PARLIAMENT OF ZIMBABWE
Tuesday, 10th December, 2019.
The Senate met at Half-past Two O’clock p.m.
THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE in the Chair)
ANNOUNCEMENT BY THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE
MEMORIAL SERVICE FOR THE LATE HON. VIMBAYI JAVA THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE: I wish to inform the
Senate that all Hon. Senators are invited to the memorial service of the late Hon. Vimbayi Java to be held on Saturday, 14th December, 2019 at
No. 2 Lyndurst Lane, Strathaven, Harare, starting at 0900 hours.
MOTION
PRESIDENTIAL SPEECH: DEBATE ON ADDRESS
First Order read: Adjourned debate on motion in reply to the
Presidential Speech.
Question again proposed.
*HON. SEN. TONGOGARA: Thank you Madam President for
giving me the opportunity to make my contribution on this motion regarding the President’s Speech. I would like to start by thanking His Excellency because of his kind heartedness, because even before he started delivering his Speech, he asked us to stand up in memory of the late former President of this country, Cde. Robert Gabriel Mugabe. This cannot be done by anybody who is not considerate but it shows that he is a kind hearted man.
The next topic he touched on was agriculture and I remember that in this august House, we debated two motions, which we thought the Ministers responsible were going to come and respond, but unfortunately, they did not turn up. However, we did not lose heart because whatever we debate in this House; the President also listens to the debates. We talked about the importance of small grains and we would now change that name from small grains to traditional grains because we had said as a House that this should be ingrained in the people’s minds because these small grains used to sustain our forefathers and they did not suffer from hunger.
The current situation, the negative impact of the climate change has led to poor agricultural practices and we do not also receive enough rains, either we have little rains or we receive too much rains which come with severe storm and destruction in the process. This means that when the President was deliberating on this issue, he is somebody who is very considerate; he is a listening President.
At the same time, in this House during our debates, we also talked about teak borne diseases which are affecting our animal husbandry and we all had an input. It showed that it was important that cattle be taken to dip tanks but unfortunately there is not enough money to buy these chemicals or at times there is no water. In some instances, people are given wrong chemicals to dip the cattle and this has a negative impact on the cattle population of this country. We hope that enough chemicals; enough support for the dipping of our cattle will improve and we will have an increase in the number of cattle in the country. Cattle are a source of wealth amongst us as Africans. Again when we have well fed cattle, we pay lobola and even the mothers are given their quota of the lobola.
The President also talked about the Bill, which talks about the problems faced by the people, regarding health. When we look at it, people have deductions from their salaries by medical aid societies but when the members go to seek treatment, they are asked to pay shortfalls. We are hoping this regulatory authority is going to create an atmosphere whereby the beneficiaries of various medical aid societies are going to receive full treatment instead of just being given prescriptions for them to buy medication and also pay shortfalls.
Madam President, the President also talked about pensions. I am glad that as members of the Senate, we had debated this motion and we had shown that it is a pity that after working and you are supposed to rest after a long time of working and have a good life, it is not happening. It is unfortunate that people are retiring to poverty and the President had said there is going to be a Pension and Provident Fund Bill. I hope when that Bill has been introduced and get into this House, we are going to deal with it accordingly so that people who would have come to the end of their working life are going to have a happy life. The current situation is so sad because we have these elderly people who are supposed to rest at home, but they spend five days and nights at financial institutions five days and five nights at a financial institution and even when they are given their allocation it is not enough to take them back to their homes. It is all gobbled up by transport.
The President talked about $2.7 million which was allocated for the support of the Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs). As we know the SMEs are the backbone of our industry in this country. When this fund is fully utilized, it is going to improve on the performances of the SMEs because at the moment if we look at the plight of SMEs, some of these SMEs have no proper shelter. There are no sheds and when it is raining they really have to scurry for cover under shift plastics or whatever they may use. The property which they are manufacturing is destroyed by the rains.
The President also talked about the acquisition of machinery to assist in the manufacturing of the SMEs because these SMEs will be supplied first and foremost with shelter to operate in and secondly, they will be given equipment to ease the way of doing their duties and this leads to the growth of the economy of the country.
The President talked about democracy in the country and we want to remove some of those environments which create fear amongst the citizens and at times you never know what is creating that fear because at times that is caused by the violence which occurs in the country, hence we need to have some reforms so that we can live in peace.
Zimbabwe is a peaceful country, Zimbabwe loves peace.
Madam President, the President also showed that he has his people at heart; he is a listening President because he promised that the results of the Mothlante Commission Report instituted to make an enquiry on creating peace in Zimbabwe; he promised to fully implement the recommendations so that there is peace and tranquility in Zimbabwe. We do not have to live in fear of other people or fear of violence. So we only hope that these reforms will be implemented fully so that we have peace and tranquility in Zimbabwe.
Madam President, the President also talked about people living with disabilities. We were told about the problems which are faced by people living with disability and the final result is that some of these people are really looked down upon. They are made to feel inferior. We noticed that in some of the buildings they cannot access these buildings.
One typical example is what happened here at the Parliament building. We had a Committee meeting on the 5th Floor and the lift was out of order. Consequently, the one Member who was supposed to be coming to that meeting failed to attend the meeting because they could not access the building since the lifts were out of order.
That is why we are saying in any new buildings, it should be made mandatory and compulsory that these buildings are friendly to people living with disability. They should have easy access so that they can participate fully in all the activities that need their presence, that need their participation because some of these people are marked absent not because of their own liking but because they cannot easily access the places in this building yet they are Members of Parliament who would have been elected by people to represent them.
I will round up my contribution by saying, the President alluded that he was not happy because the Bills which would have been brought to Parliament are not acted upon as they are supposed to be done. It means Members of Parliament are short changing the people they represent yet these Bills are meant to create peace, order and good governance of Zimbabwe according to the Constitution and above all, protecting the human rights. We are elected to represent the people.
Thank you Madam President.
HON. SEN. MOHADI: I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. SEN. HUNGWE: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Wednesday, 11 December, 2019.
MOTION
REPORT OF THE DELEGATION TO THE 45TH PLENARY
ASSEMBLY OF THE SADC PARLIAMENTARY FORUM HELD IN
MAPUTO
HON. SEN. MOHADI: I move the motion standing in my name
that this House takes note of the report of the Delegation to the 45th Plenary Assembly of the SADC Parliamentary Forum, held at the
Joaquim Chissano International Conference Centre, Maputo, Mozambique from 15th to 25th July, 2019.
HON. SEN. KHUPE: I second.
HON. SEN. MOHADI: I am moving a motion on the report of the 45th Plenary Assembly of the SADC Parliamentary Forum held at the Joaquim Chissano International Conference Centre, Maputo,
Mozambique from 15th to 25th July, 2019. The theme was on ‘Climate change, mitigation and adaptation; the role of Parliament towards the implementation of the Paris Declaration and the Katowice Roadmap.’
Madam President, let me begin by outlining that due to other circumstances, this report is coming to the House belatedly but nevertheless will capture the most important activities that happened in the region. I will thus give the immediate key points on the report in accordance with Article 11 (10) of the SADC Parliamentary Forum which states that the Plenary Assembly shall meet for the transaction of business at the Headquarters of the Forum or in a Member State on a rotational basis.
The 45th Plenary Assembly of the SADC Parliamentary Forum was convened in Mozambique, Maputo from 15th to 25th July 2019 under the theme ‘Climate change, mitigation and adaptation. The role of
Parliament towards the role of Parliaments towards implementing the Paris Declaration and the Katowice Roadmap. Thirteen (13) countries were presented at the plenary that included Angola, Botswana,
Democratic Republic of Congo, the Kingdom of Eswatini, Malawi, Mozambique, Lesotho, Namibia, Seychelles, Tanzania, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Madam President, the delegation …
THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Ummm Hon. Member,
if I may ask that you increase your volume please. Those who are behind you would like to hear what you are saying.
HON. SEN. MOHADI: Thank you Madam President, I will try.
The delegation from Zimbabwe led by Hon. Adv. Jacob Francis Mudenda, Speaker of the National Assembly comprised of the following members and officers of Parliament as follows: - Hon. Sen. Tambudzani
Mohadi, a member of the Standing Committee on Food, Agriculture, Natural Resources and Infrastructure; Hon. Goodluck Kwaramba, member of the Standing Committee on Gender Equality, Women Advancement and Youth Development and chairperson of the
Zimbabwe Women’s Parliamentary Caucus; Hon. Dexter Nduna, temporarily replaced the late Hon. Obedingwa Mguni who was also a member of the Standing Committee on Democratization, Governance and Human Rights until a substantive delegate is appointed; Hon. Anele Ndebele, member of the Standing Committee on Trade, Industry,
Finance and Investment and also Hon. Basilia Majaya, member of the
Standing Committee on Human and Social Development and Special Programmes.
Also, we had member of staff attending this plenary Assembly.
We had Mr. Ndamuka Marimo …
THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Order, order, sorry I
did not understand well on Hon. Majaya. Did you say that she is a member of the Central Committee?
HON. SEN. MOHADI: Alright, I will repeat.
THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Yes please.
HON. MOHADI: Hon. Basilia Majaya, member of the Standing
Committee on Human and Social Development and Special
Programmes…
THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE: This is why I am
saying I think that you should be clear enough for the House to hear you. If I cannot hear you yet you are very close to me, what about those seated behind you?
HON. SEN. MOHADI: Thank you Madam President. The
following members of staff attended the plenary Assembly as support staff: - Mr. Ndamuka Marimo, Director in the Clerk’s Office; Mr. Frank
Mike Nyamahowa, Director in the Hon. Speaker’s Office; Mr. Cleophas Gwakwara, Principal External Relations Officer and Secretary to the delegation; Ms. Martha Mushandinga, Principal Executive Assistant; and Mr. Clive Zvimekria Mukushwa, Security Aide to the Speaker.
Madam President, the official opening ceremony of the 45th
Plenary Assembly took place on Sunday, 21st July, 2019 at Joachim
Chissano International Conference Centre (JCICC). The Plenary
Assembly expressed its profound appreciation to Hon. Veronica
Nataniel Macamo Dlhovo, the Speaker of the National Assembly of
Mozambique, the President of the Forum and the Parliament of Mozambique for graciously hosting the 45th Plenary Assembly Session having previously hosted the 44th Plenary Assembly at the same venue in December 2018.
Madam President, in delivering the keynote address, the guest-ofhonour and President of the host country, His Excellency the President
Filipe Jacinto Nyusi, advocated for the expeditious transformation of the
SADC Parliamentary Forum into a SADC Regional Parliament in response to current challenges including those related to regional integration.
Madam President, in His Excellency the President Nyusi’s view, the SADC Parliament should not limit its activities to political matters but also pay attention to economic and social issues including those related to the environment. President Nyusi reiterated the need to have a regional Parliament just as any other region in Africa.
Madam President, the Speaker of the National Assembly of
Mozambique, Hon. Veronica Nataniel Macamo Dlhovo, welcomed the delegates to the city of Acacia and re-emphasized the need to transform the forum into a Legislative Assembly noting that the issue had been on the agenda for a long time. Hon. Dlhovo committed herself to bring the transformation agenda into finality during her presidency.
Madam President, in a solidarity message delivered by the Hon.
Chief Fortune Charumbira, Fourth Vice President of the Pan African Parliament, he reminded the Plenary Assembly of the need to ensure the full participation of African people in the development of the continent and ensuring that there is full economic integration on the African continent.
The Hon. PAP Vice President applauded the Plenary Assembly for choosing a timely topic for deliberation particularly in the aftermath of Cyclone Idai.
Madam President, the symposium – “Climate change, mitigation and adaptation: The role of parliaments, towards the implementation of the Paris Declaration and the Katowice roadmap”. The symposium received a brief overview of the impact of the climate change in the SADC region. The region has a population of about 350 million people with 70% of its population living below the poverty datum line. Again, 70% of the regional populace relies on natural resources for their livelihood mainly on agriculture, fisheries and on forestry. The dependence on these natural resources rendered SADC countries susceptible to the impact of climate change and in particular food insecurity. The coastal States suffer from floods and the impact of cyclones while inland States face droughts and are also impacted upon by cyclones.
Madam President, the session was psyched on need to prepare itself for the emerging challenge of climate migration as people move across borders due to the vagaries of nature.
The Speaker of the National Assembly of Zimbabwe, Hon. Advocate Jacob Francis Mudenda made an impassioned plea to his peers for the political will to contrive strategic and concerted mitigatory solutions in order to avert further debilitating climatic environmental consequences.
Hon. Mudenda drew a road map to ensure that National Parliaments approve the Paris Global Climate Change Agreement in view of domesticating it through relevant municipal laws that may need to be crafted and/or reformed. This would require extreme cooperation with the respective SADC country executives who must continually craft robust climate change policies as the bedrock of attendant sound climate change laws.
Madam President furthermore, national Parliaments working with their respective Cabinets were urged to adopt the Katowice Rule Book as a tool for implementing the Paris Global Climate Change Agreement. This should be done in the context of promoting investment in renewable energy.
National Parliaments, through their relevant Portfolio Committees and in liaison with the appropriate line ministries that deal with the environment and climate change must prepare the Biennial
Transparency and National Inventory Reports due as from 2024.
Madam President, the SADC PF should encourage its member
Parliaments to ensure that scientifically grounded departments for Disaster Management are established in their countries as centers of mitigatory climatic change impacts. Ms. Augusta Maita, Director of the Institute for Disaster Management pledged to avail herself to the region to give expert advice on the need to address the challenges of climate change from a technical perspective.
RESOLUTIONS ON THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
REPORT
Pursuant to its mandate, the Executive Committee (EXCO) of the SADC Parliamentary Forum SADC PF) reported for adoption, issues pertaining to the Management of the Forum, the Transformation process and commended the Plenary Assembly for proposing the relevant and timely theme, “Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation: The Role of
Parliaments “Towards Implementing the Paris Declaration and the Katowice Roadmap.” The Plenary Assembly acknowledged that the theme could not have come at a more opportune time, particularly in the aftermath of Cyclone Idai, which left a trail of death and destruction in the region. Cyclone Idai had provided ample evidence of the reality of climate change and the urgent need to come up with concrete strategies to mitigate climate change and build resilience.
On a sad note, the Plenary Assembly, observed a minute of silence and paid tribute to the late Hon. Obedingwa Mguni who passed away on Tuesday 17th June 2019. The Plenary Assembly remembered him for his effervescence, incisive contributions and dedication to the Forum. Furthermore, the 45th Plenary Assembly observed a minute of silence in honour of the unfortunate victims of Cyclone Idai in Malawi,
Mozambique and Zimbabwe.
Amendments to the Administrative Rules and Regulations ofthe Forum on MiscellaneousMatters
The Plenary Assembly adopted a resolution to restrict the Education Allowance payable to Staff to one tertiary qualification per child over and above the age limit of 25 years, to prevent situations where the Forum funds postgraduate qualifications for employees’ children.
Consideration of the Guidelines to Strengthen the
Accountability and Oversight of theOffice of the Secretary-General
The Executive Committee adopted a resolution which will see the implementation of the Guidelines to strengthen the Office of the Secretary -General including annual assessments by the Executive
Committee under the direction of the President of the Forum.
Update on the invitation tendered to the Parliaments of the
Union of Comoros andMadagascar to join the SADC PF
The Plenary Assembly adopted a resolution for the Parliament of
Seychelles to physically visit the Parliaments of Comoros and Madagascar with a view to persuade them to join the SADC PF since they have not yet responded to the written invitations. The initiative is intended to concretise the Forum’s drive towards full regional integration and co-operation.
Update on Transformation of the Forum into a SADC
Regional Parliament
The Plenary Assembly expressed its gratitude to the President of the SADC PF, Hon. Veronica Nataniel Macamo Dlhovo, for taking the initiative to meet the incoming SADC Chairperson, the President of the
United Republic of Tanzania, His Excellency, Dr. John Joseph
Pombe Magufuli to elicit his support on the transformation agenda.
The SADC PF President had also taken the opportunity to address the thorny issue of the autonomy of the SADC Regional Parliament, by assuring His Excellency, President Magufuli that the Regional Parliament would be guided by the Summit in its mandate and would seek to complement rather than contradict the ideals and aspirations of the Summit.
Hon. Speaker Professor Katjavivi had, in turn, met with the former President of Tanzania and senior statesman, His Excellency, Benjamin Mukapa, on a different mission but took the opportunity to brief H.E. Mukapa, on the transformation agenda. Incidentally, H.E. Mukapa is scheduled to deliver a presentation at the 39th SADC Summit in August during which he promised to voice his support for the transformation agenda. The Plenary Assembly commended the initiative by Hon. Speaker Professor Katjavivi and agreed that the lobbying initiatives towards transformation should not be restricted to Heads of States alone, but should be extended to include opinion leaders and Senior Statesmen in the Region whose voice could be influential in mobilising support for transformation.
The Plenary Assembly resolved that the stratagem should include, but not be limited to the following: -
- The SADC PF President and the lobbying team must urgently meet with the outgoing SADC Chairperson, His Excellency, President Hage Geingob, before the onset of the 39th SADC Summit scheduled for August to elicit a reaffirmation of his support as one of the avowed champions of the transformation agenda and encourage him to mobilise support for transformation among other Heads of State.
- The lobbying team must identify and approach other potential champions prior to the 39th SADC Summit to assist in eliciting a concrete decision by the Summit on the transformation agenda, including but not limited to, the Presidents of Angola,
Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
- The SADC PF President must, without delay, appeal to His Excellency President Filipe Jacinto Nyusi, to facilitate for the lobbying team to be allowed to address the Council of Ministers and the SADC Summit on the transformation agenda.
- Speaker Dlhovo and Hon. Speaker Professor Katjavivi should leverage on the impending bilateral visit to Mozambique
by His Excellency President Hage Geingob, to jointly brief their Heads of State on the status of the transformation agenda and appeal for their backing in mobilising support before and during the 39th SADC Summit.
- The lobbying team should urgently extend its advocacy efforts to the SADC Secretariat and sensitise them on the transformation agenda in order to dispel any misconceptions and negativity they might have towards transformation.
- Speakers must, without delay, seek the support of their respective Ministers of Foreign Affairs while the Clerks/
Secretaries General should engage Secretaries for Foreign Affairs on the transformation drive to garner their support prior to the 39th SADC Council of Ministers Meeting and Summit.
- The Forum Secretariat, with the assistance of Clerks/ Secretaries General of National Parliaments, must identify and engage a team of lawyers to assist in developing an indicative Protocol for transformation which resonates with the Forum’s thrust as a complementary organ to the Summit.
- The Forum Secretariat and Clerks/Secretaries General must engage the media in their respective countries to lobby for support for transformation of the Forum into a SADC Regional Parliament.
Adoption of the Oath and Affirmation of Adherence for SADC
PF Members of Parliament
The 44th Plenary Assembly adopted an Oath and Affirmation of adherence for SADC PF Members of Parliament, which was commissioned through research by the Secretariat into best practices in other regional and international Parliamentary organisations. It is envisaged that the Oath and Affirmation of Adherence will provide recourse for the Forum in the event that Members exhibit conduct that is likely to undermine the integrity of the Forum.
Engagement of Consultant to Develop Risk Management
Policy
Pursuant to the recommendations of an Organisational Assessment exercise conducted by KPMG (Zambia), the Plenary Assembly approved the Terms of Reference for the engagement of a Consultant to develop a Risk Management Policy for the Forum in line with international best practices.
Update on the Forthcoming SRHR, HIV & AIDS Governance
Project with Sweden
The Plenary Assembly welcomed the impending commencement of the SRHR, HIV and AIDS Governance Project following the signing of the Project Agreement in June 2019. The Project will cover all the 14 Member Parliaments and is expected to commence on 1st August 2019. The development of the Institutional Risk Management Policy flagged under the Organisational Assessment exercise is part of the requirements for the commencement of the SRHR, HIV and AIDS Governance
Project.
Improvement of Whistle blowing Policy of the Forum
The Plenary Assembly welcomed the development by the Secretariat of a whistle-blowing policy as part of the recommendations of the Organisational Assessment exercise. The development of a whistle-blowing policy resonates with the Forum’s strategic thrust towards enhancing transparency, accountability and upholding the values of honesty and integrity. The Plenary Assembly encouraged the Secretariat to continue exploring ways to improve the complaint system, including introducing a toll-free hotline and suggestion boxes.
TREASURER’S REPORT
The Plenary Assembly noted that Zimbabwe had fully paid its subscriptions up to 2020. This payment has assisted in raising
Zimbabwe’s standing in the regional body since the country is a critical player in most of the initiatives at the Forum.
MOTIONS ADOPTED DURING PLENARY ASSEMBLY
In tandem with its constitutive mandate, as the policy making and deliberative body of SADC PF, the 45th Plenary Assembly discussed and resolved on various issues of regional importance and concern.
