Zimbabwe Finance Minister laments he has no money to spend as $97 out of every $100 he gets goes to wages but he is not adopting South African rand

Hon. Khupe, thank you very much for your contribution.  Your address was more appropriate at a rally.  I am aware that the Hon. Vice President of MDC-T is very passionate on women’s issues but we have done our best to address women’s issues.  The issues we are addressing are on health and I hope it raises the resources that I am looking forward to raise. It is basically to ameliorate the situation of women because they are the most affected when we come to health; whether it is mothers or individuals – all the cancers that we talk about affect more the women perhaps more than the men.  I do not know what the scientific explanation is.

You are also aware that I have capitalised the Women’s Bank, the macro-finance bank in order to support micro businesses by women.  The 2012 FinScope Survey showed that the informal sector was generating 5.7 million jobs and there were three million employers – the majority of them being women.  We need to build on that, both women and youth.  If we do, I am very anxious that we support the informal sector because it is from the informal sector that we will identify those companies which have potential to grow.  We can then grow them into bigger companies where they can openly pay taxes.  That is basically the direction that we are moving.

Hon. Mudarikwa, thank you very much for your contribution.  I support everything that you said especially with respect to ease of doing business, especially with the need to resuscitate the diamond sector.  Hon. Members will recall that in my 2014 Budget, I had projected 13 million carats of diamonds.  As I stand, year to year, I have hardly got anything more than three million – when you know the structure of our diamonds from Chiadzwa are basically 10% gem.  From 10-25% near gem, the rest 75% is industrial.  Industrial, you are looking at something like US$8-10 per carat.  If it is gem, you are looking at something maybe US$80 and above per carat.  Anything with a near gem, we are talking about a range of US$10-50.  We need to basically understand that.

Hon. Chipato, thank you very much.  Sometimes we should not mix and become hostile to taxes because of the many road blocks.  I think there is sometimes confusion about that.  Let us separate taxes from whatever complaints we may have about the many road blocks.  I hope that this will be done.

Hon. Mupfumi, let me make it very clear on the currency issue and I will also take the opportunity of a bit of the road map.  We are not going to adopt the rand for the reasons that we are not involved in the decision making of its value – whether it is depreciated or devalued or it appreciates, we have no say because we are not the South African Government.  In the same way that we got into trouble with the United States dollar here, we have no say over its appreciation which is what puts us in the condition that we are in.  As it appreciates like it has, we become the most expensive country and we are not competitive.  We are not going that route.

The route that we are taking is already clearly chartered.  I have said so on many occasions.  We are working on the macro-economic fundamentals to get our economy back on its fit in terms of higher production, reducing the fiscal deficit, taking care of the current account deficit, increasing more exports when building reserves at least three months cover for our imports. When we are near there, then we can talk about introducing our own currency.  I want to make this clear.  We are not introducing our own currency now until those macro-economic fundamentals are fulfilled.

Mr. Speaker, I want to conclude by thanking all Hon. Members for their support and excellent contributions that they have made.  It is now my pleasure to move that the Finance Bill [H.B.3, 2017] should now be read a second time.

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