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

HON. MARKHAM:   Madam Speaker, I would want to go back on to the issue of the SI which the Minister is talking about, specifically pertaining to agriculture.  My concern remains that we are at the peak of the tobacco buying season where a lot of USD are flying into the country and we have an exchange rate of 85:1 going to the farmers yet the inputs for next year have been priced, and you can go to any shop, at roughly 120.  My question is, surely the Reserve Bank, the Ministry or ZIMRA can link up the bidding for money and the cost of the importation and the markup of the documents on the importation documents.  This has been done in the past before and I do not know why it is not being done now and you have to equate that importation document before you can bid again.  That is the simple way of killing the black market.

My question goes further now because the Minister stated that competition is good.  We finished the tobacco season and we then go into the maize buying and maize marketing season since we have had a bumper harvest.  Are we guaranteed that the exchange will remain the same when we buy the maize crop?  The reason being, the maize farmers for the first time in a long time, have got a reasonable crop.  Will they be able to access funds to import at the exchange rate that is being laid out at the moment so that they can buy capital items for the next crop.  Can the Minister guarantee, secondly on the maize crop, farmers that they will indeed be paid within five days?  If you wait for a month and above, you have no idea what the exchange rate is going to do.  I thank you.

HON. NDUNA:  Madam Speaker, the Hon. Minister has spoken of publication of those that would have accessed forex on the auction market.  Could that proliferate or cascade down to the constituencies?  I am alive to the fact that places like PUMA Garage, ZUVA Service Station, have never sold their fuel in RTGS form.  Does this mean those companies have never accessed forex for them to sell their fuel in RTGS form?  At least there is ENGEN Service Station – it keeps selling in RTGS sometimes.  Can he make sure it comes down so that the electorate in Chegutu can police some of these delinquent and deviant unscrupulous business people who are accessing the scarce commodity using arbitrage to make sure they fatten their pockets?

HON. HAMAUSWA:  Thank you Madam Speaker.  I want to raise two questions to the Minister to help us understand how the auction system is working.  When they are giving USD to the manufacturers, we want to know whether manufacturers are then selling their products in local currency since they will be getting the money from the auction. If they are going to sell their products again in USD, it means there is some sort of a double dipping where they will be selling their products in USD yet they go and get forex claiming that they would want to use it for production.

The other question is, how are they selecting manufacturers who are getting forex for producing their goods?  Are they really sure that they need forex?  For example, if we have a milling company in Zimbabwe which buys mealie-meal from GMB using RTGS, why should that company require forex?  We would like the Minister to explain to this House whether the companies that are claiming to be in need of forex for production purposes really deserve those monies in forex.  What exactly are they buying from outside in terms of inputs which require forex?  If they manage to address those issues, we will have a situation whereby the forex would be directed towards production and all the goods would be priced in local currency because all the manufacturers would be able to get their money through the auction system.  If the auction system is not able to supply the manufacturers, we will continue to have this problem.  Thank you Madam Speaker.

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