are going.
How can you go and borrow inputs in ZWL but your loan is in USD? Varimi ngatibetseranei apa. We were given our inputs in ZWD but the loan is now USD. How do you pay it back? How do you pay back a loan ZWD which has now been converted to USD? To me, the farmer is poor. There was supposed to be an intervention and the SONA was supposed to be very clear to say for all the debt the farmers owe you must pay this percentage and the rest Government takes over. No wonder why all the farmers are back in the fields because the pricing yanga yakaderera kwanga kuine inflation vanodzosera chikwereti sei, kasi ndave kunogura munda wavo futi. Ko ivo vamagurira munda futi vachaiwana kupi mari yacho?
So you also have a price matrix which is wrong. You cannot have one borrowing in ZWD and the next thing it is US dollars.
Hon. Speaker, the issue of agriculture, I do not know why cotton was not mentioned. The cotton issue seems to be a hot potato. We have COTTCO, which made more money than the farmers. The farmers from Nembudziya in Gokwe were paid less money and were being paid ininputs yet there was $5.5million which was meant for them.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Your time is up Hon. Mliswa.
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