Where is the money?

Parliamentarians have taken Finance Minister Tendai Biti to task over what happened to the duty that people who imported cars into the country are supposed to have paid. The Parliamentary Committee on Budget and Finance raised the query after Biti said he expected only $392 million from customs because the figures don’t add up. “The minister himself alluded to this in his statement when he said that imports were expected to exceed US$8 billion in 2012 and custom duties reflected only 4.8 percent of import trade when the average customs duty was in fact 35 percent. He gave no explanation of this huge disparity and this is of great concern to the committee. If the minister’s figure is right, then customs duties should exceed US$2.5 billion and this alone would transform our fiscal situation,” the committee said.

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