Why are Zimbabweans with free funds looking for Zimdollars when they need US dollars to import, Minister asks?

As a Ministry, do you not have a mechanism to see who is fuelling the black market? We have got mechanisms – [AN HON. MEMBER: Are they working?] – At the moment, all transactions that are done through the banking system and through your phones are all connected to the national payment switch and we are able to see every transaction but the question now is – are we enforcing? There is a balance where we are looking at normal usage of your money versus funds that are being used to fuel illicit activities. This is what is being done by bank supervision and Financial Intelligence Unit, but obviously there is need for us to improve so that at least we have mechanisms to see transactions that are being used for black market activities.

Then the other question came from Hon. Nyabani, to say people are being given foreign currency but not using it for production purposes. When we give money, priority is given to the people who are in the production sector.  We are not giving people money for consumption.  We must do follow ups on those who have been given money if they are doing proper production.  I think we must resolve this and do the follow ups on those who have been allocated money for production.

Hon. Hamauswa, banks are failing to access funds – what are you doing about that? It is true that we have been having a lack in terms of payments and some of the payments were even going beyond four weeks but as of last week, we had literally managed to clear the whole backlog.  Some of the reasons why we delay payments is because for every application and approval that is granted, we also do some mini audits.  When your application has been approved and you have done the Zim-dollar payment, we also track the money to see where it is coming from.  This is where we have seen that quite a number of companies they have got runner shelf companies and have got their forex.  The forex is given to a runner company which then goes to the black market to get the Zimbabwean dollars that are required at the auction.  They transfer the money to the applicant and then the applicant pays RBZ but we have mechanisms of following the paper trail where the money is coming from.  Sometimes because of those paper trail follow ups, there is bound to be some delays but I can assure you at the moment that we are up to date with the payment.

Hon. Molokela asked if the Ministry is going to open its doors for discussions with stakeholders.  On Wednesday, I was supposed to do a breakfast meeting with CZI, ZNCC and Confederation of Zimbabwe Retailers but after we saw that there were quite a number of issues that were coming from stakeholders, we then agreed as a Ministry that let us postpone this breakfast meeting so that we can do it the following week.  I can assure you that next week, we are going to have a breakfast meeting which is open to all stakeholders so that we can discuss this as stakeholders.

Then the last one from Hon. Mbondia – how far will the system ensure that we also benefit cross border traders especially women.  We have got a dual auction which is covering big and small businesses.   There is the auction market for SMEs and this is where most of our cross borders are.  The cross borders are catered for as long as they comply.  In terms of compliance, they should have their invoices from wherever they are importing from, they go to their bank and the bank is going to apply for forex on their behalf.  We are already doing this. These are the responses that I have Hon. Speaker Maam. I thank you.

Continued next page

(391 VIEWS)