Motion for the adoption of the Report of the Regional
Parliamentary Model Laws
Oversight Committee
The Plenary Assembly adopted the need to prioritise monitoring of the domestication of legal provisions contained in Model Laws developed by the Forum, in view of promoting harmonisation of regional legal norms on SRHR, gender equality and democratic elections across the SADC region. This will ensure the SADC citizenry as a whole, benefit from a standardised legal instruments implemented through sovereign parliamentary processes.
In the ensuing debate, the Plenary Assembly stressed the need to strengthen the monitoring exercise by the Committee to ensure that sound, accurate and reliable information is obtained on domestication of model laws.
The Plenary Assembly emphasised the need to find a lasting and sustainable solution to the funding of the Election Observation Missions, given the strategic role that such missions play in advancing democratisation in SADC Member States.
National Parliaments were encouraged to continue marshalling efforts for domestication of all SADC Model Laws, and for Members of Parliament to support gender mainstreaming by advocating for the domestication of the instruments and protocols relating to Gender, and by infusing gender parity on a 50:50 ratio in electoral systems through progressive reforms.
Motion and debate on the Report of the Joint Session of SADC
PF Standing Committeesin the SADC Region
The Standing Committees and the RWPC met ahead of the 45th Plenary Assembly Session to reflectively deliberate on various thematic issues of regional interest and concern. In this regard, the Plenary
Assembly adopted the following resolutions with regards to the report: -
Status of SADC’s Public Health System, Access to Medicine
and Public Health
- There is need to promote access to medicine by harnessing the creation of an alternative pharmaceutical plant in the region post 2033, which will greatly serve the objectives of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) especially, Goal number 3 which aims at ensuring healthy lives and the promotion of the well-being of the people in the region.
- The SADC Region needs to create an enabling environment that will nurture research into the production capacity of the local and regional pharmaceutical industry in terms of generic essential medicines.
- Africa needs a regional centre of excellence that will promote, monitor and guide the production of diverse medicines and this should be supported by national and regional alignment of trade policies.
- A database and a databank of traditional medicines should be established and this should be complemented by a purposeful trade in pharmaceuticals within SADC.
Digital Economy
- On the digital economy, the Plenary Assembly noted the need to: -
- Ensure that people in the region have access to internet and the digital economy including those in the hinterland;
- Take measures that mitigate the high cost of internet to ensure that ordinary people realise the full benefits of the digital economy through affordable access to communication systems;
- Cyber security should play a role in the management and governance of the digital age.
- The Fourth (4th) industrial revolution has given rise to a number of services such as cloud, machine learning, drones, block chain and others. These provide enormous potential for legislators and policy makers to exploit the networks of the digital economy for the benefit of the public sector and their constituencies;
- It was noted that the on-going Huawei trade conflict between the United States of America and China is a potential disservice as it can reduce accessibility to cellphones and the internet and generally the participation in the digital economy;
- At a policy level, the digital economy may be advanced through the adoption of a Regional technical roadmap, regional model law and the post adoption popularisation and implementation;
- Laws against cyber-crime appear rather rushed and more driven by political motive than the need to regulate the sector and protect the various internet users. The region should play a facilitatory role with regards to the use of the internet; and
- There is need for a robust regional data protection framework to allow the movement of data across countries without exposing the identity and security of the users.
Motion and debate for the adoption of the Report of the Standing Committee on Gender Equality, Women Advancement and Youth Development
The Plenary Assembly resolved as follows: -
- Parliaments should consider recruiting and placing Youth intern/volunteers at each National Parliament, to provide on-thejob training and workplace exposure to youth at national level, while sustaining initiatives and projects of SADC-PF YDP.
- SADC PF and Parliaments to develop a sustainability strategy to cater for youth development initiatives across all development
Programmes; and
- Parliaments must consider secondment of Youth Officers to support implementation activities beyond the contract of the current secondment by Parliament of Namibia.
Motion and debate for the adoption of the Report of the
Standing Committee on Democratization, Governance and Human
Rights
The Plenary Assembly resolved as follows: -
- The Secretariat should write to all National Parliaments communicating the reputational risk that SADC PF was facing from not participating in Election Missions and therefore, appeal to the Speakers to give the matter favourable consideration.
- The Secretariat to facilitate for the Committee, through the Chairperson, to engage the Executive Committee and Speakers to brief them on the matter with a view to finding a collective solution that should see SADC PF deploying Election Observation Missions to the remaining four countries holding elections in 2019, namely Botswana (October), Mozambique (15th October), Namibia
(27th November) and Mauritius (December).
- There was need to ensure that Plenary Assembly decisions are implemented, including those on the deployment of
Parliamentarians to observe elections in Member States, as failure to implement Plenary resolutions could undermine the credibility of SADC PF in the eyes of stakeholders. Parliament of Zimbabwe should maintain its presence for activities such as the Plenary
Assembly where robust regional issues are debated.
- National Parliaments should be encouraged to prioritise SADC PF activities in the allocation of financial resources to the regional body as compared to International Parliamentary bodies.
- The Committee, through the Chairperson, will table a draft resolution to the 46th Plenary Assembly proposing the way forward on the funding of SADC PF election observation missions, taking into consideration consultations with the Executive Committee and
Speakers of National Parliaments.
Adoption of the Report of the Standing Committee on Humanand Social Development and Special Programmes
The Plenary Assembly resolved that:
The Secretariat continues to work with Sweden to finalise Phase 2 of the SRHR, HIV and AIDS Governance Project which will be implemented in 14 countries of the SADC region. The Forum reaffirmed its commitment to prioritise Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH), as part of its human and social development priorities, especially given the known linkages between SRH and the transmission of HIV which still notoriously influences the SADC region;
Furthermore, National Parliaments must continue to work together to share experiences and cross-learn on Sexual Reproductive and Human and Development issues, under the auspices of the Forum, and additionally continue holding Governments to account on their SRH commitments.
Motion and debate for the adoption of the Report of the
Standing Committee on Trade, Industry, Finance and
Infrastructure (TIFI)
The Plenary Assembly acknowledged the devastating effects of
Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs) and Sovereign Debt on the development of Southern Africa and Africa and stressed the need to address these challenges head on.
SADC countries were encouraged to urgently address the debt crisis which is re-emerging in the region. Whilst those facing debt distress should devise strategies to address this undesirable state, the rest of the region should not be complacent. Sovereign Debt is inadvertently resulting in countries mortgaging the future generations.
The complex issues of Sovereign Debt required all the different stakeholders to work together. Parliament, civil society and the media are important players and should join forces in addressing IFFs and Sovereign Debt.
Motion and Debate for the Adoption of the Report of the
Regional Women’s Parliamentary Caucus
The Plenary Assembly resolved as follows: -
- SADC Member States must domesticate global, regional and sub-regional instruments that seek to strengthen the rights of women and girls.
- SADC-PF should support efforts that seek to promote gender mainstreaming and gender responsive budgeting across the SADC-PF region.
- The RWPC should continue to coordinate with stakeholders, especially Civil Society Organisations, to develop a robust multi-stakeholder partnership framework that can act holistically to promote gender equality, SRH and women empowerment.
- SADC-PF should support RWPC efforts that seek to promote 50 percent gender parity in political governance.
- The RWPC, with the coordination of the Secretariat, should continue to liaise with all institutional organs of the Forum and address cross-cutting issues relating to women which transcends different thematic areas.
- SADC-PF should strengthen efforts and initiatives that seek to work with men as development partners, for example, the
HeforShe campaign.
Motion and Debate for the Adoption of the Report of the Food,
Agriculture Committee
(FANR)
The Plenary Assembly noted the devastation on the 14th and 15th of March 2019, caused by Cyclone Idai as it made a landfall near Beira city, and in parts of Eastern Zimbabwe and Malawi which led to catastrophic destruction of infrastructure, property and livelihoods. Usually, cyclones form in the Central Indian Ocean – giving sufficient time for affected countries to prepare to reduce a disaster. On the contrary, Idai started off deceptively weak and then grew incrementally to strike a big blow on the three affected countries.
Climate change should be linked to issues of poverty, equity, justice, politics and economics. Both politicians and the ordinary people should come up with mitigatory strategies and building resilience.
Environmental pollution as a result of waste mismanagement including chemicals should be discouraged. Pollution waste, unfortunately, ends up in drainage systems and results in blockages and contamination of water and the environment. Parliaments should enact legislation that imposes deterrent sentences on such would-be polluters.
Climate change, as observed from changed rainfall patterns and other environmental phenomenon, is a reality and not mere theory. It is, therefore, important to give priority to crops like cassava and sorghum which are drought resistant and can survive short and erratic rainfall patterns.
There is a need to resuscitate and appreciate indigenous knowledge systems about the environment and the weather in particular as coastal communities used to anticipate cyclones and other climatic conditions and put the necessary precautions in place.
Cyclones are an environmental phenomenon and a reality of climate change and have both negative and positive consequences. Human beings, therefore, have no choice but to embrace the reality of climate change and in particular the phenomenon of cyclones and put in place the necessary mitigatory measures to build resilience.
Regional and National disaster management and coordination through the strengthening of early warning systems and pooling of resources is the best way to deal with the effects of climate change.
SADC Governments must, as a matter of priority, individually and collectively provide funding for disaster management initiatives. SADC Parliaments should exercise oversight over these initiatives and assess their disaster preparedness.
DEBATES ON MOTIONS BY MEMBER PARLIAMENTS
Motion on Beneficiation of the Extractive Sector in the SADC region
The Plenary Assembly noted that the African continent is endowed with mineral resources which are capable of fully sustaining the livelihoods of its citizenry.
The meeting recalled that the colonial contact of Africa with the
West was based on and triggered by the mineral wealth of Africa.
The Plenary Assembly urged Member States to prioritise beneficiation and value addition to the region's mineral resources in order to ensure maximisation of their value, thereby enhancing
Governments’ capacity to mobilise revenue for delivery of public services.
Motion on the Promotion of Renewable Energy in the SADC
region
Plenary Assembly resolved to: -
Urge SADC Governments to urgently diversify from the conventional sources of energy to the more abundant renewable and other non-conventional sources such as solar, wind, gas and minihydros;
- Implore SADC to prioritise the development of a regional mechanism to invest in the development of Inga Dam Phase Two which has the potential to make the region and Africa as a whole energy self-sufficient;
- Encourage SADC countries to invest in power plants such as the Kafue Gorge Hydropower Station in Zambia, the proposed Batoka Gorge Hydroelectric Power Station, which is a 1,600 megawatts hydroelectric power station, planned to be on the Zambezi River across the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe. This initiative, among others will enhance the capacity of Member States to export and import electricity from each other.
- Recommend increased and innovative investment in the region’s energy infrastructure as most of the power plants were commissioned in the 1960s and 1970s and with no significant investment made in recent years, by creating an enabling environment for international investment and public private partnerships.
- Suggest the application of the principles of cost reflective electricity tariffs concurrent with pro-poor measures to ensure sustainability of the sector and access by the poor.
- Urged National Governments to provide targeted funding for rural and peri-urban electrification initiatives in order to ensure access to electricity by the majority in the hinterland; and, Encouraged SADC Member Parliaments, in particular the Parliamentary Committees on Energy, to ensure effective oversight on the energy sector, the engagement of all role players and the strategic utilisation of legislative and budgetary measures to advance the sector, in particular the renewable energy.
Motion on the Need for a Lasting Solution Regarding Funding for
SADC PF electionObservation Missions
The Plenary Assembly urged the Executive Committee to engage
Speakers of Member Parliaments and the Chairperson of the Democratisation, Governance and Human Rights Standing Committee with a view to finding a collective and lasting solution that should see SADC PF deploying Election Observation Missions to the remaining four countries holding elections in 2019, namely Botswana (October),
Mozambique (15th October), Namibia (27th November) and Mauritius
(December), (This resolution is read with the Resolutions under Item
9.0).
Motion on the Negative Effects of Plastic on the Environment
The Plenary Assembly endorsed the international campaign
"PRODUCE, USE AND RE-USE" as opposed to "PRODUCE, USE AND DISPOSE" and urged all stakeholders nationally and regionally, including industry and business to embrace this approach. The meeting prompted National Governments and other stakeholders to initiate and sustain national and community campaigns to raise awareness about the devastating effects of plastic on the environment and to create incentives which will promote positive action in this regard.
Member Parliaments and their Executive arms were encouraged to urgently take legislative measures to regulate and eliminate plastic usage in order to protect the environment and to ensure effective implementation of such legislation and monitoring of the same.
Member States were encouraged to fully support SADC’s environmental management and sustainable development objectives through the promotion of pollution control, waste management and environmental education.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Recommendation | Action | Timeline |
Transformation of SADC PF into a Regional Parliament. | -The Hon. Speaker to lead the local mobilisation of support for the Transformation agenda.
-Lobbying process with the Executive to continue formally and informally.
|
October 2019
|
Resolution on the Paris Global
Climate Change Agreement and Katowice Roadmap with a in view to domesticate and make follow-up action through relevant municipal laws |
-Line Ministry to meet with
Portfolio Committee on Lands, Agriculture, Climate and Water and Rural Resettlement to report on preparations of the Biennial Transparency and National Inventory Reports due as from 2024. - Parliament of Zimbabwe to play its oversight role by ensuring that the Civil Protection Unit of Zimbabwe is scientifically |
October 2019 |
grounded for Disaster
Management |
||
Harnessing the full benefits of the digital economy and mitigating the harmful effects of Cyber -crime | -The Committee to include in its work plan the role of the Fourth (4th) industrial revolution and its attendant benefits. The Ministry of Science and Technology to unpack the related benefits such as cloud computing, machine learning, drones, block chain and others.
-The Committee on ICT, Postal and Courier Services to conduct oversight on progress in the establishment of internet services in rural areas
|
October 2019
January 2020
|
Parliament to domesticate global, regional and subregional instruments that seek to strengthen the rights of women and girls.
The Institution to strengthen synergies with men in mainstreaming gender issues.
|
-The ZWPC to strengthen efforts and initiatives that seek to work with men as partners on issues related to Gender, e.g. the HeforShe campaign.
|
October 2019 |
Portfolio Committees to take active interest in Climate Change issues as they relate to poverty, equity, justice, humanitarian, politics and economics.
|
-Liaison with the Ministry of Energy and Power Development for the development of clean methods of energy production.
|
October 2019 |
Beneficiation of the extractive sector | -The Mines and Mining
Development Ministry to be engaged to prioritise beneficiation and value |
October 2019 |
addition to the country’s mineral resources, including lithium, chrome ore, gold in order to ensure maximisation of their value, thereby enhancing
Government’s ‘capacity to mobilise revenue for delivery of public services. |
||
Ban on the Use of Plastic in the country | -Parliament of Zimbabwe, through the Portfolio Committee on Environment, to urgently undertake legislative measures to regulate and eliminate plastic usage in order to protect the environment and to ensure effective implementation of such legislation and monitoring of the same.
|
October 2019 |
Enhancement of Election
Observation Missions |
-The Plenary Assembly urged the
Executive Committee to engage Speakers of Member Parliaments and the Chairperson of the Democratisation Governance and Human Rights Standing Committee with a view to finding a collective and lasting solution that should see SADC PF deploying Election Observation Missions to the remaining four countries holding elections in 2019, namely Botswana (October), Mozambique (15th October), Namibia (27th November) and Mauritius (December) |
Ongoing |
Harnessing the importance of
Indigenous Medicinal Knowledge Systems |
-Promotion, monitoring and guidance on the production of diverse medicines which should be supported by national and regional alignment of trade policies. The oversight role to be championed by the Portfolio Committee on Health and Child Welfare.
|
September
2019 |
CONCLUSION
The Plenary Assembly appreciated the excellent hosting arrangements made by the National Assembly of Mozambique noting that the country hosted the 44th Plenary Assembly and is still recovering from the effects of Cyclone Idai and Cyclone Kenneth. Parliament of
Zimbabwe stands to benefit by adopting resolutions of the 45th Plenary Assembly as they summarise the collective concerns of citizens in the region.
The delegation led by Hon. Speaker Advocate Jacob Francis.
Mudenda, must be commended for raising the country’s flag high by participating actively and making incisive contributions during deliberations on reports and motions before the Plenary Assembly. The President of the SADC PF, Hon. Speaker Dlhovo, and the SADC PF Secretariat, through the Secretary General, Ms Boemo Sekgoma, acknowledged the high standard of debate set by the Zimbabwean delegates which fostered lively interface and positive interaction during the Plenary Assembly.
HON. SEN. KHUPE: Thank you very much Mr. President. I will deal with the resolutions of the Executive Committee Report.
THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: If you can
just highlight the main issues as the report is going to be distributed to the Hon. Senators. You may proceed.
HON. SEN. KHUPE: The highlights for the key points on the recommendations were amendments to the administrative rules and regulations of the forum on miscellaneous matters. There was also a resolution of consideration of guidelines to strengthen the accountability and oversight of the office of the Secretary General, update on the invitation tendered to the Parliament of the Union of Comoros and Madagascar to join the SADC PF and transformation of the forum into a
SADC Regional Parliament.
The Plenary Assembly resolved that the strengthened should include but not be limited to the following:
- SADC PF President and the lobbying team must urgently meet with on-going SADC PF Chairperson.
- Adoption of the affirmation of adherence to the SADC PF Members of Parliament.
- Engagement of the consultant to develop risk management policy.
In addition to that, there was a resolution on the update of the forth coming SRHR/HIV and AIDS governance project with Sweden. There was also improvement of the whistle blowing policy on the forum. There are a number of resolutions which are on this paper but let me also read the last but one - status of the SADC public health system, access to medicine and public health. Finally, there was a resolution on motion and debate for the adoption of the Report of the Standing Committee on Gender Quality, Women Advancement and Youth Development. I think
I have to put a full stop Mr. President. Thank you.
*HON. SEN. HUNGWE: Thank you Mr. President. May I please
be given an opportunity to make my contribution in Shona on this motion raised by Hon. Mohadi and seconded by Hon. Sen. Khupe regarding the climate change in the world. I am going to interpret what climate change will mean to the people. We are now being encouraged to grow small grains because they quickly mature even if we have very little rains. This is the result of the climate change. What happens is, when we go back to our farming areas we start growing those small grains because we will be following what is recommended in this time of climate change.
There are some things which I think we should create awareness on and this is what I am going to dwell on. I researched on some of these things and some of them I know. I remember reading some report of FAWE which was done in 1964. The explanation was - when we are talking of climate change, there are two kinds of lives. When we have two people who are born on the same day and one person is fed on small grains like millet, wheat and soghurm and all those small grains - the other person is going to be fed on one type and that is surviving on maize meal because it is prepared using machines. What will be observed on these two people is that the person who will be eating small grains which will be planted in the soil and as it grows up to be a plant, there are sort of chemicals and other nutrients that get into the grain...
THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Order Hon.
Sen., stick to the motion.
*HON. SEN. HUNGWE: Okay Mr. President. This person who
will be feeding on maize – it has a different set up. There are some chemicals and nutrients which are wanted such as iron. If we lack iron in our bodies, we will not have a healthy life and that means our food should include nutrients such as iron. If you lack iron, you may not live up to 83 years of age. If you are eating these traditional foods, they give you a long life because of the way the small grains are grown and prepared. That is why I have managed to live so long because when we talk of the way this mealie-meal was prepared, there was a stone and a grinding stone.
You will notice that when this meal was prepared, the way that stone was rolling over the big stone there is now covertures; it is indented because that stone is worked out. When that stone is worn out we are also getting some nutrients from that stone such as iron. Mr. President, I am a teacher by profession and whenever I am making a discussion, I look at the things which may be of some benefit to us so that I contribute to my fellow Members. I thank you.
HON. SEN. MOHADI: Thank you Mr. President. I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. SEN. HUNGWE: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Wednesday, 11th December, 2019.
ANNOUNCEMENT BY THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF
THE SENATE
NON-ADVERSE REPORT RECEIVED FROM THE
PARLIAMENTARY LEGAL COMMITTEE
THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: I have
received a Non-Adverse Report from the Parliamentary Legal Committee on the following:
- All Statutory Instruments published in the Gazette during the month of November 2019.
- The Money Laundering and Proceeds of Crime Amendment
Bill [H. B. 4 B, 2019].
CONSIDERATION STAGE
MONEY LAUNDERING AND PROCEEDS OF CRIME
AMENDMENT BILL [H. B. 4 B, 2019]
Amendments to Clause 2 put and agreed to.
Bill, as amended, adopted.
Third Reading: With leave, forthwith.
THIRD READING
MONEY LAUNDERING AND PROCEEDS OF CRIME
AMENDMENT BILL [H. B. 4 B, 2019]
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Mr. Speaker Sir,
I now move that the Bill be read the third time.
