I beg the Portfolio Committee to withdraw its recommendation and recommend to the Minister that he should find the nearest bin and throw this Bill in there and close the bin because we do not need it in this House. Mr. Speaker, the Minister has enough on his hands. I remember and can I remind him that in September 2013, he told this House that ZISCO Steel was going to start operating by December, 2013 but up to now, nothing is happening. So Hon. Minister, may I request you to bring a Ministerial Statement on the status of ZISCO Steel instead of bringing this Bill that you brought before us. I thank you.
* HON. BUNJIRA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir for giving me the opportunity to make my contribution on this motion. I am very grateful for the work done by the Committee during these Public Hearings and I am one of the people who were a Member of the Committee. What is really surprising as far as I am concerned is that all the places we visited when we talked to them about the Competitiveness Bill, it was a surprise.
In Harare, we only had one person who was knowledgeable about this Bill. When he made his contributions, he said he was not representative of all the people on such issues and Committees. In Victoria Falls, we had no one who made any contributions. In Mutare, we had people who made contributions but they told us that they had been given a short notice to attend that Public Hearing. The same statement was echoed in Masvingo and people were surprised as to the meaning and usefulness of that Public Hearing.
It surprises me because when we are talking about competitiveness looking at the people of Zimbabwe, we should be talking of competitiveness looking at the economy of the country. We should look at whether we have industries that are performing well or above the expected levels and realising profits to enable us to compete with other countries on the international markets. In that way, we can talk about competition because we will be comparing them with other countries.
Zimbabwe also has lots of technical and tertiary colleges, and we have graduates who are graduating every single year. We have those who qualify in agriculture, electrical engineering or any other engineering, even the construction industry, manufacturing and horticulture but what is happening. They graduated to be street people and not productive people. I had hoped that the Minister was going to talk about resuscitating industries and hence, jobs for these people in order that these graduates are empowered so that they can utilise their knowledge.
Mr. Speaker, I am saying let us not abuse public funds because I believe that as a Committee we abuse public funds going around on public hearings and not talking to anybody because we have no industry which we can talk about as a competitor with other international markets. Therefore, I am pleading with the Minister, please talk about resuscitating the industries and production. From there go and address corruption and after that you go to the liquidity crunch. When we have solved all those problems we can then talk of competitiveness.
Continued next page
(440 VIEWS)
