THE ACTING PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE: Order, order, order! Hon. Sen. Muronzi, may you please stand up to show that you want to debate and you put across your concerns to the Minister. Let us observe the etiquette and decorum of this House. You should only ask questions after I have given you the permission to do so. The Hon. Member who asked this question is a ZANU PF member and not MDC.
HON. MUKUPE: Thank you Mr. President. The nice thing is that finance knows no political party and all I am giving you are the necessary facts and these are the things that you are able to verify.
Like I said, in January 2013; the former Minister of Finance left the Government bankrupt. There was $217 in the coffers of Government and there was a domestic debt of over $5 billion, you can check that. It is factual. What we have is that we have got two problems that are facing our economy. The first one is that we have got a domestic debt situation which is at about $6 billion. That is set to grow because what we have is that we have got a situation where we have to compensate all the pensioners – the domestic debt is going to grow. The second situation is that we have got the foreign currency situation. Those two things combined is what is giving rise to the cash shortages that we have.
Let me now talk about the solutions which are basically two pronged. The first thing is that we should increase productivity in the country in the country. We have to have a situation where the Command Agriculture Programme that is in place has to be fully supported so that we can have a situation where outside the grains that we are doing very well in, we have to move in to horticulture. That is why you see that when Minister Chinamasa announced his budget, there is focus on horticulture to make sure that we start exporting roses, avocados, flower products and all these exports. We have to make sure that we get out.
There is also the issue of beneficiation. If I give you an example, for a dollar value of cotton that you export – if you were going to beneficiate it and turn it into lint, you will realise eight times as much. At the present moment, if we export $100 million in cotton – if we beneficiate that, it ends up being $800 million. If we look at tobacco where we are talking of over $500 to $600 million in tobacco which we are exporting; if we beneficiate it and it ends up being cart rack – we are talking about seven times much which is about $3 billion in exports. That is why you find that the President is talking about beneficiation. We have to start beneficiating our goods so that it will help in solving the issue that we have of foreign currency.
I am not going to belabour the issue of sanctions with all the people who are going to America and talking about sanctions – [HON. SENATORS: Inaudible interjections.] – but obviously it, those sanctions go away, we can be able to have a situation where – [HON. SENATORS: Inaudible interjections.] –
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