Motion put and agreed to.
Bill read the third time.
MOTION
REPORT OF THE DELEGATION TO THE PAN-AFRICAN
PARLIAMENT HIGH LEVEL SUMMIT ON HIV AND HEALTH
FINANCING IN AFRICA
Third Order read: Adjourned debate on motion on the Report of the Delegation to the Pan-African Parliament High Level Summit on HIV and Health Financing in Africa.
Question again proposed.
HON. SEN. FEMAI: I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. SEN. NCUBE: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Wednesday, 11th December, 2019.
MOTION
REPORT OF THE THEMATIC COMMITTEE ON GENDER AND
DEVELOPMENT ON THE PLIGHT OF PEOPLE WITH
DISABILITIES AND CHALLENGES FACED BY WOMEN AND
GIRLS WITH DISABILITIES IN ZIMBABWE
Fourth Order read: Adjourned debate on motion on the Report of the Thematic Committee on Gender and Development on the plight of people with disabilities in Zimbabwe.
Question again proposed.
*HON. SEN. CHABUKA: Thank you Mr. President for giving me this opportunity to contribute on this motion which was raised by Hon. Sen. Ncube who is the Chairperson of the Thematic Committee on Gender and Development. The Committee moved around the country on a fact finding mission on problems faced by women and girls living with disabilities. I thank you Hon. Sen. Ncube for leading such a delegation.
It is quite painful because as human beings, we have our own ways of living which we are supposed to be following. We notice that despite the fact that disability affects both men and women, women are the ones who suffer more. I am full of praise for the Committee for undertaking such a task of moving around the country on fact finding. I remember clearly when this motion was moved, I had watched a ZTV programme where a woman living with disability was testifying her experiences in life. I remember very well that she said when she wants to board a commuter omnibus to town; the taxi operators would tell her that they do not have space because what they think of is the time they will take in accommodating her and her wheel chair would be a waste of time. That wheel chair would also occupy space which should be occupied by another passenger.
At times these people living with disability just like any other illegal vendor in town have to run when chased away from the pavements by law enforcement agents. They even grab some of the wares they will be selling or even abuse their wheel chairs. This really touches me. I know that people living with disability need to have that special care.
People with disability share toilets with able-bodied people. When I look at the problems that they face when they get into the toilets, I cry for mercy from the God above. As a country, we need to be respectful. We need to craft laws which are aimed at easing the burden of people living with disability. Let us not make them feel inferior – they should feel equal to everybody else. I am also calling upon the Minister of Finance and Economic Development that when he is crafting his budget he should also put more money or emphasis on easing the plight of people living with a disability. I am begging for the powers that be whenever there is any construction project which is going on like constructing a school, it should be able to accommodate easy access for people living with disabilities. Some of these are hard of hearing, some of them have problems in walking, some of them cannot talk and hence the Minister of Finance and Economic Development should put more money for easing the life of its people living with disabilities.
I am also calling upon the Minister to put some funds aside which are aimed at supporting the families of these people living with disability and have children moving around begging for money. The streets are dangerous with both cars and people as they can be abused. Also these people living with disabilities sit along street corners and beg for money which I think is not supposed to be like that. Hon. Ncube, thank you very much for that initiative which you took on a fact finding mission. At times people living with disability have problems in that they cannot be able to go through normal life like what people who are able bodied are able to do.
I will look at people who are visually impaired. If you are a boy you want to see the features of the woman you are marrying and if you are a lady, also you want to look at the physical features of the man you are supposed to marry, but you cannot do so because you are visually impaired. Therefore Hon. Ncube thank you very much for the initiative you took for taking care of people living with disabilities.
*HON. SEN. CHIEF GOROMONZI CHIKWAKA: Thank you
Mr. President. I am very grateful for being given this opportunity to make my contribution on a motion raised by Hon. Ncube and seconded and debated by other Members of Parliament. This is quite a sympathetic and sad story of these people living with disability.
In my culture we say when somebody is in problems they cry out for assistance because those people can support themselves and are able to go wherever they want. I am a very big man physically and I used to be proud of who I am. I had that feeling of superiority complex but Hon. President, I have now come to a point whereby I am now disabled despite being an able bodied person. What happened was I was involved in an accident and I had a permanent injury to my hand. Therefore when I am talking to my fellow Parliamentarians let us not look at a case as saying it is them who are disabled, it will never happen to me, but disability can come at any time when you are least expecting, just like what I have said. I cannot even handle a cell phone to communicate because of my disability.
I was a member of that committee which went on a fact finding mission on people living with disabilities and I am saying as the people of Zimbabwe, it is our obligation to take care of people living with disabilities. The problem we face is that some of the families are ashamed of their members who are living with disabilities and they hide them from the public glare. At times even us, other people, we are not able to assist these people in their times of problems. I say that because when you look at some of the building construction projects which you undertake, people live upstairs with no access for people living with disabilities. My worry is supposed you have constructed your house with bedrooms in the upper floors and when you are either aged or you become disabled how are you going to access those rooms, how are you going to access the facilities? It only shows that we are people who are very short sighted. That is why I am calling upon people to take into account and think of the people who are living with disabilities.
The Bible encourages men to take care of women because they need our support, but what we have noticed is that some of the able bodied men approach these women living with disabilities and they impregnate them. When they impregnate them, they deny paternity and they do not even take care of those children, yet what happens when that child has been taken to school and they are educated, we find that at times the Government neglected the mother.
At times that child that would have resulted from the pregnancy that would have been denied by the responsible man, the Government does not even take care of the children of these people living with disability or women who were abused and yet it is of prime importance that as Government, we should create a fund or a system where we take care of children of parents who are living with disability so that these children can live a better life and take care of their parents.
We have also noticed that we discriminate people living with disabilities, especially in the distribution of goods for use either in farming or even machinery we discriminate against them. It is my call that these people should be assisted so that they can live a blessed life. Let us not make them feel inferior, but they should feel superior because of the way they will be helped by Government.
I am so glad because Government has taken another step further to help people including even those living with disabilities through the free distribution of sanitary pads. We have noticed those living with disabilities need assistance. When this disabled child goes on her monthly periods, she wants to move out of the class and go to ablution blocks to go and prepare herself, but the problem is some of them are inaccessible. Some of these Blair toilets do not have proper doors and when these people get into those places, they need that privacy so that they clean themselves up and then go back to the class and join others without feeling ashamed of having spoiled themselves because of poor ablution blocks at schools.
Therefore I am calling upon Government to craft a law which makes it mandatory for these ablution blocks, especially in rural areas, to be properly crafted and be user friendly for people living with disabilities. This is my small contribution on the welfare of people living with a disability.
HON. SEN. TIMVEOS: Thank you Madam President for this opportunity to add my voice. I want to thank Hon. Ncube and her Committee for doing such a great job by going around the country to assess and really look at the situation and the plight that is being faced by people with disabilities in this country.
Madam President, for sure we have a lot of laws on disability and our Constitution is clear that they have rights but at this moment in time,
Zimbabwe is crying and bleeding - a lot of people are crying. As
Government, we seem to have forgotten our disabled people.
Our disabled people are suffering at this moment in time; especially children – you can only imagine and the women. I have seen them on the streets and a lot has been said. I am sure that all of us have seen them. Most of these people can actually look after themselves if they are given opportunities – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] – Madam President, our culture really needs to change because in most cases people with disabilities are as if they are cursed, because some families hide their children in the houses and they do not want to show them to the world. In that regard, those children will suffer in there and if there is hunger, they will be suffering in there and the communities will not take heed of these children. So, as Government, we actually need to go down as well to the communities and educate our people.
Madam President, there is a lot that needs to be done. I heard an Hon. Member bemoaning a budget to be set aside – there is a lot that needs to be done. Unfortunately, when I looked at the welfare side of things in terms of the budget – it is really not enough. It looks like even in 2020 they are still going to be suffering. I think that as Senate we should agree that next year we should fight very hard – in unison for our people who live with disability to get a portion. The welfare side should get enough budgetary allocation so that they can be on the lookout for our people to educate them.
I just want to highlight a few issues - we may think at this moment in time, because the way that Zimbabwe is acting is as if we feel that possibly they have no rights. You are aware that even when buildings are being constructed there should be a law to say, ‘If you are constructing a big building for business, make sure that you are catering for disability, because they are everywhere’. You also heard that they are even having challenges just to board a kombi with their wheelchair – that is very painful, just a simple action that you can do. We can easily board kombis but they cannot. So, I just want to highlight a few of these rights and I know that Zimbabwe is a signatory to the African Protocol on Persons with Disability and Inclusion in Education – we are a signatory.
The other problem that I see is that we have signed as a country, so many protocols but we do not domesticate them – that is where the problem is. The moment that a country signs a protocol – we must ratify it and then domesticate it. The moment we do that, it then becomes a law. So, I know that we are a signatory to this one – African Protocol on Persons with Disabilities and Inclusion in Education. The African Protocol on Persons with Disabilities recognizes disability rights. What does it say? Every person with disability has a right to education but our children are at the robots begging, walking around with their blind mothers and no one is worried as to what is happening. It is actually a community – you know, I always pass through near the Crown Plaza Hotel. Have you noticed that it is now like a community? It is like another village with thousands of people out there. The Government has to self- introspect and see what we are doing about our children and women. I have seen little girls begging and you can imagine a 12 year old begging. What about during the night when it is 1900 hrs or 2000 hours in the evening? These girls are being abused.
State parties shall ensure, to persons with disabilities, the right to education on all equal basis with others, State parties shall take reasonable, appropriate and effective measures to ensure that inclusive quality education and skills training for persons with disabilities is realised fully. Do we have them in these educational institutions? We have to look at ourselves as Government – what are we doing? Are we giving our children with disabilities this opportunity? Government may look at this as a cost but the moment you educate these people then it does not become a cost to Government because they can then look after themselves - it is not a cost. Yes, as we start initially to put this into practice because we signed into it, then they can improve themselves and help in developing the nation. Ensuring that person with disabilities are able to access general tertiary education, vocational training, adult education and lifelong learning without discrimination and on equal basis with others including ensuring the literacy of persons with disabilities. In this regard, I am sorry to say we have not achieved this as a country and we really need to look at it closely.
Ensuring reasonable accommodation of the individual requirement is provided and that persons with disabilities receive the support required to facilitate their effective education; providing reasonable progressive and effective individualised support measures and environments that maximize academic and social development, consistence with the goal of inclusion.
Ensuring appropriate schools are available to persons with disabilities who may prefer to learn in particular environment. Ensuring that persons with disabilities learn life and social...
THE TEMPORARY PRESIDENT OF SENATE (HON. SEN.
MOHADI): Order Hon. Senator, you seem to be reading, I thought it is a debate, just read the points and debate.
HON. SEN. TIMVEOS: Thank you very much Madam President,
I am actually highlighting their rights and the protocol that we are a signatory to. This is what I am referring to, if you can allow me Madam
President.
THE TEMPORARY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Okay go
ahead.
HON. SEN. TIMVEOS: Thank you.
THE TEMPORARY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: But you must
not take long reading; if you highlight, you just highlight then debate.
HON. SEN. TIMVEOS: Thank you very much Madam President,
you are also a member of the Standing Rules and Orders Committee, I think we actually made a resolution that everyone is now allowed to read but I hear you, thank you.
Ensuring that persons with disabilities learn life and social development skills to facilitate their full and equal participation in education and as members of the community; ensuring that multidisciplinary assessments are undertaken to determine appropriate reasonable accommodation and support measures for learners with disability. Early intervention, regular assessment and certification of learners are undertaken regardless of their disability. Ensuring educational institutions are equipped with teaching aids, materials and equipment to support the education of students with disabilities and their specific needs.
Training education professionals including persons with disabilities on how to educate and interact with children with specific learning needs and facilitating respect, recognition, promotion preservation and development of fine languages.
Madam President, I think as a country, if we domestic this protocol, we will never have a problem and our people that live with disability are going to actually help this nation develop and live better life. I thank you.
*HON. SEN. FEMAI: Thank you Madam President for giving me
the opportunity to make my contribution on this motion. I am very grateful to this Committee which is chaired by Hon. Ncube because they undertook this great task on a fact finding on the welfare of people living with disability, I want to thank them very much.
Madam President, let me start by saying this, as Hon Senators, when we are moving around this country we are proud being called Hon.
Member and even if you are introducing yourself to the people, you tell them that I am an Hon. Member. An honourable member is somebody who is very trustworthy and somebody who lives an honest life and therefore, I am asking amongst us Hon. Senators in this Senate. Is there anyone of us who has a friend who is living with disability? Is there anyone who can raise their hand and say they have a friend living with disability? I think this is where we must start from. As Hon. Senators, if we do not have friends living with disability, what do we expect from the ordinary people? I hope that in this report we should have received something that tells us that each of the members who visited those homes should have created friendship with them because people living with disability are lonely people. They need people who keep them company but just like everybody else we discriminate against them and we look for friends who are able bodied.
Even in the homes where we come from, most of us will share their social life – just like drinking beer they will brag about beer and yet we know that at times beer can be a problem and can cause ill health. At the same time, some will be bragging that they are heavy smokers but we know smoking has its disadvantages. At home they will never talk about their children who are disabled who they have put in closets in their homes so that they are not seen by members of the public.
This Committee has dedicated its time to visiting people living with disability because we know in most of the homes, we are hiding people living with disability and when they do it, they took it as if it is protective custody, as if, if this person goes to bask in the sun, they may melt or die which is wrong.
Therefore, I am making the following recommendations. Government and other non-governmental organisation such as pressure groups should really work hard in advocating to the Government that it takes proper measures for carrying on people living with disability especially in areas that include shelter, food, transport and anything which is needed by people living with disability. We are calling upon Government to register all people living with disability from birth so that they take 100% care of these people. People who are aged are getting some benefits. When they go to the banks, shops et ceterea, they are given preference. The same welfare status should be extended to people living with disability, that is their right which they must enjoy.
Women during pregnancy will never know whether they are carrying a disabled child or not but when they give birth to disabled children, they are the ones who will take care of these children. I am calling upon women that before they cry out for their rights as women they should start by calling for the welfare of people living with disability. Before they form a group on women’s rights, they should form a group aimed at taking care of people living with disability.
I think if these women lead, there will be progress. At the moment women are talking of 50:50 representation in all areas of life and yet they should be talking of 50:50 for people living with disability. I think in that way, I will understand and support them. I am begging women Members of Parliament to think of the welfare of the children living with disability whom you natured and cared for nine months. I thank you.
*HON. SEN. CHIMBUDZI: Thank you Madam President, I am
thankful for the great job done by this Committee and I am also grateful for giving me the opportunity to make my contribution on this motion. Yes, indeed we moved around on this fact finding mission and we saw this problem. Yes, the previous speaker has talked about 50:50 representation for women. We know the home is made up of men and women we also had the experience of women when we talked about this disability, women complained that when they gave birth to a child with disability, the husband ran away. There were a lot of testimonies of men disserting families because they disowned children born with disabilities and claim that in their generation, in their family tree, there is nobody who ever lived with disability therefore, the disabled child is a woman’s problem.
When debating this Bill, let us make contributions that will support people living with disability so that we may help them because they face lots of problems. I noticed that some of these people are also very intelligent like people who communicate in sign language. The problem they face is that when they fall sick and visit the health institutions, especially those people who communicate in sign language, they have problems because there will be nobody who is able to communicate with them in sign language.
It is also sad that when they are sexually abused or raped and they report at police stations, the police do not have people who are able to communicate in sign language. Since they have problems in expressing themselves, this affects the resolution of rape cases. We are the people who represent these people and therefore should craft laws which are aimed at bringing peace, order and good governance in the country.
I am also calling upon this House to craft a law which will criminalise deserting a family because of the birth of a disabled child, this is especially amongst men. It is also noticed that when a woman gives birth to a child with albinism, the father deserts the family and the claim is similar that their ancestry does not have such a condition of albinism and he runs away from his home. Let us craft a law which will make it a punishable offence with a mandatory heavy sentence for anybody who deserts a family. I am also calling upon us to craft a law that will allow for a quota system when allocating housing stands for people living with disabilities. We want them to benefit so that they can live a normal life like what we are doing because we are all God’s creation and we need to live a happy life. I thank you.
HON. SEN. S. NCUBE: I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. SEN. SHOKO: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Wednesday, 11th December, 2019.
MOTION
REMOVAL OF ILLEGAL SANCTIONS IMPOSED ON ZIMBABWE
Fifth Order read: Adjourned debate on motion on the unconditional and immediate removal of the illegal economic sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe.
Question again proposed.
HON. SEN. MBOWA: I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. SEN. SHOKO: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Wednesday, 11th December, 2019.
On the motion of HON. SEN. MUZENDA seconded by HON. SEN. SHOKO, the Senate adjourned at Seventeen Minutes Past Four o’clock p.m.
PARLIAMENT OF ZIMBABWE
Wednesday 4th December, 2019
The Senate met at Half-past Two o’clock p.m.
PRAYERS
(THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE in the Chair)
ANNOUNCEMENT BY THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF
SENATE
BILL RECEIVED FROM THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: I have to
inform the Senate that I have received the Money Laundering and Proceeds of Crime Amendment Bill [H. B. 4, 2019] from the National Assembly.
SECOND READING
ZIMBABWE INVESTMENT DEVELOPMENT AGENCY BILL [H.
- 2A, 2019]
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LGEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Mr. President,
Hon. Senators, the enactment of this measure by yourself will mark an important milestone in the road towards making our country a middleincome country. It is crucial to wealth creation, job creation and to individual and social empowerment.
The Bill combines the mandates of three existing pieces of legislation that deal with investment, namely the Zimbabwe Investment Authority Act, the Special Zones Act and the Joint Ventures Act. At the apex of the new Zimbabwe Investment and Development Agency, as will be called, will be the Chief Executive Officer, appointed by His Excellency the President himself in the first instance (or, in the future, the Minister or Vice President administering the Act). The CEO will be assisted by an Advisory Board of ZIDA, and will ultimately be accountable to Parliament through his or her annual reports.
Let me briefly remind you of the mandates of the individual Acts absorbed by this Bill. The Zimbabwe Investment Authority was responsible for issuing licences to foreign and domestic investors and smoothing the way for the commencement of the licensees’ operations. The Special Economic Zones Act establishes SEZs wherein investors primarily involved in the export trade enjoyed certain privileges, such as exemption from ordinary customs tariffs. The Joint Venture Act was concerned with the exploitation by foreign and domestic investors of State –owned resources, such as land, contracts for Government utilities in the power, transport and water resource field, and the like. All three of these endeavours will now come under the domain of ZIDA, so that policy overlaps and turf wars in the important field of investment will be a thing of the past.
Important additional features of the Bill deserve mention. I single out in particular the One- Stop Investment Service Centre, where delegates from all Government agencies and ministries involved with investment in one way or another are gathered under one roof to assist potential investors with their queries, without having to pass them from pillar to post. The Bill also provides important statutory guarantees against discrimination between foreign and domestic investors, and pledges of fair treatment to all investors and against arbitrary expropriation and taxation. Holders of investment licences will be accorded certain privileges, such as priority in the consideration of any secondary licences or permits required to secure their investments.
Important prospects are extended to investors whose countries have Bilateral Investment Treaties with us. In particular, such investors may, under certain conditions, have their disputes adjudicated in an international or bi-national forum.
Mr. President, Hon. Senators, the heading of the provision of this Bill speak for themselves, and I urge you to peruse them to see what a generous piece of legislation this is to our investors, eagerly awaited by them and endorsed by international bodies such as the World Bank. In short, I urge you to support and pass this law wholeheartedly. I thank you.
HON. SEN. SHOKO: Thank you Mr. President. I want to understand from the Minister, when I perused the document here l saw a list of organisations. I am looking at Clause 5 and I wanted to ask the Minister to explain whether we did not have something called
Zimbabwe Investment Centre? Why is it not included here? What is the difference between this which we are now formulating and the Zimbabwe Investment Centre? I thank you Mr. President.
HON. SEN. B. MPOFU: My question is on the issue of the structure of this very organisation and in particular, the reason why we have a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and an advisory board instead of a board and a CEO. History has it in many places that when we have a
CEO who has an advisory board, he becomes a law to himself or herself. When we have a board, it becomes the moderator of the organisation and ensures that appropriate corporate governance is actually upheld. I would like to understand more about that particular structure, especially if you look at what we have already at the Reserve Bank and some of the issues people raise about the Governor being the chairperson of the very organisation. It creates a conflict and a very messy corporate governance situation. Thank you.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI) on behalf of THE
MINISTER OF INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE: Thank you Mr.
President. I want to thank the Hon. Members for the debate. Mr.
