Madam Speaker, we are poorer by the day and to me it is important that we are able to look at the foreign direct investment. The late S. B. Moyo came with a list of the foreign direct investments of countries and companies which said they were going to invest in Zimbabwe. Let us talk, how many of them have invested? An agreement is not an investment. How much money has come to the country from the foreign direct investment? Not only that, we foolishly, stupidly abandoned the Indigenisation Act to appease foreigners. The 10% for the local community is no longer there, the 10% for the worker went away, the 31% for the sovereign country went and now we are poorer. We reversed a law because of the Finance Bill saying that no, they were not happy with that. One thing that you cannot take away from the late President Mugabe – I was talking to my friend today was clarity, it is either black or white. Inconsistency of Government policy, one minute the President whether advised or not, has got the Minister of Finance on the left and on the right he has got the Governor of the Reserve Bank speaking about the monetary policy. Within a week, it is changing. So, who advised the President on that? Where are the technocrats? Now we have a situation where there are saboteurs who seem to be in Government. The Ruling Party must stop pointing people to be saboteurs when it is housing saboteurs within the Government offices and within the party. Take a good look at yourself. Who looked bad? It was the President. What did you do as Parliamentarians to bring people to talk about that statement, you did nothing. So the enemy is within, the enemy has never been outside. The enemy outside is well-known, is easy, he does not run away.
We have got saboteurs who are bent on exposing the President by coming up with the wrong policy and then within a week, it changes. What is that called, it is inconsistency. No one invests in a country where there is inconsistency. The Look East Policy by the Former President Mugabe was very clear, everybody understood it. Those who wanted to come were invited to come and those who did not want to come did not come. Then the reengagement started by the Americans, the Second Republic must not lie and say that they are engaging and reengaging. The First Republic had the Americans and the British starting to work with us because there was consistency. Madam Speaker, it is important to be consistent. It is equally important and well appreciated to be consistently wrong. You are wrong but you are consistently wrong, it is better not to try to be right yet you are making many wrongs. We have a situation where you are not even consistently wrong. We are always inconsistently wrong. To me it is important that consistency of policy create confidence of the people, confidence in the currency, no one has confidence in the currency anymore because of inconsistencies which happen.
When a President issues a statement, he is the number one citizen, he is the last person to speak at the end of the day and everybody holds onto that. It is important that we look at the aspect of agriculture. Farmers right now are holding onto their maize because of the price metrics, importation you are paying USD280, your local farmer you are paying USD90 plus RTGs which probably is worth 120 dollars per tonne. We have seen local farmers holding on to their maize, why are we not prepared to give our farmers money yet we are prepared to pay the foreign farmers. There seems to be people who are bent on seeing farmers not doing well, not sustaining themselves because they are making commissions from the deals of maize. Pane macuts avanowana macommision, saka zvirinani akasabhadhara murimi akashungurudzika asamire futi, voramba vachiimporter. You cannot suffocate a country because of corruption, that is what is happening. You go to the aspect of farms and sales, the title deeds. There has got to be tenure in terms of farms and 99 year leases, and offer letters are not required. The Minister of Finance is a banker and there is no offer letter which can be withdrawn. However, once you leave ZANU PF and take the farms, not only that, they kick you out of the party and they take the farm. – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections] –
Continued next page
(278 VIEWS)
This post was last modified on August 20, 2022 6:58 pm
I have been quiet for some time. Thinking. I have been running The Insider single-handedly…
Payments in Zimbabwe’s latest currency, the Zimbabwe Gold, now account for 40% of transactions, up…
Zimbabwe should de-dollarise otherwise its new currency the Zimbabwe Gold will go the way other…
Zimbabwe has come up with a de-dollarisation roadmap which will soon be presented by Finance…
Former Citizens Coalition for Change leader Nelson Chamisa says it is not easy to lead…
The Zimbabwe Gold (ZiG) has brought some stability into the market enabling some smoothness for…