HON. HWENDE: My issue Madam Speaker is that even though all of us here know that the money we are getting is very little, farmers are being paid in RTGS. Why is the Government not considering giving them in USD for all their produce just like what is being done beyond the borders? Right now, the Government is paying farmers RTGS and expects them to go to shops where prices are being inflated.
HON. ZIYAMBI: What Hon. Hwende is saying in other words is encouraging Government not to pay in RTGS but USD. The truth is that we cannot stop paying farmers in RTGS. As a Government, we can only put measures to control and stabilise the inflation rates on the parallel market. If you look at all the countries around the world, Zambia for example, has once done it but eventually moved away from that decision and opted for their own currency, the Kwacha. We have to promote our own currency if we want to control our own economy. We cannot therefore say we are no longer paying in RTGS, we cannot dump the RTGS because it has lost value and we adopt another currency – that is not possible. I actually expect Hon. Hwende to come up with sustainable solutions on how we can work around the issue.
HON. T. MLISWA: I agree with Hon. Ziyambi that our money is very important but it has no value, it is a weak currency. They are buying using United States Dollars but again, our local farmers are being paid in RTGS, they cannot get the same foreign currency, $335 that was mentioned to say was going to be paid to farmers. What is the percentage of the RTGs? What is the percentage of the foreign currency to be paid to farmers?
Unless they are living in a different country, let there be a provision to say, we are going to use the RTGS to buy farming inputs in the country. Let us not lie to each other, our local currency has no value at all. A good example is, if the car is not performing well, we park it, we cannot force matters. It does not mean that the car is not functional but we are fixing it as we park it. When the car is now fixed and fully functional, we adopt it but we are being asked to have the RTGS competing with the USD; it is actually being comic. We must not play politics with reality.
Let us search all the Ministers in the House to see how many people have United States Dollars. I have dollars also but do you have the local currency? As Ministers, they are paid in United States Dollars, that is what they are using and that is what has value. We are saying farmers should get money in RTGS that has value so that they are able to purchase inputs using money with value. Even wheat farmers are in a predicament. We want to know, for $335.00 to be paid to farmers, we have seen that happening in tobacco. Farmers should be allowed to buy subsidised farming inputs. The land reform cannot proceed because the pricing is very poor.
We have taken over farms as black people but we continue to suffer, there is no subsidy on the inputs. I agree with Hon. Hwende, the issue of farming produce should be paid in USD and 15% should be in RTGS.
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