President, in my speech I alluded that this Bill is now repealing the Zimbabwe Investment Authority and the Special Economic Zones. We used to have what he was referring to, the Zimbabwe Investment Centre which was replaced by the Zimbabwe Investment Authority and now we are going to replace this with ZIDA. So, there is no need to mention that organisation because it is the one that we are replacing. We are collapsing all the three and we now have one legislation. Therefore, all the Ministries will be represented under one roof so that we can expedite the process.
On the second question on the advisory board, the thinking that we had is, we need to move our economic agenda faster than what we are doing. The thinking that we have if you understood in my speech is, we want it housed in the President’s office so that he has direct oversight on investment issues initially and progressively when we now are familiar with it we can then have a board that will be a stand-alone or even a CEO at ZIDA that will not be part of that. Our thinking based on lessons learnt from others, in the initial phases it is prudent that we deal with it in such a manner. I thank you Hon. President and I move that the Zimbabwe Investment Development Agency Bill [H. B. 2A, 2019] be now read a second time.
Motion put and agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Committee Stage: With leave, forthwith.
COMMITTEE STAGE
ZIMBABWE INVESTMENT DEVELOPMENT AGENCY BILL
[H. B. 2A, 2019]
House in Committee.
Clauses 1 to 6 put and agreed to.
On Clause 7:
HON. SEN. B. MPOFU: Thank you Hon. Chair. Previously, I queried the issue of a CEO who has got an advisory board and I also mentioned that in terms of corporate governance, I did not find that to be a prudent move. The Minister went ahead and explained the reason why we have that kind of approach and scenario. The explanations to me sounded like explanations that are temporary. We are coming up with an Act; we are not coming up with a regulation. We cannot come up with an Act whose clauses have got some limited time to it. We were hoping that this will stay for longer than the years that the Minister has already alluded to. My question therefore is, why are we having a situation that is temporary in an Act rather than go for the appropriate corporate governance structure and then possibly come up with a regulation for the intermediate situation that he is talking about? I do not understand why we should do that. Thank you.
HON. SEN. SHOKO: Madam Chair, I am still on 7, the issue of the Advisory Board. I think the Minister will consider this. Let us do the right things at the right time because we have a problem where we say we are doing temporary, then we discover we have a problem and we start putting Statutory Instruments. You remember when we were debating the Budget, it was pointed out to us to say we have a lot of Statutory Instruments that we put through. The best thing that we can do here is to ordinarily go for the board. For example, if you look at 7 itself, it talks about the advisory board, then composition of the ZIDA Board. You can see that even when we are talking we are thinking of a real board, so the Minister should consider that we have a board that is going to be responsible for these things.
As you say, this office or this particular operation or this Act is going to be supervised from the Office of the President. I believe it will also reduce friction between the advisory board and the Chief Executive Officer. I think the Minister should look at that carefully and listen to what we are trying to put through so that we do things that will last and that will help the country. I thank you Madam Chair.
HON. SEN. MAKONE: Thank you Madam Chair. I would like
to point out to the Minister that the last time when we had a one-stop Investment Centre, the thought was that it would make it easier for the investors to come into one place and do everything under one roof but it never took off. I do not see the difference in practice really between what happened and what is going to happen now. If the President is the one who is going to make the transition smooth, I do not believe that he will be doing it personally, he will be doing it through a proxy, obviously. Why does that person not go to the Investment Centre and represent the President wherever those things are taking place while the board itself is running the process as they should, so that we do not have a timeframe where after a certain period we are moving now from the
President’s office to the Investment Centre offices where these things should be done.
I think the representative of the President should go and sit there, see how things are done. If he is not happy with anything, he can point it out there and have it sorted out. When he is satisfied that everything is now moving smoothly, he just excuses himself without having to put everything in the President’s Office. For your own information Minister, it might look okay for us here because we are used to these things but from outside the minute you say that investment is going to be in the President’s Office, they immediately begin to suspect that hmmm, those people have started again. Why should the President of the country be involved with private investment, so we are back again to corruption. Without them telling even you anything, there will just be no movement and you will be surprised. I think it is better to semblance of normalcy outside but the President still maintains that oversight but without having him appear as if he is the one running the show. Thank you Madam Chairperson.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you
Madam Chair. My assertion was not we are making a law that we want to amend tomorrow. Any law as long as it is there, if a need arises, it does not matter when you enacted that law, you will always try to update your laws to speak to what is obtaining at that particular juncture. What I was alluding to was that what we need to do now is we feel that the best way of doing it is to have an advisory board where we have a chief executive officer who is accountable to Parliament. Even when you talk about corporate governance, the CEO is still accountable to Parliament through the reports that he will produce so that it is covered. There is no violation of corporate governance laws in that regard. At the moment what we want to do to speed up investment, to speak to the current environment - this is the structure that will speak to that.
I heard also you saying let us do the right things at the right time. This is exactly what we are trying to do, to do the right thing at the right time by having an advisory board and a CEO who is accountable to Parliament. Exactly what you are speaking about is what we are trying to do. We had a one-stop centre that never took off. We are trying to correct that by ensuring that now we will have a one-stop centre that is a statutory board. If you go into the Bill, that centre will now be a statutory board and it can be enforced. Enforcement can be done through courts, unlike what it used to be when it was simply an administrative centre without any statutory authority. Now it is there in the Bill. Whatever reservations that you have what we are trying to do speak to what the Hon. Members are alluding to and I believe their fears must be allayed and we proceed in the manner that the Bill is like Madam Chair. I thank you.
HON. SEN. MAKONE: Madam Chair, I am not answered.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): I answered the
question. You spoke about the one-stop centre that never took off. Perhaps you wanted me to allude to the fact that investors, the moment you mention the President’s Office, they are afraid. On the contrary, we had experiences in Rwanda where they have their investment centre in the President’s Office and they have done extremely well. It depends on who is manning the investment centre not to say it is a bad idea to have it in the President’s Office. The Rwandan example was then a sight to look at. They have done tremendously well but is housed in the Office of the President and the CEO reports directly to the President and he has oversight on everything that is happening.
From the experiences, it reduces corruption because people would be afraid that the President would be near to what is happening. On a daily basis or weekly basis he is given brief on what is happening. People will be kept on their toes. I believe that for now, based on the experiences that we have had on the contrary having it in the President’s Office can work to our advantage based on the experiences. We had the Portfolio Committee on Industry and Foreign Affairs, they visited and were satisfied that it is the way to go. I thank you Madam Chair.
HON. SEN. SHOKO: Can the Minister explain again where he says the Chief Executive Officer will be answerable to Parliament.
Where are we getting it here in the document?
HON. ZIYAMBI: We will get there.
HON. SEN. B. MPOFU: My question is just an extension. I am looking at 7(2) in particular, the third sentence, where it says Section 42, I think you meant section 43 but if you are looking at those reports, it says as directed by the Board. We are going back. Is the Board directing or advising? That will be the question but also it is supposed to be Section 43 not 42. So we are still writing in terms of the same corporate governance structure that I was talking about where the Board directs and here he is saying the Board advises. Just the same on sentence two, it is supposed to be subsection A (i) rather than 1 (a) instead. Thank you.
HON. ZIYAMBI: I think I agree. It is a typographical error. It is supposed to be section 43 and that we will correct. The way it is, it is correct. We want to capture that so that if the Advisory Board gives advice and the CEO does not take it, in the report it must reflect that advice was given; so it does not have discretion not to include it when the Board has said we gave you advice but you disregarded it but in the report, it must be indicated that it comes to Parliament. So the way it is crafted is very correct but I think we need to correct where it says section 42, I think it was a typographical when the Bill was being scrubbed by Parliament after it went through the National Assembly to indicate that it is section 43. I thank you.
HON. SEN. DR. MAVETERA: The very section which was
being looked by the Minister. I am a little bit puzzled as to why the Chief Executive should not take seriously recommendations made by a fully constituted Board for that matter and wait for annual reports. I do not know whether that is correct or are you saying we have got someone, a Chief Executive who just gets advice but is not bound and can do anything and we wait for the annual report to justify. If that advice was correct, we wait for us to read the mistakes and then to say advice was given.
I think if we need a Board, let us have a Board. If we do not need a Board let us not put structures to accommodate people to employ people? We want people who do the correct thing. If there is a Board, the function of the Board is to give strategic direction which should be actually followed by whoever is the Chief Executive, but not to say when you are given that strategic direction, you have got the liberty to say I do not want to listen to it and then we wait for an annual report. I think we cannot sit here and put such a system which will not work.
Basically, the argument of the Hon. Minister is to say we are actually trying to put a structure which does not have any binding on what is happening so why do we need to stress the fiscus in accommodating such people?
HON. ZIYAMBI: Hon. Chair, this is an Advisory Board that is different from the Board that is in this section. Secondly, the Advisory
Board may direct a special report on the CEO’s refusal to follow advice. So that report can be tabled before Parliament at any time. Then there is the annual report that is mandatory. So I do not see where the waiting time is. We want to have it legislated that the advice of the Board must be taken seriously. So, if we couch it in this manner, it means that before the CEO refuses, he will apply his mind to the advice and when he reaches a stage where he says I am not taking this advice, I am sure he would have considered it carefully. So this clause is actually empowering the Board for them to fill that whatever advice they are giving is going to be regarded seriously. I thank you.
Clause 7 put and agreed to.
On Clause 8:
HON. SEN. B. MPOFU: The composition of the Board, now this is an Advisory Board again so I am now thinking like an advisory rather than the actual Board. Now, if I was to think that way, I look at the type of people that are expected here. Mainly, five of them are going to be public sector at director level and then we have three from international. Can I get clarification on the public sector? Are we expecting these people to be people from the parastatals or its people with expertise like in different areas of the economy? That is the clarification I would want. Then if someone can look at section 8 (3), is section 17 and 18 compatible with this new version? Thank you.
HON. SEN. DR. MAVETERA: Section 8 (4), the issue of choosing the Chairperson of the Board. I had asked this previously to say why should not the Board sit when it is constituted then choose their Chairperson amongst themselves rather than to have a direct appointee?
HON. SEN. KOMICHI: Mine is section 8 (2), where it talks of the CEO being an ex officio member of the Board and the secretary to the Board. This one seems to be contradicting what we were all talking about. In this situation, the CEO is actually a subordinate of the Board because that is what actually happens in most Boards where the CEO becomes the secretary, he is not the boss of the Board but all along from page number one up to here, we thought that the CEO was going to be the head where he is going to be advised by the Board. In this situation, this statement does not mean that. I am sure there could be some bit of contradiction there and we need to correct the English around that area.
The sense actually is not agreeing with what we are talking about.
HON. ZIYAMBI: Thank you Hon. Chair. Hon. Mpofu spoke
about the five chosen from the public sector at Director level and above in line with the Entities and Corporate Governance Act. My understanding is that the public sector is different from the Public Service and public sector can include parastatals as long as it is a public entity. So, these persons can be chosen from that pool in that regard.
Then Hon. Sen. Mavetera, you were worried about the Minister appointing the Chairperson of the Board and why they should not choose one among themselves. We believe that the Minister responsible should choose the Chairperson of the Board who will chair in order to avoid them choosing among themselves. Why should they choose among themselves, the President can appoint and this is not an elected board where these members can be elected to this advisory board. If it was a board where the members were elected, then they will then elect one of their own, but these are people that have been appointed into that board. It is more like what you did with some independent commissions where the appointing authority appoints the Chairperson. It is consistent and I think in this regard, it is a good law as it is and if they were voted or elected, then perhaps they would need to appoint one of themselves and have an election to choose.
Hon. Sen. Komichi, the CEO needs to be in the board so that he can take into consideration and he will now be producing the reports of the board and taking care of the advice. So, we believe that the way it is consistent with what we want to happen to ensure that the board is supposed to advise him. There is a board and there is the agency, so you need to separate the board and the agency. The advisory board does not have a function of running the agency. So, the CEO will go into the board as the secretary, gets the advice and then he will apply it when he is running the agency.
HON. SEN. B. MPOFU: Thank you Madam Chair. All I was asking the Minister on 8 (1) (b) was to widen the scope of people that they can choose from to include private and public sector because there are people in the private sector that such a board will benefit from.
The second part is, I still feel that possibly the Minister should reconsider No. 2. The Chief Executive Officer, if he is going to have an advisory board, then he should chair the advisory board. The way it is written is actually more confusing because it is an advisory board – people who are advising him. He goes and sits there so that he can get advice from these people then it makes more sense than to have an advisory board that has its own chairperson, its own deputy chairperson and it is running on its own then the Chief Executive Officer comes as an ex-officio member. To me it does not make corporate sense. It will make sense if the Chief Executive Officer, because of the status that has been given by the Minister, becomes the chair of that board and if that board becomes just what it is, an advisory board and not a board in its own right like what it is now.
HON. ZIYAMBI: Thank you Hon. Chair. What he is suggesting is trying to smuggle in the board not to become an advisory board because the moment the Chief Executive Officer becomes the chair, how does it become an advisory board because he is chairing and he is responsible for what is coming out of that meeting and how can he then go out and say, I am disputing what I have deliberated and agreed to. He is an ex-officio producing reports and in that regard, somebody chairs, they make a decision – he does not have a vote. The moment we do it the way you want, I am afraid that we are trying to go through the back door to ensure that we make it not an advisory board but a board in
itself.
The private one is there on 1 (a) where we speak of those three persons. They are entirely from the private and we are not looking at the public sector. So, the private is catered for. So, there is 3 (5) which we feel is okay.
Clause 8 put and agreed to.
On Clause 9:
HON. SEN. SHOKO: Thank you Madam Chair. I want us to go
to No. 1 of section 9. It says, there shall be a Chief Executive Officer of the agency who shall be appointed by the President. On the President’s own authority, if the President is responsible for administering the Act, I would say, why do we not say, there shall be a Chief Executive Officer of the agency who shall be appointed by the President? Simple, because in any way, what we understand is, we have already been told to say the President is going to administer this one. Then, you say there shall be a
Chief Executive Officer of the agency who shall be appointed by the President in consultation with the Minister responsible for administering this Act, then we take off that they will administer and do this and that.
HON. B. MPOFU: This one is minor. It is 9 (2) where you talk of Section 6 (1) (b) and there is no section (1) (b), it is 7 (1) (b) I thank you.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you
again, I agree on that one. It is a typographical error, it was changed after the debate in the National Assembly. I want to thank you for that that was not captured correctly.
Hon. Shoko, we have Ministers in the President’s Office so the President may also decide to assign anyone at any point. This Clause is trying to cater for that to say even if it is in the President’s Office, there is a Minister who is there who has been assigned to do it who is housed in the President’s Office. The President decides to assign it to himself or a Minister in his office so this is just to make it clear to say that he can do it himself or he can assign a Minister after consulting that Minister.
HON. SEN. ENG. MUDZURI: Madam Chair, to me it is not
very clear if the President is administering it, it does not matter whether he goes through them because it is his appointee. There seems to be a contradiction where the Minister can appoint the advisory board and the President appoints the CEO, it must be just the President doing that, he can chose anyone still through him. I do not have the document but whilst I am listening, it is not very clear who is administering and once you mention the President’s Office, there is no need to mention the Minister. He appoints the CEO then the Minister appoints a board and an advisory board that advises the appointee of the President. It becomes problematic.
HON. ZIYAMBI: Thank you. Hon. Sen. Mudzuri if you go to
the definition of Minister, again it includes even the Vice President or the President when he is administering the Act himself. If you check that definition and what we are trying to say here is very consistency. I implore you to accept that what is there is very correct and we move to the next Clause. I thank you.
Clause 9 put and agreed to.
Clauses 10 to 19 put and agreed to.
On Clause 20
HON. SEN. MWONZORA: Mine is just a minor one Hon.
Minister. What this Clause is talking about is that the investors must abide by this Act and any other legislation in Zimbabwe. That is okay but they must also abide by all the laws in Zimbabwe. So, you can see that it is not including the common law. So, it is legislation in Zimbabwe as well as the laws in operation in Zimbabwe. I thought we should be clear.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Hon. Chair,
Hon. Sen. Mwonzora is pretty much aware that the common law has always taken to apply so you then don not need to legislate, to put that emphasis so the way it is, is the correct way.
Clause 20 put and agreed to.
On Clause 21:
HON. SEN. DR. MAVETERA: Thank you Madam Chair. I just
want to find out from the Minister, to me Clause 21 is of interest in the manner that of recent we have had so many investors coming and putting in quotations of their investments into our country without actually paying due support of the local communities. A good example is the Chiadzwa where all the diamonds have been exhausted but there is not even a tarred road. I think we need to put in place wherever it can be put, if it is hidden somewhere, to say that such infrastructure must be made available which is standard infrastructure.
We cannot have someone who just goes in the bush and actually make gullies, no access roads and all supporting infrastructure, I think we need to capture it rather than to leave it. We need to be specific to what we want. I remember one of the reasons why the Chinese were being accused of exploiting Africa and they said it is because Africans do not know what they want. They do not know how to state what they want. So, can we be explicit in what we expect as a community.
HON. SEN. B. MPOFU: In support of the colleague that has just spoken, I think there is something around community share ownership trust and investment share ownership trust. Can that also be included around this area. I know that the Minister might say that; because it is a law on its own it will apply but sometimes some of these responsibilities have got to be explicit. Unless they are explicit some will act and say that they did not know something like that existed
HON. SEN. SHOKO: It will be very good that this thing says one stop investment service centre that is on Section 5. I think what we need to do is, let us bring everything that the investor is supposed to be responsible for in this Act. You remember we are trying to bring in the Marriages Acts together; it is because we are saying the papers are too many. So when the investor comes, he picks this up; he knows that there is a responsibility that he should be incorporating. That is very important for our own people because when these people leave, they leave gullies and other bad things when there is no development at that particular place. So it is very important that let us have a one stop Act also that brings in the entire Acts that is talking about investment. I thank you.
HON. SEN. TIMVEOS: Hon. Minister, I am from Zvishavane. We have got the Chinese that are mining chrome, platinum and there is a chrome plant as well. However, these people are not doing anything for the community. I think when the chiefs complained, they ended up buying exercise books for that school called Mapandura Primary School.
So I think here, when you really explain to say you are coming in to invest; our laws are clear that minerals in a particular community must benefit the people of that area. When investors come in, they must at least build a school, fix roads of that area and other things that are tangible.
I just want the Hon. Minister to understand what I am saying so that when you are negotiating with these investors we also copy our Constitution and make sure that the community benefits. If you leave this Act hanging like this we will end up with so many gullies in the country and as a result, so many cattle will die.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you Hon.
Chair. I want to thank the Hon. Senators for their debate on this clause.
Hon. Mavetera’s concerns; I believe that this law will correct what he is alluding to. It is going to correct that problem and the details can be left to agreements that will be made between the communities and the investor as well as regulations that will come out of this. We also have to be mindful that in trying to legislate, we should be cognisant that we have other existing Acts. That is why if you go to this, it alludes that in addition to their basic obligations in accordance with this Act and with all laws of Zimbabwe? So, perhaps we can produce a handbook on investment and the laws that govern but we cannot collapse all laws and other functions of ministries into one law. We cannot do that; we can come up with a handbook but laws must speak to each other. There are other laws like the Empowerment Act; there are provisions with regards to community share ownership that are there. So, what we are trying to do through this clause is exactly to solve the problem that you allude to and we will have to make sure that the agreements will speak to what you are saying as well as the regulations that will arise out of this particular Act.
Hon. Mpofu, you wanted us to have everything here in this Act; we cannot usurp the functions of other ministries like I said. Perhaps we can come up with an investment handbook that will then include all the related laws, how they relate to each other so that it becomes easier.
Also, remember that we are now coming up with a one stop centre where all the relevant ministries will be represented so that investors under one roof can consult and be able to be familiar with everything else. So, all the ministries and stakeholders will be represented. So your fears will be answered in that regard and allayed. The community trusts are dealt with in the Economic Empowerment Act.
Senator Timveos what you allude to is exactly what I am saying we want to address in this clause. The needs of individual communities differ, that is the reason why we want- when the agreements are being couched, the needs of specific communities are then captured in those particular agreements and we also produce regulations that will give a broad perspective of how these investors are supposed to act.
So, I believe this clause is speaking to what you are alluding to and also other pieces of legislation that are there will also help reinforce what we are all talking about. I want to thank you for the contributions and move that we pass this.
HON. SEN. ENG. MUDZURI: Hon. Chair, I just want to
propose maybe an (e) that shall say the investor shall comply with an investors handbook that will be available. I am saying that because we have to go through that handbook and ensure that all the laws are in one book. You cannot expect an investor to read all the laws when the handbook is not there. That handbook will now take into consideration environmental issues, corporate responsibility for an investor. That handbook must be within that room. If we put it there, we are sure that the handbook is availed.
