Mthuli Ncube rules our price controls despite escalating prices- says that would be a disaster

HON. PROF. M. NCUBE:  Mr. Speaker Sir, I thank Hon. Markham for his question. He is correct in the observation that there are individuals, companies and others who source money from the auction at the auction rate that he sees published every week, but the prices that you find in their shops are different.  They are parallel market prices and this is not on.  We do not condone that.  In fact, we are trying to deal with that.  I agree with him that there should be better enforcement when it comes acquittals.  Before the person comes back to the auction, there should also be a follow up and an audit.  That is what I mentioned earlier. So I agree with him that we should enforce better.  We will continue to do so.  It is never easy.  You know when there is arbitrary opportunity, often that tends to be shared through the ecosystem.  So in terms of collusion of individuals and companies – it is happening.  That makes it difficult to enforce the law through a single point and we have to attack the whole ecosystem if we want to succeed, but I appreciate his suggestion and his concern.  We are concerned, I am concerned.  I thank you.

HON. NDUNA:  Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.  My supplementary to the Hon. Minister, where I come from, in particular the people in some areas have no access to information from the print and radio media, but I make sure I give them the Hansard after Parliament. Would it please the Minister to elaborate, espouse on the bonuses that are United States dollar based that you are going to give to civil servants which we saw in the print and in electronic media, as well as on television so that the people I represent can get to hear first hand from you?

THE HON. SPEAKER:  Unfortunately, that supplementary question does not arise in terms of the price regime raised by Hon. Khupe.  Please take your seat.

HON. GONESE:  Supplementary Mr. Speaker Sir. In your response Hon. Minister, you have indicated that there should be better controls and also better investigation on those companies which would have accessed foreign currency at the auction rate.  However Hon. Minister, there are individuals…

THE HON. SPEAKER:  Hon. Member, you are now debating.  Ask the supplementary question.

HON. GONESE:  Hon. Minister, what happens to those companies which are not able to get all their requirements at the auction rate as a result of which they claim to have purchased some of the currency on the parallel market and some on the auction rate?  How do you deal with that situation in terms of the policing and the controls that you have alluded to Hon, Minister?

HON. PROF. M. NCUBE:  What we are policing is really around the foreign currency that we have provided.  It is a lot easier to do that.  That is what we follow up on but if individuals are doing blended pricing and so forth, again we want to understand it but really we want to make sure that our foreign currency is not a contributor to parallel market prices that we see prevailing.  That is really our main concern and it is much easier to prove that than blended prices or the other prices, but the issue of enforcement is never easy at all.

We have FIU, the police, we have ZIMRA to an extent, we have all the law enforcement agencies out there but people are still managing to escape.  Those are the facts.  It just shows you how difficult it is especially if the incentives and the arbitrary profits are being distributed among many beneficiaries, then everyone has an incentive to cover up for each other.  It is never easy, but we will continue with the hard work especially around the sources that we would have provided ourselves through the auction.  I thank you.

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