Mthuli Ncube tells Biti to stop abusing the courts- says I have been taken to court 120 times and won all cases

Zimbabwe Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube has told Citizens Coalition for Change vice-president Tendai Biti to stop abusing the courts because he will always lose.

Admitting that he was departing from the subject under debate during the committee stage of the Finance Bill, Ncube said he wanted to clarify an issue that Biti has talked about that he had won a case against the minister.

“I now want to come to an issue that Hon. Biti mentioned about having won a case and all that. Ah Biti, hamuna kuhwina. Aiwa ndakahwina inini zvakakwana. I will show the papers. What they were trying to do Mr. Chair, they were trying to take away my powers to run the economy. No judge will agree with that Mr. Chair – [HON. BITI: You are amending Acts of Parliament.] –

“Aiwa, no, certainly the judge concurred with me in the end that we need to ensure that the Minister of Finance has the capacity to run the economy and to change policies but of course, come to Parliament when it is necessary and I do that. Perhaps this is an issue that we can take offline. It is not the issue that has to do with IMTT really but he raised it and so I had to come back.

“For what it is worth, I have been taken to court a 120 times since 2018 and I have defended 120 cases, all successfully. That should be a lesson to colleagues that they should not spend too much time in court.

“VaBiti, ibvai kumacourts. Siyanai nemacourts. Ndakutaura zvimwe asi nenyaya yeIMTT, I think his proposals are reasonable. Really, let us support them. They have assisted us in managing the economy, dealing with speculation and arbitrary behaviour but also raising revenue and also making sure they can broaden the tax base.”

Full contribution:

HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: Some colleagues are raising issues around this Clause 6. We have done our research and we feel that the thresholds that we are proposing are the right levels. Also Hon. Nduna wanted to know why the percentage threshold was different for USD. Again, this was to deal with speculation. We felt that it was needed to deal with speculation this way by raising the IMTT weight for USD transactions.

We also felt that this will be a way to promote the use of the domestic currency. Again, it is a probing tax argument that you penalize the currency that you want to discourage more than the one that you want to encourage. We wanted to create a level playing field for our domestic currency.

I now want to come to an issue that Hon. Biti mentioned about having won a case and all that. Ah Biti, hamuna kuhwina. Aiwa ndakahwina inini zvakakwana. I will show the papers. What they were trying to do Mr. Chair, they were trying to take away my powers to run the economy. No judge will agree with that Mr. Chair – [HON. BITI: You are amending Acts of Parliament.] – Aiwa, no, certainly the judge concurred with me in the end that we need to ensure that the Minister of Finance has the capacity to run the economy and to change policies but of course, come to Parliament when it is necessary and I do that. Perhaps this is an issue that we can take offline. It is not the issue that has to do with IMTT really but he raised it and so I had to come back.

For what it is worth, I have been taken to court a 120 times since 2018 and I have defended 120 cases, all successfully. That should be a lesson to colleagues that they should not spend too much time in court. VaBiti, ibvai kumacourts. Siyanai nemacourts. Ndakutaura zvimwe asi nenyaya yeIMTT, I think his proposals are reasonable. Really, let us support them. They have assisted us in managing the economy, dealing with speculation and arbitrary behaviour but also raising revenue and also making sure they can broaden the tax base.

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