HON. SEN. MAVETERA: The Hon. Minister has tried to answer
the question but I think my question was partly responded to. The issue
I am talking about is very critical in our country. I have talked about roads and schools - empowerment and social responsibility are different. those laws were there when Chiadzwa was being looted. The Chinese and the other friends came and mined diamonds and we have not benefited anything. Let us be specific. I hope the Minister will give due respect to this. I express my fears because we represent the people. What I am saying is Chiadzwa does not have a clinic when we actually had billions worth of diamonds that were looted out.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you Hon.
Chair. I want to thank Hon. Mudzuri and say when I spoke about a handbook, it is very difficult to put a handbook here that will be produced by officials. What will be the legal status of that handbook? It comes problematic to say let us have a handbook unless if it is subjected to the Parliamentary process to give it the legal status. A handbook can be produced for ease administration of the agency and also regulations can help to ensure that we have a handbook that is produced to ensure that the process is done appropriately.
I want to turn to Hon. Sen. Mavetera and say in terms of our laws, investors even in mining have a prescribed fee that they have to pay to rural district councils. Our councils have not been doing that. What we have done now is the President has mandated the Minister of Mines and Mining Development to say if they have not to rural district councils, do not renew the licences. That is another way of empowering them. The law is there within the rural district council. It has to levy the mining companies. That money is used in the community where the mine is operating. So, we have provisions of the rural district council. We also have the Empowerment Act that governs the community trust that you allude to. Over and above that if a mining company is operating in a particular area within the jurisdiction of a certain rural district council and is using a road and that road is overused, the rural district council has the authority to summon them to tell them that they are supposed to repair the road. That is also available.
This clause is giving specific responsibilities like we mentioned preservation of the environment but over and above that we are saying other laws that govern how investors are supposed to operate are there and they have to be respected. The issue of compliance with the laws is different from legislating it. I gave the example where the President said the Minister of Finance and Economic Development has to ensure that there is proof that payment has been done. So, that is now compliance with existing legislation, which is what we hope going forward we have to ensure that it is done. That is where I agree with you.
In terms of preservation of the environment we have EMA. They are empowered to look into that. The rural district councils are also empowered. We have also have the Empowerment Act which governs that. Therefore I believe that we have sufficient legislation which unfortunately we cannot collapse in one legislation; we cannot codify it in a handbook as suggested by Hon. Mudzuri but that will be done at an operational level not at the legislative stage. So, I propose that we adopt the clause as it is Hon. Chair. I thank you.
Clause 21 put and agreed to.
On Clause 22:
HON. SEN. ENG. MUDZURI: On Clause 22 (3b), the Chief Executive Officer may impose such conditions on the issuance of the investment licence as he or she considers fit whether or not on the basis of any advice or recommendation tendered by the board in terms of paragraph (a). I am not sure once you give discretion totally as one considers fit, it is a very dangerous statement to say what he considers fit. He must comply. That is why I say someone must have some room of appeal and you consider your rule book which I have advised on (e) which I thought should be approved by Parliament so that conditions are all known. Parliament should have a proper supervisory role on whatever comes from the CEO. I find it dangerous to say as he sees fit.
Once you say this, the law becomes very difficult.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFIARS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you
Madam Chair. The law allows for administrative review of any action done by anyone. If anyone is aggrieved, there are channels to follow. Besides, when you are given advice, advice is not binding. Again we are going round trying to smuggle something that we have already agreed on to say this is an advisory board. This is consistent with what the board is. He can refer to the board but this subsection is saying he has to apply his mind and he is not bound by the advise that he has been given. He can accept it or not accept it. It is very consistent. On your point where you say speak about Parliament, again the CEO produces reports which come to Parliament through relevant Minister or the
President. So again, that is covered because all the reports will come to Parliament and that is accountability to Parliament. In terms of advise, I am sure Hon. Mudzuri you will agree that when you solicit advise, it is advise. I thank you Madam Chair.
HON. SEN. MUDZURI: What I want intimating is the same thing on the same Clause. Hon. Minister, you advised earlier that the advisory board may direct the CEO and he must take that direction. Here you are saying as he sees fit irrespective. Maybe I am missing something but there is serious contradiction in my brain. From my memory, unless I missed something, in one of the Clauses earlier on, I cannot remember which one, you said you cannot have a board that fails to direct. Now you are saying as they see it fit. That is personal discretion. If that person is directed then he sees it fit, is that not contradictory? That is what I am saying.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFIARS (HON. ZIYAMBI): I think Hon.
Mudzuri did not get my earlier clarification, perhaps he was not in. It was – [HON. SEN. MUDZURI: Inaudible interjection.] -
THE CHAIRPERSON: With all due respect, you address the
Chair. You cannot answer the Minister when he is busy presenting.
HON. SEN. MUDZURI: I was talking here.
THE CHAIRPERSON: Hon. Mudzuri, I heard you.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFIARS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Madam Chair, what we were talking about are reports to Parliament at the request of the advisory board which is different from this. In any event, what he is alluding to, it does not mean each time you get advice, you get good advice. Sometimes you can get bad advice and you do not have to follow that advice because I had been given advice. That is the reason why we are saying, the board may request a report if they so wish can direct the CEO to say report to Parliament about this. I think he missed the point when we were discussing it in that regard. I move that we proceed Madam Chair. I thank you.
*HON. SEN. CHIEF NTABENI: Thank you Madam Chair. I stood because I realise my Chief Whip is here. You came with a double jacket. You came as the Minister of Industry and Commerce and as the Minister of Mines. Our Senators said a lot of good things. They talked as if they are not Zimbabweans. When we look at mining that is taking place in the communities, we are the custodians and we are saying there is a lot of environmental degradation that is happening. The artisanal miners are engaging in mining activities that leave a lot of these trenches open. That is why I am saying that you came wearing both the Minister of Mines jacket and the Industry jacket. Colleagues of mine debated well and acted as if they are the only Zimbabweans. We are all Zimbabweans. I kept quiet and decided to round up because when you debate as politicians, we do not want to be involved. It will seem like we are supporting a particular party. I thought I would say this as we are the ones who represent the people in the rural areas.
HON. SEN. TIMVEOS: The other problem – I just want to buttress what Hon. Sen. Chief Ntabeni has said. I am going to give the example of Zvishavane again. The Chinese after digging their holes, cows dying and children dying by falling in, they were called by the community to say, look you are not closing the holes. They said no, you do not need to talk to us, you must talk to the President. He is the one who brought us here. The community then kept quiet because the President is the last person. We have to manage the issue that the President has to be told. Obviously the communities will not go to the
President. They will just keep quiet. I am trying for us to balance that. *THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFIARS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you
Madam Chair. I have heard the chief debating. This Bill is not from the Ministry of Mines or the Ministry of Industry, it is under the Office of the President. Issues to do with matters from the President’s Office require the Leader of the House to bring these Bills. Secondly, as I said to my Hon. chief, we have a number of legislation that interlinks. We have EMA, we have our local authorities and we also have the role of traditional leaders. If you look at this Bill on Section 21 (d) it talks about respect for our traditional laws and culture. If it had not been captured in the previous legislation, we have factored it in this legislation so that it will enable you to govern as traditional leaders.
On Sen. Timveos issue, this Bill is not there to regulate the mining sector only but it regulates all the investment that comes into the country. These are just there to give licenses. When you hear others saying that we were referred here by the President, they should comply with the Mining Act. The President does not regulate the Mining Act.
If it is someone who is into cooking oil manufacturing, they all go to this particular Bill. Each investor has its section. If you are into agriculture, there is Minister Shiri and it depends on which ministry you are coming in under. So the Bill will regulate all those incoming investors. I think Madam Chair, we have clarified this issue and we can proceed. I thank you.
Clause 22 put and agreed to.
Clauses 23 to 26 put and agreed to.
On Clause 27:
HON. SEN. B. MPOFU: I want to understand Clause 27 in the context of companies that have been sold. Does it mean that a company will need to reapply?
HON. ZIYAMBI: The mischief that we envisage is there are people who shop and come to look for a license which they will never use and then sell at an exorbitant price without doing anything.
Company takeovers are normal procedures that will be done to ensure that there is a company takeover but there are some that will come to say I want to do this investment and then use that license to sell it. So this clause is trying to mitigate against that. I thank you Hon. Chair.
Clause 27 put and agreed to. Clauses 28 to 29 put and agreed to On Clause 30:
HON. SEN. B. MPOFU: There are two issues that I wanted addressed on Section 30. The first one, in this Section, we see clearly that there is the word ‘Minister’ then I actually went back to the definitions that are there that the Minister alluded to earlier on when my colleague raised the issue of the President. Under Section 2 which is interpretation, it does clearly state what is meant by ‘Minister’ but in no part of this legislation is a definition of ‘President’. Is it the President of
Senate or the President of the country? In my view, where it is written
‘President’ anywhere in this particular legislation, we should substitute with the ‘Minister’ because the ‘Minister’ has been appropriately interpreted. Thank you.
THE ACTING CHAIRPERSON: I think the Constitution when
it states the President, it means the President of the State. Let us avoid going round and round, we have been talking about these Ministers for quite a long time now but it keeps on coming back. I do not know whether people do not understand what the word ‘Minister’ means
really.
HON. ZIYAMBI: I will respond specifically to Clause 30, it refers to the Minister responsible for Finance. So what he is alluding to is not included in this clause. This clause speaks about the Minister of Finance. I thank you.
Clause 30 put and agreed to.
Clauses 31 to 47 put and agreed to.
On Clause 48:
HON. SEN. B. MPOFU: I just want to highlight something that needs to be done after this whole process has gone through. The only problem is that, if it is highlighted after, it might not stick because it was not agreed to. In particular, I think when the sections were shifted, they were not all shifted properly. I have realised that I have quite a number of them that were not shifted properly. I do not know how that can be addressed in a way that at the end, ‘this agreed to’ is not going to affect that noble contribution.
I wanted to highlight - it is Section 48 (1) where it says repeal law, means the Act repealed by Section 46 (2); it is supposed to be 47. Then, if you go down on Part 2, towards the end it says 46. (2), it is supposed to be 47. If you go down on 3 again, 46 and so on, that is why I said if this has been done because before that I have realised that there are some more at the back here that were not captured properly and I am happy to write them down if the Minister allows me to.
HON. ZIYAMBI: Hon. Chair, when we have finalised, I think that the textual corrections are not amendments and the staff, the Counsel of Parliament will go through whatever we have done for corrections. Like I said, when we did this Bill in Parliament, our staff here, the Counsel’s office had to put together everything that we did.
Sometimes errors happen but before it is sent to the President for assent, everything will be cleaned up appropriately and we will have a good law. I thank you for that observation.
Clause 48 put and agreed to.
Clause 49 put and agreed to.
First to Fourth Schedules put and agreed to.
HON. SEN. SHOKO: Madam Chair. I think I need to just point
out something. On page 40, please, it is minor and it helps. There, it should not be “BUT”, it should be “BOT” – build, operate and transfer.
Thank you.
House resumed.
Bill reported without amendments.
Third Reading: With leave, forthwith.
HON. SEN. MAKONE: On a point of order Mr. President, I thought it was with amendments. We are accepting this Bill with amendments that we agreed to in this House.
THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: The
Chairperson of the Committee reported the Bill without amendments but I am advised that there were typographical and textual errors which are going to be corrected. That is what I understood.
HON. SEN. MAKONE: If that is the understanding, then I do not have any problem Mr. President.
THIRD READING
ZIMBABWE INVESTIMENT DEVELOPMENT AGENCY BILL [H.
- 2A, 2019]
THE HON. MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Mr. President, I
now move that the Bill be read the third time.
Motion put and agreed to.
Bill read the third time.
THE HON. MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you Mr.
President, I just rose to thank the Hon. Senators for the lively debate. I want to thank those that highlighted some of the issues that we need to correct in terms of textual and typographical errors. It shows that Hon. Senators are reading the Bills. I want to congratulate the House for this milestone in passing the Zimbabwe Investment Development Agency Bill which will change the nature of how investments are being done in the country. I want to thank you sincerely all the Hon. Senators for a job well done – [HON. SENATORS: Hear, hear.]
HON. SEN. CHABUKA: On a point of order Mr. President. I
am holding this Order Paper, it contains yesterday’s names of Hon.
Senators who were present, I was not here yesterday on 3rd December, 2019, I had gone to attend a funeral. I urge the Papers Office to remove my name. I am a member of a political party; I was not part and parcel of the Bill of the Minister of Finance.
THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Your point
is noted, you could have done it another way rather than interrupting the business of the House.
On the motion of THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI), the Senate
adjourned at Twenty Four Minutes past Four o’clock p.m.
PARLIAMENT OF ZIMBABWE
Wednesday, 11th December, 2019.
The Senate met at Half-past Two O’clock p.m.
PRAYERS
(THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE in the Chair)
ANNOUNCEMENTS BY THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF
SENATE
BILL RECEIVED FROM THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE: I wish to inform the
Senate that I have received the Coroner’s Office Bill, [H. B. 5A, 2019] from the National Assembly. I urge Hon. Senators to check in their pigeon holes and read the Bill.
SWITCHING OFF OF CELLPHONES
THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: I also wish
to remind the Hon. Senators to put their cellphones on silent or better to switch them off.
MOTION
PRESIDENTIAL SPEECH: DEBATE ON ADDRESS
First Order read: Adjourned debate on motion in reply to the Presidential Speech.
Question again proposed.
^^HON. SEN. MOHADI: Thank you Mr. President for giving me
the opportunity to add my voice on the President’s Speech. Can you allow me to start by saying what the President said about the farming issue, looking at the fact that we were supposed to consider putting our land under irrigation. When the President was talking about the irrigation scheme of Tshikwalakwala in Beitbridge- Tshikwalakwala is being looked down upon as this community is a minority group and developers hardly go there. It looks like there is no activity there but the truth is the community of Tshikwalakwala is confused because they were not getting enough support from Government.
Now since the President has talked about the Tshikwalakwala Irrigation Scheme that it was still among 100 irrigation schemes which are within the current budget of 2020. I would like to thank the President because he has the people of Zimbabwe at heart. He supports farmers by giving them inputs so that they can produce more food for the benefit of the nation.
He also talked about the livestock issue, I am from Matabeleland South Province, which is Region 5, we receive very little rains below average hence people there engage mostly in animal husbandry. The President talked about the challenges being faced by the farmers losing their cattle. He said that people lose livestock due to lack of grazing land and water because the area is not getting enough rainfall. We have lost more than 10 000 herds, when talking of those that were recorded but there are some cases where cattle died and were not recorded, meaning the number can be more than 10 000.
On the issue of Command Livestock, the President talked about Matabeleland South, he said that those people were not participating when it comes to crop production because they receive very little rain hence they only rely on farming of cattle and goats.
The President also touched on the climate change issue. We have been hearing a lot about the climate change but we were not aware of how it affects our environment but now we see it. The climate change is a real thing. As I am talking right now when I am looking at Matabeleland South Province, people have not yet received any rains and this may cause severe drought on Matabeleland South Province. Again as we are talking about the drought issue, we also realise that livestock are not getting enough water and grazing land. People of Matabeleland South region have not started ploughing because they have not received any rains. If the rains come the community cannot go into the fields, they cannot start farming because they do not have inputs and they do not have seeds and fertilizers. As I am talking right now, the Matabeleland South region is also facing this challenge of not getting enough rains. As we are here in the House, we are supposed to be helping each other on how we are going to help these communities to get enough grazing land and also to get enough food.
Looking at the road which stretches from Beitbridge going to Chirundu one can see that the road is not yet good, but I can say we are improving because we have seen that some of the roads are being tarred. They are also looking at finishing this project but lack of resources is hampering them. By revamping these roads we can reduce the number of accidents which are always common in Beitbridge - the road which stretches from Beitbridge to Chirundu. After the roads we are looking at the people, the drivers will be safe when they are driving along this road.
The other issue I can talk about is the education sector. When you look at the places where people were resettled, the school children are travelling long distances to get to the nearest schools. They travel almost 20km to 25 km from home to school. This is a very big challenge because these children when they are travelling long distances they can face challenges like being murdered or even raped along their way to and from school. In this case, I am worried about the girl child. When she is walking 20km to 25km, it means this girl came from home as early as 6.00 a.m. and she will be hungry as she would not have eaten anything. Even when she gets to school she will be tired. She will be facing challenges. You can see her sleeping because she is very tired and hungry.
When we are talking about breakfast and the lunch issue these children, these girls and boys do not even know about it.
Hon. Sen. Timveos’s cell phone having rung disrupting proceedings.
THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Order!
HON. SEN. TIMVEOS: I am sorry Mr. President Sir.
THE HON.DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: You may
proceed.
++HON. SEN. MOHADI: These children know that there is supper only. They do not have time to prepare breakfast and lunch, they depend on supper only. At the end of the term these children will not perform very well at school.
Now when looking at the challenges these boys and girls face, they end up crossing the borders and going to South Africa where they will be looking for jobs. They end up facing challenges because they do not have proper papers and certificates because he or she did not do well at school. They end up paying so that they can cross the Limpopo River without passports. Those who will be helping these girls to cross the Limpopo River end up raping them. Some of them lose their lives while crossing the Limpopo River.
After crossing these boys and girls do not have accommodation over that side in South Africa. They end up engaging in commercial sex work being abused by old men on the South African side. Even if he or she is looking for a job without the proper papers, she will end up paying those people. What else can you expect from a girl who does not have proper papers and who does not have education but wants to work? She will end up engaging in commercial sex work so that she can earn a living in South Africa of which it is a foreign land.
Can you allow me to assist when I am talking about the children, especially the children under the Matabeleland South Province? The children are facing challenges because most of them drop out of school in large numbers. Some of them end up dropping out from school because their parents cannot afford to pay school fees for them. Some of them are orphans; they do not have anyone to look after them or to pay for their fees. I urge the Government to help in increasing the number of schools in this area and I urge the Government to make it a point that these children do not walk a distance which is more than 10km to and from school because some of them are still of a tender age. They need to be assisted especially when they are crossing roads and when they are crossing flooded rivers.
I have seen this in one of the resettlement areas in Beitbridge whereby children are walking long distances to and from school. When they get to school there is an arrangement where children that are about four years old live together. They will be cooking together and looking after themselves, of which it is a hard situation. They are still too young to be doing that.
I will talk about our life issues. I will still refer to the Matabeleland South region. Looking at health facilities, people are walking long distances. I am talking especially about women and children. When someone is pregnant and needs to go to the nearest hospital, she will end up delivering at home because there is a long distance from home to the nearest hospital. This makes it difficult for the women to make it. They face challenges while giving birth because they need a doctor and a qualified nurse.
I would like to thank our President who when he was talking about the 2020 budget said we will have a fund whereby the girl child will be assisted by getting sanitary wear. I am talking about the girl child when she reaches her teen age since they will not be having sanitary wear. Some of them end up dropping out of school especially if you look at the time that they will be sitting for their examinations…
THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Order,
order, your time is almost up Hon. Senator.
^^HON. SEN. MOHADI: Thank you. I am almost done Mr.
President.
Those girls end up dropping out of school because they feel ashamed as they will not be having sanitary wear. When they are provided with sanitary wear – it will help these girls to proceed with their education because they will not be ashamed about their situation. I would like to commend the President of Zimbabwe. I thank you.
Phone rang.
THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Thank you
Hon. Sen. Mohadi for your contribution. Hon. Senators, if I get any more disturbances from your any phone, you are going to go out. I am not taking this anymore.
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR MASHONALAND EAST
PROVINCE (HON. SEN. MUNZVERENGWI): Mr. President, I
move that the debate do now adjourn.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Thursday, 12th December, 2019
MOTION
REPORT OF THE DELEGATION TO THE 45TH PLENARY
ASSEMBLY OF THE SADC PARLIAMENTARY FORUM HELD
IN MAPUTO
Second Order read: Adjourned debate on motion on the Report of the Delegation to the 45th Plenary Assembly of the SADC Parliamentary Forum.
Question again proposed.
HON. SEN. MOHADI: Mr. President, I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. SEN. HUNGWE: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Thursday, 12th December, 2019
MOTION
REPORT OF THE DELEGATION TO THE PAN-AFRICAN
PARLIAMENT HIGH LEVEL SUMMIT ON HIV AND HEALTH
FINANCING IN AFRICA
Third Order read: Adjourned debate on motion on the report of the Delegation to the Pan-African Parliament High Level Summit on HIV and Health Financing in Africa held in Brazzaville, Congo from the 11th to 12th July, 2019.
Question again proposed.
+HON. SEN. PHUTI: Thank you very much Hon. President for giving me the opportunity to make my contribution. I am grateful to the Hon. Senators who tabled this motion and those who have debated
on it.
