Opposition Movement for Democratic Change legislator Gift Chimanikire says Zimbabweans must be mad if they think people will invest in their country when they continue attacking them and accusing them of masterminding the recent demonstrations.
“We are too aggressive towards those who could invest and help improve the performance of our economy. All we are doing is we send Hon. Chinamasa to Paris, London and the following day we are saying the French are actually conspirators into demonstrations that are going on in this country,” he told Parliament recently.
“Good Lord! Why did you send that man there to look for money and the news the previous night was saying the French are going to invest in agriculture in joint ventures. Twenty four hours later, you accuse the French of masterminding the demonstrations in this country, are we mad?”
Chimanikire was debating the motion on why Zimbabwe needs to adopt the South African rand to ease the currency cash crisis.
“Do we know what we are talking about? Why did we send a Minister there if we are going to be attacking them 24 hours later? What has happened to our intelligence sources there who should have informed us not to send anyone to Paris because those people are conspiring against us?
“We need political stability, sensibleness and soberness in this country, it is lacking.”
Chimanikire said the number solution to Zimbabwe’s problems was to srcap the indigenisation law.
“Let us swallow our pride, it is not bearing fruit. It only allowed a few individuals to build 50 bed roomed houses. We must be mad. Not even the Queen of England has such a house. Here we are, the Queen of England was robbing us and all the colonies and building overseas but she never built a 50 bed roomed house. Here in Zimbabwe people do that,” he said.
Number two was to introduce property tax.
“If I build a $100 million house, you must check where my income came from and you must make sure that I paid tax equivalent to $100 million in my pocket. I am using the difference. Did I pay tax for what I accumulated? So, let us wake up as Zimbabwean legislators and come up with laws that actually make sure we are protecting people out there”
Number three was to respect people in the disapora so that they can remit money home.
“Instead of encouraging the people in the diaspora to remit money to Zimbabwe, we were busy singing songs ‘hee kuchengeta machembere’ and so on. It is either we are mad as a society or we need to reform. We should call psychiatrists to help us. There were songs that were being sung about the diaspora and we need to be concerned about such things.”
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