I want to talk about the people who are afflicted by the HIV virus. They should know that they are suffering from an illness that is similar to anybody who is sick. I also want to urge Government delegates that when they travel outside the country it should not just be a foreign trip. They should go there to represent the people who sent them because when you travel on such trips, we need to see the results.
We have had petitions from people saying that our hospitals lack medication. I am hoping that when the Government delegation on health goes out on business abroad – they will go and make a full time engagement so that we see the benefits of such visits upon their return through having a healthy nation. It is quite a pity that in rural areas people end up travelling long distances to clinics, get diagnosed and no medication is provided.
We are aware that people who suffer from HIV have challenges in accessing their medication because there is a danger once they default. I thank you.
*HON. SEN. DR. MAVETERA: Thank you Mr. President… Phone rang and Hon. Sen. Chief Makumbe switched it off.
THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Order,
order, apologise chief.
HON. SEN. CHIEF MAKUMBE: I am sorry Mr. President.
*HON. SEN. DR. MAVETERA: Thank you Mr. President for
giving me this opportunity to contribute in response to a motion that was tabled by Hon. Femai on the workshop that was attended in
Congo, Brazzaville when they were discussing the prevalence of the HIV Aids pandemic. They also looked for ways of funding these health programmes especially in the African countries where we have challenges in funding such health projects.
Mr. President, the workshop had a lot of ideas that we may have to implement as Members of Parliament and the third arm of the State. We should create legal aspects that lead to more finances being added to the health sector so that people lead healthy lives. When we talk about the welfare of our country – people should be healthy and when we talk about families even if you are wealthy but cannot take care of your family members then such a family has no happiness. Hence Mr. President, I am urging you as Hon. Members of Parliament to work hard so that we improve the country’s health delivery system.
As a country, we also supported the Abuja Declaration that whenever there is budget – there should be a quota system that should be set aside for the health sector; 15% of the National Budget should be put in the health sector. When we look at the recommendation, we are not told as to how much we are supposed to put in the health sector. When we invest more funds towards our heath sector, we are going to have a health nation and hence I am supporting all the ideas and privileges which were discussed in that country. At the moment, as the legislative arm of the State, we are talking about the budget of the nation. Let us put our heads together and follow what we recommended. Abuja Declaration states that 15% of the national budget should go towards the health sector, we need to implement
that.
Hon. Sen. Femai said it was quite a pity that most of the countries in Africa failed to stick to the recommendation of the Abuja Declaration in funding their health. When we look at the amount of wealth in these countries, we noticed that there was a growth of 4.6% in wealth and we could not invest in health. What this shows is that we do not have a political will to look after our people because the money is there but our priorities are upside down.
Either this week or next week, we will be debating the budget and we must be careful in following the Abuja Declaration. As a result, let me not repeat on what is happening in the country especially when we look at the health sector. I look at a situation where main State hospitals are not functioning simply because there is no budget to support the hospitals. Therefore, I am also hoping that as Hon. Senators, when we debate the budget we should call for more support on the health sector so that when people are sick and need attention
in health institutions, they will get 100% treatment. Health institutions need to be fully capacitated in human resources and medication.
Medical personnel are always on industrial action because they are not content with the working conditions. As Government, we need to look at ways of solving these problems. We seem to be lacking political will as a Government. We were given a vision that by 2030 we should be a middle income country. As far as I am concerned at the pace which we are going, these are simply dreams. Maybe if I can go further, I can say this is simply a nightmare especially when we fail to support our health sector. There is no country that can become a middle income country when we have people dying of diarrhea because water borne disease shows that no matter how much we try and make up for that, you will be regarded as the poorest country of all the countries.
In Zimbabwe, we annually have outbreaks of these diseases and they attack the vulnerable groups in our society and hence I am calling upon for unity of purpose. You only realise that we have problems when we have a member of the family or any one of us falling sick; that is when we will start clamouring for more funding of health institutions.
Mr. President, when we look at illness such as HIV and AIDS, it is quite painful to notice that in a country like Zimbabwe, we know that 80% of the funding of this HIV/AIDS programme is donor funded and as a country we are only putting 20%. The first case of HIV/AIDS in Zimbabwe attacked in 1982 and surprising enough, since that time, we have not been able to put up a fund which can fight that. We only depend of donors; we are now suffering from a donor syndrome. Makorokota, if this is a bad omen let us work hard and pray so that we overcome this.
THE DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: They are no
makorokotas here, we have Hon. Senators in this Senate.
HON. SEN. DR. MAVETERA: My apologies Mr. President, that is why I am begging my fellow Hon. Senators that when the budget
is debated we should debate it constructively because we are representing people who elected us to come into this august Senate. When we are talking about health, we are talking about issues that have an effect on everyone of us. If you are not infected, you are affected, that is why I am saying let us walk the talk.
Zimbabwe is very popular because we are able to carry out our health programmes and fully utilising donor funds on health. Let us be proud of funding these programmes on our own because relying on donors, there is going to be times where they will withdraw their funding and if they do that, we are treading on a security risk because some of these people can simply impose mandatory sanctions. If they do that, we will have problems and many people will die. I am saying let us prioritise health budget above everything else because we are aiming at 2030 being a middle income country. We cannot achieve this if we still have a poor health system such as attacks of dysentery and typhoid. Let us take care of our people. I thank you
Mr. President.
HON. SEN. FEMAI: Mr. President, I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. SEN. TIMVEOS: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Thursday, 12th December, 2019.
MOTION
REPORT OF THE THEMATIC COMMITTEE ON GENDER AND
DEVELOPMENT ON THE PLIGHT OF PEOPLE WITH
DISABILITIES AND CHALLENGES FACED BY WOMEN AND
GIRLS WITH DISABILITIES IN ZIMBABWE
Fourth Order read: Adjourned debate on motion on the Report of the Thematic Committee on Gender and Development on the plight of people with disabilities and challenges faced by women and girls with disabilities in Zimbabwe.
Question again proposed.
++HON. SEN. NYATHI: Thank you very much for giving me the
opportunity to make this contribution. I am one of the people who moved around with the Committee looking at the disability problems. Some of the things which we observed are surprising that they are happening in a country like Zimbabwe. When we are talking about progress in Zimbabwe, it really is a surprise that some of these things can happen to us.
Mr. President, as we travelled around, visiting the disabled, one does not choose to be disabled, all of us seated in this august House have relatives who are disabled. As Senators seated here, if it was possible that we may all agree, there is not so much to debate about, we should all agree because disability affects everyone. It does not choose according to one’s standing in society or their status. If it was possible Mr. President to scrutinise, why are disabled people not given an opportunity to say what they want so that it is given priority? First preference should be given to them. For instance, when the budget is set, some of the people have dysfunctional limbs and we should also
look and consider if they were born disabled or it happened later on in their lives.
Mr. President, we should also consider that this thing can happen to anyone any time that one can become disabled. When we visited Gweru, they said that the problem they have as disabled people is; they are invited and told that there are papers which need to be signed but the offices may be found in the sixth floor but there is no way to get there. They are then asked to send someone to look for the person in the sixth floor and then told that the person is not in. You are misinformed because even if that person may be there in the office, the fact that you are unable to get there, you are told otherwise. However, let us consider that those people may be breadwinners.
One of the most painful things which I discovered is that even in Harare, on the streets, I have realised that some of the people are not respected. Sometimes when certain things happen on the streets like riots and chaos, we forget that there are some disabled people in the streets. Some of them are not even able to stand up and run, so what happens to those people? We should also consider that there is something that drives those people to be on the streets and we should consider that as Members of Parliament and Hon. Senators in this House. Let us join our hands together to consider that it is a very serious issue because nobody chooses or plans a disability, it just happens in
life.
Sometimes there are a lot of accidents which take place, people get maimed and lose limbs. So, there is nothing to debate about disability, it is something that affects anyone in one way or another. Even as we are seated here, we have in one way or another, a disability. Sometimes you see someone just sitting and they start dosing off, what is that? Sometimes that person will be having a problem that needs to be considered, scrutinised or examined, that is a form of disability. There is nothing more I can say. The Hon. Chairperson spoke a lot about disability, but what we should seriously consider is that disability does not choose colour, creed or political party but it is a natural phenomenon that can happen to anyone. I thank you.
*HON. SEN. CHIFAMBA: Thank you Mr. President for giving me this opportunity to make my contribution regarding people living with disability. We attended a certain workshop where females came to give facts. These women were visually impaired. They were saying they are looked down upon as inferior people. They gave an example of a situation whereby when they ask for condoms, the nursing staff would ask them why they want condoms. It seems as though if you are disabled you are not supposed to be sexually active, and yet disability does not mean you are not a human being - you are a human being.
They should be aware of the fact that whether you are on a wheel chair or you are visually impaired you also have those sexual feelings. Medical personnel should look at us as whole human beings and not half human beings they really ask a lot of questions when you go for contraceptive assistance at these health institutions. At times, that is why some of us shun going to those places.
If you are a woman living with disability and you ask for no plant, they again will start wondering as to why you want to have that. One other thing which they brought out was that if you are a disabled woman and you have a gentleman who wants to marry you and they take you to their parents so that they can see their future in law, there will be chaos. They will fight you off because they do not want to see you. This is because they say it is a bad omen to marry somebody who is living with disability but it is a different case with men. A disabled man can even take a beauty queen and it is accepted.
When someone falls in love and does so in secret, the moment parents know that you are dating somebody who is disabled, there will be a problem. The biggest problem comes at a time when you fall pregnant. They will force the young man or the gentleman to divorce or reject you and you will have a problem with the offspring which you bring as a disabled person. The women we met at that workshop pleaded with Members of Parliament and said please go and plead with the population of Zimbabwe that they should accept women living with disability as normal human beings like anybody else. They have feelings and activities that they want to perform.
They said it is always a problem for somebody who is on a wheel chair, for the relatives to accept a man to marry a woman who is living with disability. So please people of Zimbabwe, do not interfere with the love affairs of people who are living with disabilities. When you bring a lady who is living with disability, your relatives start asking - how is this woman with such a disability going to wash for you? How is she going to perform in bed and how is she going to perform some household chores yet with the man it is a very different story. The people who use wheel chairs had problems in moving around. So they said please look into that one.
The other issue which was asked by these women that should be looked into by the Hon. Members was the beds in the labour wards. They were saying the beds are unfriendly and so need to be looked into so that they can be user friendly.
The other problem again was with drivers in the streets. They are impatient with people living with disability when crossing the streets. I remember there was a time whereby I encountered a problem when I was moving on crutches. I had problems with drivers on the road. They even disregard the zebra crossing which is at Parliament along Nelson Mandela and Third Street. There is a zebra crossing but the motorist wants you to run. They come in such a way that if you do not run, they definitely will bump into you and you may end up getting more advanced disablement than you have been.
There is the rule of the law which says ‘give way to pedestrians’, but are they saying pedestrians are the only people who are able-bodied and people living with disability are not pedestrians? When they see you they know you will be moving on crutches or wheel chair. There is a visually impaired lady whom I usually see moving around and when she is crossing the road, whether there is zebra crossing or not drivers are so impatient. They want the disabled to move around as fast as they can since they will be hurrying going nowhere. I thank you Mr. President for giving me the opportunity to make my contribution on this motion.
*THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: I am
worried about what you said when you started debating. You said you would like to thank Mr. President for the little time that he gave you but
I have given you enough time to debate. –[Laughter.]-
^^HON. SEN. MOHADI: I would like to say thank you to Sen. Ncube who brought this motion in this House. When we are talking about the disabled persons, this comes in different ways. Some are blind, deaf and others cannot walk. Many things are happening when you talk about the deaf. The first thing that I want to talk about is that these disabled persons want to be loved and supported. We are not supposed to be hurting or discriminating the disabled persons. They are just like any other person. When we are talking about the disabled persons, they are disabled in their bodies but have five senses like any other person. If they have five senses like us, it shows that these people have the right to living just like any other normal person. Everyone should support and love the disabled persons as we are looking at the fact that they are disabled in different ways. In this House, there are some of us who are disabled, so we are not supposed to be hurting the disabled persons.
When I am talking about the rights of the disabled people, they have the right to education. There are some people who do not want their children who are disabled to go to school. They hide them but we are not supposed to be doing some of those things. We are not supposed to be hiding the disabled persons. They have got the right to go to school, education and need to be supported. Wherever they are, they are supposed to be going to school. We are saying these disabled are the ones who are clever at school and are the ones who are clever and genius when you look at the education system. They can do different things like ploughing, agriculture and anything. Their minds work very well. When you talk of farming, it is not like we are not supposed to be digging all the time but they can be ploughing their lands or be involved in the agricultural sector, whether they will be using their minds and some other staff to assist those people who are not disabled or handicapped.
Yesterday when I was in this House, I went to Hon. Sen. Khupe and gave him my report asking him to second me and he did so. I do not have much to say in this House – let us show love and support the disabled; let them feel that they are loved. They are just like any other person. Thank you Mr. President.
*HON. SEN. TIMIRE: Thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak on this motion on people living with disability. I have noticed that people living with disability are made to feel inferior because if a woman gives birth to a disabled child, they are accused of being witches and some other things which make them look bad. Even in the areas where they live, these people who would have given birth to disabled children are mocked. They are given derogatory names and in most cases they are labelled witches. We have noticed that people living with disability especially if they are women suffer from injustices such as lack of access to education or lack of access to social amenities and social life with other people because people feel communicating with those people make them inferior and therefore shun people with
disability.
Some people will have been denied a chance to get their education.
This means that when they grow up they have no profession because
they would have been denied that chance of going to school. We know when they go seeking for employment, the human resources personnel do not look at the qualifications of somebody who is living with disability but what attracts them of which they base their judgement on is the fact that this person is living with disability, hence they may not perform as much as they are and yet people living with disability need to be independent. They do not need to live on donor funding, on charity or at the mercy of other people.
We have noticed that when they are given a chance to perform, they can make a very good handicraft. If you go to a place called Henry Marie in Masvingo or Jairosi Jiri, the products manufactured by people living with disability are export quality but just because we have that prejudice, we do not see any beauty or quality in products manufactured by people living with disability. They should be given chores that are according to their disability so that they perform according to their capabilities. We are calling upon institutions to give a chance to these people living with disabilities.
We have had a time where some of these people are abused. When they go to the courts, they have problems because the courts do not deal with them ideally as they should be dealt with. Problems start at the police because the distance from the place of residence to the police is too long. There are relatives who also try and persuade them to go and report cases of abuse especially in a case of rape case. They say the person who raped the disabled is a relative and the bread winner should be protected. When they go to the police to report the rape case, the disabled are told that they should not report the rape cases. They say the person who would have raped the disabled would have done a good service because there are very few men who would approach them for sexual favours. So the rapist would have performed a service. In some instances, when somebody is raped they are supposed to go and have the pregnancy terminated but the legal process takes time – the person who would have been raped end up giving birth to an unwanted child.
Deaf and dumb people also find it difficult to express themselves at the courts or when narrating their ordeal because the interpreters sign language and their ‘family sign language’ will not tally. The interpreters cannot comprehend the sign language that they use because they are trained on sign language which is different from the one used at home. The visually impaired are asked if they know the person who raped them or to identify the person – they will be trying to make that person to drop the case and yet someone living with a hearing impairment has a way of identifying people through touch or voice discernment. They need to be given a chance.
On health and in particular family planning and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases or infections, when people living with disability go for HIV testing, the health personnel ask embarrassing questions. I am fortunate in that I am a Member of Parliament and I am empowered. They will ask you where did you get that disease, how can you get an STI when you are disabled. I then inform them that no, in my case I am a married woman, I am Mrs. Timire and I have a husband at home. I think whosoever is testing me should not worry about whether I am unfaithful or faithful in my married life. So some of the questions which are asked by the health personnel are so embarrassing that people who are not empowered will never go back to that health institution because they feel they are being tormented by these health personnel.
Hence, we are calling upon the people who give these services that they should understand that people living with disabilities are as human as everybody else. They have equal rights like anybody else. They also want to carry out family planning so that they can be able to take care of their family. People living with disabilities, especially women should choose the method of family planning which suits them. If you are someone who is visually impaired and you come with your cane prodding your way into that institution, they will be looking at you and they feel you are doing what you are not supposed to be doing. They will even tell you that no, you are not supposed to take condoms, you are not supposed to take tablets because as someone living with a disability you are not supposed to be indulging in sexual intercourse, but then in my case I tell them I am a human being. I have feelings like everybody else and I need to protect myself. I need to be treated like anybody else.
Let me now turn to sign language which is used by people who have speech impairment. This is quite a problem. Each and every one of us in the august House was elected by the people to come and represent them. If it was a church I would be saying Amen, but now that we are in this august House I will not say that. These people are not given an explanation and yet they are the people who voted us into power. When we are elected to come, we do not go back to the people and give them feedback. Even the language we use in the Hansard cannot be read by people who have got a hearing impairment, but these people have a special language like when they say ‘I am going to school’ the sentence will simply be ‘go to school’ and that would be accepted as a language. Some people do not understand and will say this person is wrong, they cannot communicate. I am calling upon the powers that be to protect these people.
Still talking about sign language, these people are made to feel inferior. They lack dignity especially when they go to hospital. When they go into labour we have heard cases of maternal mortality or women dying when giving birth simply because there is no proper communication between them and the nurse who is giving support on the labour. So there should be a third person who is going to interpret for the midwife so that she knows what is happening and yet we believe in confidentiality when we are talking about health issues. When this has happened the story about the illness of this person with a disability soon goes onto the social media and everyone knows about what they are suffering from.
It is important that people like these midwives learn sign language. As someone living with a disability we have a lot of barriers which we face. We notice that at times we have problems in accessing some buildings because there are no ramps and there are no lifts and hence we have problems. These are some of the problems faced by people living with disabilities where we are calling upon the powers that be, calling upon the Government to make these buildings to be easily accessible by people living with disabilities. I am calling upon Members of this
august House that wherever you are please look for ways of protecting and supporting people living with disabilities. I thank you.
HON. SEN. S. NCUBE: I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. SEN. B. MPOFU: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Thursday, 12 December, 2019.
MOTION
REMOVAL OF ILLEGAL ECONOMIC SANCTIONS IMPOSED ON
ZIMBABWE
Fifth Order read: Adjourned debate on motion on the unconditional and immediate removal of the illegal economic sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe.
Question again proposed.
HON. SEN. MBOWA: I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. SEN. S. SHOKO: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Thursday, 12 December, 2019.
On the motion of THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR
MASHONALAND CENTRAL PROVINCE (HON. SEN.
MAVHUNGA), the Senate adjourned at Ten Minutes to Four o’clock.
PARLIAMENT OF ZIMBABWE
Thursday, 12th December, 2019.
The Senate met at Half-past Two O’clock p.m.
PRAYERS
(THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE in the Chair)
ANNOUNCEMENT BY THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF
SENATE
SWITCHING OFF OF CELLPHONES
THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: May I
remind Hon. Senators, once again to put your phones on silent or better still switch them off.
MOTION
LEAVE TO MOVE FOR SUSPENSION OF THE PROVISIONS OF
STANDING ORDERS NUMBER 50, 61 (2), 62 (2) AND 128
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): I seek leave of
the House to move that the provisions of Standing Orders Number 50, 61 (2), 62 (2) and 128 , regarding automatic adjournment of the House at
Five Minutes to Seven o’clock p.m. on sitting days other than a Friday and at Twenty-Five Minutes past One o’clock p.m. on a Friday, private
Members’ motions taking precedence after Question Time and that Question Time shall be on Thursdays, Stages of Bills be suspended with effect from today and for the next series of sittings in respect of the Finance ( No. 3) Bill [H. B. 21, 2019 and Appropriation Bill [H. B. 22, 2019].
Hon. Sen. Mwonzora having sought clarification from the Minister of Justice pertaining to Question Time.
THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: You shall be
guided accordingly; the Minister is only seeking leave of the House. I support you strongly in terms of Question Time.
Motion put and agreed to.
MOTION
SUSPENSION OF THE PROVISIONS OF STANDING ORDERS
NUMBER 50, 61 (2), 62 (2) AND 128
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Mr. President, I
move that provisions of Standing Orders Numbers 50, 61 (2), 62 (2) and 128 regarding automatic adjournment of the House at Five Minutes to
Seven o’clock p. m. on sitting days other than a Friday and at Twenty-
Five Minutes past One o’clock p.m. on Friday, Private Members’ motions taking precedence on Thursdays after Question Time and that Question Time shall be on Thursdays. Stages of Bills be suspended with effect from today and for the next series of sittings in respect of the Finance (No. 3) Bill [H. B. 21, 2019 and the Appropriation (2020) Bill [H. B. 22, 2019].
Motion put and agreed to.
THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: I do not
have any apologies from Ministers who are not present. I must say I share the concerns which have been raised by the Hon. Senators concerning the way Ministers are not making themselves available for a very important and constitutional obligation of answering questions. I take note of that concern and will raise that issue with the appropriate authorities.
In the mean time, we have three Ministers in the Chamber; the
Hon. Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Hon. S. B.
Moyo; the Deputy Minister of Energy and Power Development, Hon.
Magna Mudyiwa and the Hon. Minister of State for Provincial Affairs Harare, Minister Chidhakwa. Let us make do with what we have while we wait for the staff that has gone to try and raise the other Ministers who are not here present.
HON. SEN. MWONZORA: Thank you very much Mr. President
Sir. My question is directed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. First of all it is nice to see you Minister but my question is, at the beginning of the second republic, your Ministry and the Government made an announcement that Zimbabwe was going to apply to join the Commonwealth. How much progress has been made?
What are the impediments, if any towards the joining of the
Commonwealth?
THE MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND
INTERNATIONAL TRADE (HON. S. B. MOYO): Let me thank the
Hon. Member who has just asked the question and particularly for being nice to having seen me today. Indeed, the second republic’s focus right from its advent has been to ensure that it reengages the rest of the international community. It engages not only member countries but it also engages international organisations and financial institutions. In the process of that it so happens that the Commonwealth is one of them and as a nation, were not sort of removed from the Commonwealth but we left on our own as a resolution which was made some time ago.
None-the-less, in order for us to rejoin we had to do the needful and that needful was to initiate the interest of that part of rejoining the Commonwealth. In terms of the laws of the Commonwealth their first point was that they needed to send the first assessment team, but the first assessment team was to do with assessing the elections which took place in this country, but again a Commonwealth organisation is not allowed to observe an election of a none member state. Therefore, we had to express that aspect with the secretariat until it was accepted and we had, you recall, the Commonwealth observer mission which came to observe our elections during last July. That was the first assessment which was informal.
There was a second assessment and that second assessment team actually came to Zimbabwe when I was in London; when I was having a meeting with the Secretary General of the Commonwealth. At that particular time she indicated that she was waiting to hear the report which comes from the second assessment team. So far we have not heard any dissenting voices in as far as our rejoining is concerned, formally from the Commonwealth and as far as we are concerned, we believe everything is on course for Commonwealth Heads of Governments Meeting (CHOGUM) 2020, in Kigali.
However, there are individual members states who express their reservations in terms of their perception of what is going on in this country and who may want to link up what is going on here with whether they would take a position to support us to rejoin the Commonwealth. Never-the-less as far as the systemic process of rejoining the Commonwealth in terms of the secretariat is concerned, so far everything is on course, I submit.
HON. SEN. MWONZORA: Hon. Minister, it is common cause
and it is all over the social media that some members of the British Parliament, in particular, expressed concern about the Human Rights situation in Zimbabwe and said that posed an obstacle to Zimbabwe’s rejoining the Commonwealth. What as Government are you doing to address that concern?
HON. S. B. MOYO: Again, I would like to thank the Hon.
Member for the question. Let me say that foreign policy is an extension of your domestic policy in real terms. Therefore, what happens in here is what we communicate and that is what we propagate externally so that there can be a level of understanding at international environment with this country about the activities.
Yes, there have been those allegations and the allegations arise from certain clashes like the 1st August event, the January occasions and also what I can call the 16th August events. Some Member States or some British House of Commons Members think that there were serious breaches of Human Rights abuses but that is their perception. Whether it is true or not, that is something which is different but I think you are aware as an Hon. Member that some of the events that characterized those periods have been investigated, subject to a Commission of Enquiry and police investigations as well as a matrix that is dealing with various activities. Some of them even highlight that the observers’ reports and recommendations that were made by observer groups during the elections constitute a major breach of certain Human Rights activities.
All we can say is that there has been a Human Rights rapporteur who has been here and other personalities who have come to the country and expressed their own different opinions as far as the situation is concerned. What they say is their perception in as far as Human Rights abuses are concerned. They believe that this Government has banned demonstrations for good or something like that. As far as I know, it is not the policy of this Government to ban peaceful marches and demonstrations – that is not the case. I thank you.
THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Thank you
Hon. Minister. We have also been joined by the Minister of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services and the Minister of Provincial Affairs for Mashonaland East. Supplementary question Hon. Sen. Mpofu.
HON. SEN. B. MPOFU: Thank you Mr. President and thank you
Hon. Minister for your answer. The question that I am going ask possibly may be answered by you or maybe by the Minister of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services. It is …
THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Order,
order, if it is a supplementary question then it must be a supplementary.
HON. SEN. B. MPOFU: Yes, I will keep it supplementary. –
[Laughter.] – Thank you, it is littered in the social media that the Deputy Minister of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services has indicated directly or inferred to the extent that the country is not interested in joining the Commonwealth. Is that a Government position or his personal position? If it is his personal position, what is the Government doing about it? Thank you.
HON. S. B. MOYO: Thank you very much Hon. Member for the
supplementary question. I am sure now that the Hon. Minister of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services is here – I think that she will be able to address that particular question.
As far as I am aware, as the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade – the position is still the same. We join international organizations not for the benefit of those organizations or those who constitute those organizations. We join international organizations for the benefit of our people and all Zimbabweans. Therefore, when we see that there is an advantage in joining an international organisation like the Commonwealth – that has been the position and it is part of the reengagement process. We are re-engaging with the rest of the international community and the rest of the international organizations.
In as far as the issue to do with the Deputy Minister of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services – I am sure that the boss would be able to respond to that. I thank you.
THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Thank you
Hon. Minister – I am sure you have answered that question adequately.
We have been joined, as you can see, by two other ministers: - Hon.
Sithembiso Nyoni, Minister of Women’s Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprises Development and also the Minister of State for Provincial Affairs for the Midlands and I think the Minister of State for
Provincial Affairs for Manicaland. I had recognised Hon. Sen. Komichi.
HON. SEN. KOMICHI: Thank you very much Mr. President.
Let me also take this opportunity to join my camaraderie Hon. Sen. Mwonzora to welcome the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade to the House.
My question is directed to the Minister of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services. Hon. Minister, the country has almost gone through 40 years…
THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Order,
order, may you speak up please.
HON. SEN. KOMICHI: I am saying that the country is now aged 40 years since Independence and we still have one broadcasting station. I believe that many people including myself long to have an independent broadcasting station so that we can have different views other than from one station which is ZBC. What is Government doing to make sure that at least we have independent broadcasters?
THE MINISTER OF INFORMATION, PUBLICITY AND
BROADCASTING SERVICES (HON. SEN. MUTSVANGWA):
Thank you Mr. President, I also want to thank Hon. Sen. Komichi for the very good question.
Yes, you are right, Zimbabweans deserve a variety of television channels. Zimbabwe is one of the first African countries to have a television. What we have been doing as a ministry since the Second
Republic is to make sure that we provide that diversity to our people.
We want to have several television channels so that those who want to watch educational programmes can do so and those who want to watch sports can do so. The process is moving a little slower than we anticipated because it also requires resources for the digitilisation to be completed.
What we have done, just to make you understand, is that we have put together the board which is now looking at the spectrum that we have as a country and see how many television channels they can allocate. The board is in place and will soon be inviting those interested in attaining broadcasting licenses. The Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe is the statutory body that issues out licenses and this will be done as soon as possible. We should be able to have about six channels within the next three months. I thank you.
HON. SEN. TIMVEOS: Thank you very much Mr. President.
My question goes to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Hon. Minister, I am sure by now you know that Zimbabwe is a signatory to the Arms Trade
Treaty...
THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Hon. Sen.,
can you please speak up.
HON. SEN. TIMVEOS: Hon. Minister, I am sure you know by now that Zimbabwe is a signatory to the Arms Trade Treaty. As
Zimbabwe, we signed this treaty in 2014. What I want to understand Hon. Minister is when we are going to ratify the treaty and domesticate it. We have so many treaties that we have signed as a country and some of these treaties are really helpful for the country. So I want to understand and know when the ratification is going to be done for the Arms Trade Treaty.
THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Thank you
Hon. Sen. Timveos. That is a specific question, we are supposed to ask questions on policy. Can you put that in writing because I do not expect the Minister to be a moving encyclopedia unless he does know anything about that.
*HON. SEN. CHIMBUDZI: My question is directed to the
Deputy Minister of Energy and Power Development, Hon. Mudyiwa.
May you please tell us what the Government is doing to fight the illegal sale of fuel because this is disturbing the equal distribution of fuel and even Members of Parliament are affected by this shortage.
*THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF ENERGY AND POWER
DEVELOPMENT (HON. MUDYIWA): I want to thank the Hon.
Member for asking this question. As a Ministry, we have been seized with this problem since the advent of the shortage of fuel in the country. We made a thorough research and our findings were that some of the fuel which is being sold at the black market is leading to people failing to access fuel and it is really a problem to the country. As a country, we have an organisation called Zimbabwe Regulatory Authority whose responsibility is to look into problems such as the functioning of the service stations and the distribution of fuel in the country because they are responsible for the regulation. ZERA inspectors have been going around the country visiting fuel stations looking for cases of black market. Those who will be found guilty will be given the necessary punishment such as the withdrawal of trading licences.
As a Ministry, we are also monitoring the movement of fuel from the depots in Mabvuku up to the service station and again the distribution of such fuel. We are hoping that in the near future we will be able to use satellite tracking for the movement of fuel so that we beat up the black market. At times if we only rely on the presence of human beings in such assignments, there could be some instances of corruption which may creep in. Let us computerise so that anybody can monitor the movement of fuel from the bulk storage to the filling stations. We will look at all the registered filling stations in the country so that we know that they have collected from the bulk storage and they have been delivered to the intended filling stations. These are the steps we are taking at the moment.
HON. SEN. ENG. MUDZURI: My question is a supplementary
to the Deputy Minister of Energy. You have just talked of corruption, is the Minister aware of garages that demand cash to buy fuel, those that do not allow swipe and ecocash but only want cash. The problem is that people are only allowed 300 bond per week in banks and they give 100 bond cash per day which makes it very difficult for the common man. It ends up on the black market because they are not allowing any means of buying other than cash.
HON. SEN. MUDYIWA: Thank you Mr. President and I would
like to thank the Hon. Member for the question. The policy is that all garages should sell fuel using bond notes and coins, Ecocash and swipe. If there are garages that are demanding cash only, that is outside the policy. I would like to ask the Hon. Member if he has specific garages that he knows to pass that information to our Ministry so that we can follow up on what exactly is happening at those garages. Like I said before, we have ZERA who are charged with monitoring what happens at the garages. That should not be allowed and I think action will be taken against such garages.
HON. SEN. DR. MAVETERA: Thank you Mr. President Sir.
My question goes to the Minister of Finance and Economic
Development. What is the Ministry of Finance doing in view of the fact that the situation on the ground appears that the economy is redollarising? Wherever you go, people are asking for payment in US dollars. What practical steps – first, is the Minister aware and what measures are you putting in place because out there life is very difficult for all Zimbabweans? I thank you.
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE): Thank you Mr.
President Sir. I thank the Hon. Sen. for the question. In terms of what we are doing to deal with the re-dollarisation challenge that we have so far noted, we are doing a few things. First of all we are making sure that there is more cash in terms of Zimbabwean dollars that is pumped into the system.
In the last month, we have put in cash to the tune of ZW$110 million and we have said that in the next six months, we will continue to put in more cash. There is a strategy to doing this; if we put in all the cash that is needed in one moment, that will increase inflation sharply but also, that may impact the exchange rate and even cause more inflation. So what we are doing is using a strategy that is called a swap.
We are swapping RTGS balances for cash with the bank. We say to the bank, you give us RTGS and we give you the equivalent in cash then we cancel the RTGS. What that does is that it helps you pump cash into the economy but without increasing the aggregate amount of cash in circulation. What we will do going forward is to also increase the size of the denomination; you can imagine if it is $2 or $5, you have to pack quite a bit into the ATM machine if you have to make withdrawals. So high denominations like $10 or $20 are really needed going forward and we will be doing that.
On the target; at the moment the cash in circulation in Zimbabwe as a percentage of the stock of cash is just above 4%. This is well below that of similar countries in the region. We should double that and that means we have to put in about ZW$1 billion into the economy. That is the first strategy.
The second strategy is a legal enforcement one which says, we must make sure that the Central Bank is given enough teeth, powers and legal instruments to enforce the use of domestic currency where it is supposed to enforce and also impose adequate penalties to dissuade those who use US$ when they need not do so. So I will be bringing before this august House as part of the Finance Bill some provisions and amendments of the RBZ Act to give more teeth to the Reserve Bank. I thank you.
*HON. SEN. WUNGANAYI: Thank you Mr. President. Your
English is so fluent Hon. Minister and I wish that it is the same with what would happen…
THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Hon.
Senator, ask your question clearly and do not try to sound sarcastic about anything.
HON. SEN. WUNGANAYI: Thank you Mr. President. Hon.
Minister, I heard you saying you want to add more cash into the market. Last time we heard the same thing that cash will flood the banks but we are only finding it in the streets. What are you doing to end this anomaly rather than saying what will not happen?
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: Thank you Mr. President. I explained that the RBZ requires teeth in order to make sure that there is no violation of the regulations. Last time cash was released it was found out that some banks had released more than the cash withdrawal limit as required by the RBZ statute. For example, some people were allowed to withdraw more than $10 000 and the banks concerned were asked to explain and dealt with accordingly to make sure that it will not happen again. So the Central Bank needs you as Hon. Senators to support and give them teeth through the statutory instruments we are bringing for consideration. The issue of cash-in and cash-out with the cash concerned means that some of these institutions are now working as mini-banks. Rules have been put in place and even their margins in terms of charges have narrowed and this will lead to more stability in the Zimbabwean dollar and narrow down this cash-in cash-out. I thank you.
HON. SEN. B. MPOFU: I am still not answered. The question was - what are you doing to ensure that the country does not redollarise?
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: What I was trying to explain in terms of measures is the promotion of the currency in the first place, enforcing on those who want to continue to use the US$ without permission, putting more cash into the system. It is also an issue of supply. All of that will go a long way in strengthening the use of the ZW$, building confidence around it and discouraging those who are using US$ as a choice of currency. I thank you Mr. President.
*HON. SEN. CHIRONGOMA: Thank you Mr. President. My
question is directed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Hon. S. B. Moyo. On the 25th October, 2019 there was a demonstration which was carried out throughout the country, the region and the international world calling for the immediate removal of illegal sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe. Did those countries which imposed illegal sanctions heed our message that they are fighting against the people’s rights?
THE MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND
INTERNATIONAL TRADE (HON. S. B. MOYO): Thank you Mr.
President and the Hon. Member who has asked this question. The genesis of the October 25th, 2019, which is the anti-sanctions day emanated from the SADC Summit which took place in Dar-e-Salaam. SADC Member States looked at their economic figures in terms of the growth of GDP within the region and realised that there are certain countries which would be called pull down sort of, in terms of the growth of GDP of the region. It was not only Zimbabwe, but there were other countries with different reasons but Zimbabwe was the major one.
Therefore, they took a decision that these sanctions are now hurting not only Zimbabweans but they are hurting even us the rest of the region in this particular aspect, hence the advent of the October 25th. All over, in different parts of the world and the different parts of the region and the continent, there were quite a lot of gatherings and messages. I can assure you that the impact was there between the US and the EU. The EU was more hurt because they thought that they did not want to be packaged together with the USA because the USA is quite clear about sanctions.
The EU was saying we thought we were progressing very well in terms of reducing the impact of sanctions and we were only remaining with just a small portion which we were working on. That aspect and reaction was indicative of the fact that the word had gone into it because sanctions had been classified as human rights abuse especially illegal sanctions.
Secondly, I have said in many foras that sanctions are a mass destruction weapon because they are not discrete in terms of who they are going to affect. It does not matter who and therefore, because of that even for the first time, the UN Food Security Rapporteur who came into this country highlighted that one of the reasons why Zimbabwe was having certain difficulties is because of sanctions and she went further not to say sanctions only, but to say ZIDERA. In that light, that is a formal organisation the first time that it recognizes is that sanctions have got an impact on Zimbabwe. Therefore, we believe that this psychological mobilisation of the world to sympathise with the position of Zimbabwe is actually having an impact. I thank you.
HON. SEN. KOMICHI: Thank you Mr. President. Minister, why is it that USA seems to be very difficult - are you not able to engage them, starting with discussing those issues that are being raised by ZIDERA and the US so that we can have a permanent solution and trade with them?
THE MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND
INTERNATIONAL TRADE (HON. S. B. MOYO): Thank you Mr.
President and Hon. Sen. Komichi for that question. Let me say that in terms of our engagement, the major target for our engagement has been UK and Europe and also the United States of America. Before the second republic, there was no communication between the USA and the first republic. What I can assure you now is that we have communication. We speak to each other directly with the USA. Even if we differ, but we differ as we discuss. There has been quite a lot of progress, to an extent that there is discussion which is taking place within the US now.
Of course, there are some who believe the internet Zimbabwe which is generated in different foras and there are some who are seeing the light of reform in terms of the second republic. We think that this engagement is a process and it cannot be an engagement, particularly with the US - it takes time. You will recall that even the former
President N. Mandela died when he was still classified as a terrorist. It is not easy to actually remove. ZIDERA is a congress issue – it is like your Bill and it is not necessarily the Executive.
The Executive may have to sympathize because they need sport in terms of the separation of powers, but we believe that we are progressing very well, even with the United States of America. The Embassy had to have certain reflexes in terms of speechifying. It was mainly because of pressure of the campaign on sanctions and they had wanted to try and also create a different narrative. Otherwise, the impact is that there is progress. I thank you.
Questions without Notice were interrupted by THE HON.
DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE in terms of Standing Order No.
HON. SEN. KOMICHI: I move for the extension of time for Questions without Notice.
HON. SEN. NCUBE: I second.
HON. SEN. S. MPOFU: I object.
On the motion of THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI), the Senate
adjourned at Half past Three O’clock p.m. until Tuesday, 17th December, 2019.
PARLIAMENT OF ZIMBABWE
Tuesday 17th December, 2019
The Senate met at Half-past Two o’clock p.m.
PRAYERS
(THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE in the Chair)
ANNOUNCEMENTS BY THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE
OFFICIAL HAND-OVER CEREMONY OF TRACK SUITS
THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE: I have to inform the
House that the Secretary General of the Parliamentary Sport Club, ‘The Patriots’ is cordially inviting all paid up members of the club to the official hand-over ceremony of track suits donated by the Tobacco Industries Marketing Board (TIMB) on Wednesday, 18th December 2019 in the Members’ Dining Room at 1000 hours.
ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH SERVICE
THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE: I also have to inform
the Senate that there will be a Roman Catholic Church service tomorrow, Wednesday, 18th December, 2019 at 1230 hours in the Senate Chamber. All Catholic and non-catholic Members are invited.
SECOND READING
CORONER’S OFFICE BILL [H. B. 5A, 2019]
First Order read: Second Reading: Coroner’s Office Bill [H. B. 5A, 2019].
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you
Madam President. I rise to present the second reading speech on the
Coroner’s Office Bill, [H. B. 5A, 2019]. Issues to do with suspicious deaths are presently governed by the Inquests Act, a colonial era piece of legislation enacted in 1951. That Act has a most unsatisfactory, cumbersome, expensive and reactive procedure for dealing with such deaths. It was a system designed by a minority for a minority that no longer serves the needs of our people. The proceedings under the Inquest Act are directed almost exclusively to ascertain who the deceased was, how, when and where the deceased came to his or her
fate. The steps to this final determination by the Inquest court are not at all formalised and somewhat rough and ready.
The question of the establishment of a Coroner system in Zimbabwe has been under consideration for over two decades, generally amongst the ministries responsible for health, justice and home affairs, the concept having been first mooted in 1998. At that time, consultative meetings were held between the ministries concerned and interested stakeholders, especially in the medical field. A task force was formed by the Ministry of Health as far back as September 2003 which recommended the establishment of a Coroner’s Office, which was eventually accepted by the Cabinet, and the result is what we see today in this Bill. Hon. Senators, the reason for the long delay in bringing this Bill forward was a dispute between a Coroner system that is basically a medico-legal investigation system to determine the cause and manner of death in certain cases of homicide and accidental death. It brings to bear the expertise of forensic pathology to explain unnatural, unexpected, unexplained or unattended deaths and deaths in jail or police custody.
The underlying objective of the system is to safeguard lives through timely investigation of preventable deaths with a view to determining the cause and circumstances of their occurrences, thereby securing accountability of those responsible for such deaths and preventing their repetition. The ministries responsible for health, justice and home affairs, as to which Minister should be responsible for it, Cabinet eventually resolved that the processing of unexplained deaths is ultimately a legal and judicial matter, and that therefore the Minister of Justice must administer the legalisation concerned.
A Coroner therefore, is a Government official who confirms and certifies the death of an individual within a jurisdiction, however defined. He or she has the primary responsibility to conduct a medicolegal investigation to determine the cause and manner of death. The main components of the operation of a Coroner’s office follow the sequence of, firstly registration or notification of all suspicious deaths, secondly, investigation of the same where required, usually after a postmortem examination by a medical practitioner independent of the Coroner, and finally the confirmation of the cause of death and its certification.
I will go into detail on how the Corner-General and Deputy
Coroner-General will discharge their public duties. In that respect, I urge
Hon. Senators to read the Explanatory Memorandum appended to the Bill. I will however, draw the attention of Hon. Senators to the fact that the Coroner’s Office is a devolved institution in which responsibilities are equally divided between the Coroner General, based in Harare, who has jurisdiction over all suspicious deaths happening in the eastern region of Zimbabwe and the Deputy Coroner General, based in Bulawayo, who has jurisdiction over all suspicious deaths happening in the western region of Zimbabwe. Madam President, I urge Hon. Senators to support and pass this very progressive vital law to secure the safety of our people against avoidable deaths and tracking down and holding accountable those who may be responsible for such deaths. I submit and move that the Bill be read a second time. Madam President,
I thank you.
Motion put and agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Hon. Senators, all the
members of the Chairperson’s panel are not present. I therefore call upon the Senate to elect a Senator to perform the functions of the Chairperson in accordance with the provisions of Standing Order Number 10, Subsection 5. I call for nominations.
HON. SEN. MUZENDA: Thank you Madam President. I call upon Hon. Sen. Dr. Sekeramayi.
HON. SEN. MAKONE: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Committee Stage: With leave, forthwith.
COMMITTEE STAGE
CORONER’S OFFICE BILL [H.B.5A, 2019]
House in Committee.
Clauses 1 to 2 put and agreed to.
On Clause 3;
HON. SEN. SHOKO: Hon. Chair, I am looking at Section 3 (2). If you look at that and then look at subsection 4, why do we not say the operations of the office shall subject to this Act, be controlled and managed by the Coroner based in the eastern regional office at Harare. Down there, you are also talking about the eastern region, so I thought you will need to then put the regions because there are only two regions. The clause says: based in the regional office in Harare. Why can we not put eastern regional office in Harare, instead of simply saying the regional office at Harare? When you look at subsection 4, the Coroner General shall serve areas defined from time to time as the eastern region under the Magistrates court and the Deputy Coroner General shall serve the area defined from time to time as the western region. That eastern must appear for the Harare area.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you Hon.
Chair. Hon. Chair, if you look at Section 3 (2), it is defining where the regional office will not be the magisterial district. It is speaking about where it is based but if you go to subsection 4, which is where you are referring to, it is now an area that is defined in the Magistrates Act. So when you read this - when you speak about the eastern and the southern region, it is an area that is defined in another area, the magisterial districts that are defined in that regard. So it is okay as it is.
Clause 3 put and agreed to.
Clauses 4 to Clause 16 put and agreed to.
On Clause 17:
HON. SEN. MAVETERA: On Clause 17, it is said the Minister may give the Coroner such general instruction. I think on this clause, actually remove the “independent”. We think this is a very important office. This office of the Coroner and that person should practice independently but here we see that this Bill is trying to give the Minister power to control what the Coroner does and it goes on to say on Clause
2 (2) of the same clause, “the Coroner General shall take necessary steps to comply,” which means actually he has no discretion but he has to comply with what the Minister has said. So I do not think this is actually a good piece of legislation if we are to put it this way.
What we need is actually an independent office which cannot be controlled by politicians and this clause actually removes that. I propose that we need to relook at it. Probably, if we want to go to subsection 2 and say “may” instead so that we give discretion to the Coroner to make an independent decision otherwise we are creating another sub-office of the Minister. It is actually the Minister who is the Coroner here because he can give any directions and mind you, this piece of legislation will also handle very sensitive information where the State is a major player, especially in terms of inquests. So when the holder of the office is then mandated to just comply with what the Minister says then we cannot. In other words, it means the Government maybe a part to this contestation then we have a Minister who is appointed by the Government to give directions as to how this office should operate. So I think this is not proper in a democratic society. Thank you.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Hon. Chair, one
of the critical functions of a Minister is to give policy direction in matters of compelling public interest. When you are giving a policy directive, it is of a general nature not specific to a particular case. So where you find a directive saying stop doing this, it is no longer a policy.
There are policies that are needed and that is the function of a Minister. You cannot take away that from them, that is what democracy is all about. Where there are issues of public interest, the Minister must give policy directions but it does not mean that the Minister must then be seen to be giving specific directives as to what the Coroner General does. So I submit, this is a very standard and needed clause that you will find in any legislation where it says the Minister can give policy direction on matters that are of public interest.
HON. SEN. MAVETERA: I have gone through this Bill and I have to submit that this is a very important Bill which will actually touch the lives of each and every one of us. Probably then if the Minister is going to respond and that makes standard, we need to have a clause where the independence of this office is respected because from going through this Bill Hon. Chair, it leaves us with no freedom or independence of this office when it comes to very pertinent issues. I did not see any clause that really ensures or gives us confidence that we are putting up or coming up with a piece of legislation that will actually make sure that the citizenry are at peace without being potentially abused by the Executive.
So I think probably the Minister then has to find somewhere where he has to guarantee that independence of this important office because throughout there is nothing like that. Are we deliberately leaving it or we need to do something else because I strongly feel that Members of this august House should really know what this really entails. We need to make sure that we do not want to come and relook at this piece of legislation to say it does not have the control to ensure that we get justice from this important office because as it is it is just a sub-office of the Minister where he can actually tell you. When things come to show, it may be a matter of technicality to say is this a policy direction or it is a specific issue. So can we just make it simple for everyone to be at peace with this legislation? I thank you.
HON. ZIYAMBI: Hon. Chair, if you go to the functions of office of the Coroner General, the Coroner General is supposed to conduct his work independently and impartial in Clause 4. Again, if you go on to the appointment of the Coroner General, there are stringent requirements. If the President wants to remove the Coroner General, that insulates again the Coroner General against arbitrary removal and that will insulate him to say when he is doing his job he will have the comfort that I cannot be removed summarily. There are procedures that are needed, a tribunal that will be set and all that. You will find out that throughout the Bill the independence of the Coroner can be seen and there will not be that interference from the Minister in so far as the Coroner is doing his specific duties as defined in the Act. I submit Mr. Chairman.
Clauses 18 to 21, put and agreed to.
First and Second Schedules, put and agreed to.
House resumed.
Bill reported without amendments.
Third Reading: With leave, forthwith.
THIRD READING
CORONER’S OFFICE BILL [H. B. 5A, 2019]
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Madam
President, I move that the Bill be now read the third time.
Motion put and agreed to.
Bill read the third time.
MOTION
PRESIDENTIAL SPEECH: DEBATE ON ADDRESS
Second Order read: Adjourned debate on motion in reply to the
Presidential Speech.
Question again proposed.
HON. SEN. MUZENDA: I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. SEN. MKWEBU: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Wednesday, 18th December, 2019.
MOTION
REPORT OF THE DELEGATION TO THE 45TH PLENARY
ASSEMBLY OF THE SADC PARLIAMENTARY FORUM HELD IN
MAPUTO
Third Order read: Adjourned debate on motion on the Report of the Delegation to the 45th Plenary Assembly of the SADC Parliamentary Forum.
Question again proposed.
HON. SEN. MUZENDA: I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. SEN. A. DUBE: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Wednesday, 18th December, 2019.
On the motion of THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR
MASHONALAND CENTRAL PROVINCE (HON. SEN.
MAVHUNGA), the Senate adjourned at Ten Minutes past Three o’clock p.m.
PARLIAMENT OF ZIMBABWE
Thursday, 19th December, 2019
The Senate met at Half-past Two o’clock p.m.
PRAYERS
(THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE in the Chair)
ANNOUNCEMENT BY THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE
APPOINTMENT OF HON. SEN. SINAMPANDE AS MDC-A
DEPUTY CHIEF WHIP
THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE: I have to inform the
Senate that the MDC-A party has appointed Hon. Sen. Sinampande as its
Deputy Chief Whip in the Senate –[HON. SENATORS: Hear, hear.] – THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Today, I was supposed
to name the Ministers who could not attend but I can see that the House is almost empty. We have one Minister, the Deputy Minister of
Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE *HON. SEN. CHIEF NGEZI: Thank you Madam President. My
question is directed to the Deputy Minister of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services. What measures have you put in place concerning artists who have lost intellectual property especially music? Piracy is rampant. Secondly, we used to have galas that promoted artists. Are you going to resuscitate them?
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF INFORMATION,
PUBLICITY AND BROADCASTING SERVICES (HON. DR.
MUTODI): Thank you Madam President. I want to thank the Hon.
Senator for the question. On the issue of piracy, I am sure it is the role of Parliament to ensure that an appropriate law is enacted so that our artists are protected from those who are pirating their work and selling it on the streets, leading to the artists going home without anything after producing their work. It is a continuous process of establishing the law. Currently, we do not have a law to deal with piracy directly. It is my hope that a law will be coming in due course. You also need to realise that the artists actually fall under the Ministry of Arts. The Ministry of Information is not directly in control of artists’ affairs. We will be working in conjunction with the Ministry of Arts to ensure that the law is put in place.
On the issues of the galas, these depend on demand; the artists coming together to perform. I agree with you Hon. Senator that the artist have been benefiting a lot from the galas, but obviously these galas are occasioned by certain events but as long as those events pitch up, the galas will be held and artists will benefit. I thank you.
THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Fortunately, the Deputy
Minister of Energy and the Minister of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services have walked in.
*HON. SEN. SHUMBA: Thank you Madam President. My
question is directed to the Deputy Minister of Energy and Power Development. I seek clarification on what the Government is doing pertaining to the ZESA tariffs because ZESA tokens are now expensive and considering the fact that people are now resorting to deforestation because they cannot afford ZESA because of the high tariffs, they end up cutting down trees. Furthermore, school children are unable to study because they do not have lighting to enable them to do their work. I thank you.
*THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF ENERGY AND POWER
DEVELOPMENT (HON. MUDYIWA): Thank you Madam
President. I want to thank the Hon. Senator for the question which is in connection with the tariffs in terms of ZESA. She said that electricity tariffs are so expensive and most people especially the ordinary people can no longer afford. Firstly, I want to say that for a long time since 2011, the electricity tariffs in Zimbabwe had never been increased and were very low. If we are to compare with other countries in Africa, our electricity tariffs were the lowest. That resulted in ZESA which has the sole mandate of supplying electricity facing challenges as they could no longer pay for the electricity or even give adequate salaries to their staff, maintenance and their day to day running. I am sure if the Hon. Member used to read the press, she came across news that ZESA was unable to pay its debt.
Since 2012, things have been going up and ZESA was unable to pay for these because the tariffs have not been increased. We then considered the challenges faced by ZESA which were hindering effective service delivery. It was realised that there was need to increase the electricity tariffs. Yes, the tariffs are now high but that is what we thought would assist ZESA to continue providing service. On this matter, the onus is now on the households to ensure that they use electricity sparingly. We do not have much electricity and it requires each and every household to reduce the use of electricity. For example, those rooms without occupants should be switched off in terms of lighting.
The first 50 units that we used to buy a token is affordable by most households; we considered that. However, we have a stepped up the tariff system. From 50 units to 200 units, the tariffs are higher. Two hundred units and above also have higher charges, so we said 50 units are the average units used by an average family for a decent living. If they are consuming a lot of electricity, it will be expensive for them. Yes, we know that school children are unable to study because of lack of electricity but it is all because of the fact that ZESA is unable to pay for its debts. I am sure you heard that ZESA has debts with ESKOM and
Mozambique and right now, the debt stands at US$75 million that needs to be paid. All these are the challenges facing ZESA and that is the situation on the ground right now. I thank you.
*HON. SEN. CHINAKE: Thank you Madam President. My
supplementary question to the Minister is that, as a nation you have said there is no electricity. As a country, what measures have we put in place in order to increase our electricity?
THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE: That is not a
supplementary question. Can we please concentrate on the issue of tariffs which some people are not able to pay?
*HON. SEN. CHABUKA: Thank you Madam President. I want
to thank the Minister for that explanation. You said that as we are in our households, we should switch off lights in rooms that are not being utilised. We also have electricity outside the houses for protection against thieves. There are those people who have outstanding bills, are they paying their bills to ensure that we clear ZESA debts that are there?
*THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE: The Minister has
addressed the question that the first 50 units are cheaper and if you are using more, it will be more expensive. If you leave the other rooms with lights on, it means your charges will go above the 50 units she talked about. That is the way I understood it. The question was responded to. So, I think the issue of using lights for security reasons is a totally different question for the Minister.
*HON. SEN. CHIMBUDZI: My question is directed to the
Deputy Minister of Energy and Power Development. What is the
Government’s position concerning filling stations that hoard fuel because when you want to purchase fuel they tell you that the fuel was already procured by certain companies.
*THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF ENERGY AND POWER
DEVELOPMENT (HON. MUDYIWA): Thank you Madam
President. I want to thank Hon. Sen. Chimbudzi for that question. The issue of selling fuel, as Government, we are saying service stations should avail fuel to everyone using the Zimbabwean dollar, ecocash or swipe. Those are the three modes of payment for fuel. If there are filling stations that are not selling because fuel has already been procured by certain organisations who pay more, that is not right. It cannot be the case that others can purchase in bulk but we are there to say service stations should sell to everyone who needs fuel. If there are service stations that are engaging in such dealings, please give us the information so that we can investigate as to what is happening. Is it true that they will have the fuel because they are paying more? Is it because they are paying more for the fuel? The Government policy is that if fuel is available, it should be sold to anyone who wants fuel. I thank you.
*HON. SEN. HUNGWE: Thank you Madam President. My
supplementary question to the Deputy Minister has been raised by the fact that she said people can pay for fuel using swipe, cash or ecocash. What about filling stations that are selling fuel in US dollars? They are there in the country. They are selling in foreign currency and when you get there, you find there are people with coupons that are different from the ordinary ones. What can be done about it because a number of people cannot get those coupons? For those who are selling in US dollars, fuel is never in short supply.
*HON. MUDYIWA: I want to thank Hon. Sen. Hungwe for that question. There are service stations which were exempted and given the mandate to sell in US$. They can sell to NGOs, embassies and those who get their money in US$. Those are the filling stations that are there. Their coupons can be different from the ordinary ones because their money is in US$ but most service stations should allow people to pay in ecocash, cash or swipe. They can sell using those modes of payment. Yes, there are such filling stations that sell in US$ and they are called state cases.
*HON. SEN. CHIEF. MAKUMBE: I want to seek clarification from the Deputy Minister. What measures do they have in place to ensure that jatropha can be used to blend fuel. In Mt. Hampden there is machinery to produce fuel from jatropha. What are the measures in place?
*HON. MUDYIWA: I want to thank the Hon. Senator for raising that question. Jatropha is grown in Zimbabwe in Mashonaland East, Mudzi area. Currently, we have an area that was given to the Ministry and we have a department that deals with jatropha. They were given 60 hectares as you approach the Mozambican border in Mudzi North constituency; we are growing jatropha as we speak. When we grow this jatropha, we take the jatropha and we have a factory in Mutoko where this is ground to produce bio diesel which is used to blend with diesel in order to increase the volume of our diesel.
Once we do that we will save a lot of foreign currency because once we blend the diesel with the jatropha, the volume of diesel can increase but this is still in its primary form at small scale. From the jatropha, there is also soap that is made from the jatropha and we encourage Hon. Members to use that soap that is produced from the jatropha plant. On the factory at Mt. Hampden, we are aware of that factory but there are issues that are being dealt with there so that once everything is in place we will then embark on full scale production of diesel. I think I have responded to his question, thank you.
*HON. SEN. CHIEF MAKUMBE: I wanted to find out what measures you have in place as Government. You are explaining to us what jatropha is used for. We have a lot of things that are working, we grew jatropha and the machines are there. What policy is there under your Ministry and what does it provide for?
*HON. MUDYIWA: Thank you Madam President. I think I have tried to explain the measures that we have in place. We have the plans but they are at a small scale. I explained that we have a department within our Ministry that is dealing with bio-diesel. They are growing jatropha on the farm that I mentioned in Mudzi where jatropha is coming from. To enable us to extract oil from jatropha, we have a bio-fuels policy that was supposed to have been launched. The bio fuels and renewable energy policies have been approved. What remains is to launch those policies. Once launched, the oil from jatropha can now be used to blend our diesel. It will be mandatory. So that is what will happen. I think I have tried to explain.
*HON. SEN. FEMAI: My question is directed to the Leader of the House. I want to direct my question to him because it is quite broad but I think it will also deal with the issue of energy and he is the rightful person to deal with it. The three arms of the State, Legislature, Judiciary and the Executive, is it Government policy that the other arm is in trouble facing challenges of securing fuel yet we do not see the Executive and the Judiciary in the queues. We are being harassed in fuel queues.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): I want to thank
the Hon. Senator for the question. There are no service stations that I am aware of that are for the Judiciary and Executive.
D st300310 19 December 2019
I also have to go on fuel queues. I have never heard that this queue is for Judges only. I have never heard that.
*THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE: I believe that question
also requires the Minister of Energy to respond to it.
*THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF ENERGY AND POWER DEVELOPMENT (HON. MUDYIWA): Thank you Madam President
for the question. As Government and as the Ministry of Energy, we have a department that sells fuel that is Petrotrade. That is the only company we are able to control as well as Genesis that is under NOIC.
Those are the only companies we can regulate. The fuel industry has been liberalised. We have Total, Zuva, Engen; they all sell fuel. They have their ways of doing business but all is regulated by ZERA, which is a department within our Ministry. There is no filling station that is the preserve of the Executive or the Judiciary. All the service stations are open to everyone. Probably, you do not see me per se in the queue but my driver will be at the fuel queue and he goes there representing me. There is no service station that chooses who to sell fuel to and who not to give fuel to.
*THE PRESIDENT OF SENATE: On that issue, I think
administratively, Parliament should negotiate with those service stations that are providing fuel. I do not think it is the Minister. I leave it to Parliament and your administration.
*HON. SEN. CHIEF NEMBIRE: Thank you Madam President. My question is directed to the Leader of the House. Minister, what measures are you taking in schools that are charging groceries as part of school fees, yet school fees is there and is quite exorbitant? Parents are complaining because of this development.
*THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): I want to thank
the Chief for the question on why schools are requesting groceries, yet there is school fees. The question that he has raised can only be addressed at the School Development Committee (SDC) meetings because that is where the school and parents agree as to how they will charge to ensure that their children can get adequate education. For me to give a substantive answer on issues that the parents have sat down and liberated on how to ensure that the school provides a service, I would be lying.
*HON. SEN. HUNGWE: Madam President, may you allow me
to say a few things on what is being said in this House. I think the issue that has been raised is important. What I was requesting is that we assist the Leader of the House. Leader of the House, do you not think that the issue that you have been presented with requires you to bring the Minister of Education in this House so that we can hear his views and that we understand what is happening in terms of these high fees and what is being charged in the schools?
*HON. ZIYAMBI: I want to thank the Hon. Senator for the supplementary question. Madam President, the policy in the Education Act is very clear. It says that schools are supposed to sit with parents and agree on the pegging of fees. Those who sit in the meeting are the school and parents and they are the school development association.
The consensus and recommendations is what is taken to the Ministry of Education. If the Ministry is satisfied that this is the agreement, they approve the fees increases. The response that I gave does not even require the Minister of Education to come and explain to say that at the school called Chipaga, the parents sat down and agreed that they are going to bring cooking oil for their children to get proper food such as chips; but the Minister cannot come in and say no, that is not right.
Children cannot bring cooking oil for the children to get chips but if he was saying that there is a school that has raised fees without the consent of parents, that is a different issue; we can agree.
*HON. SEN. CHIEF NHEMA: I also want to add to the Minister about the Government policy. The chips that he is talking about, is it part Government policy?
*THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Hon. Sen. Chief, the
Minister is responding to the questions that were raised. We raised the issue of groceries and he is responding to questions on the issue of groceries. On the issue of chips, it is just an example, not that it is being done. He is saying that it is an agreement between the SDC and the parents. That is what he has responded to.
*HON. SEN. DR. MAVETERA: Thank you Madam President.
My question to the Minister is that on the issue of fees, he said that there is need for consensus between parents and the school. What is happening on the ground is that all schools in the country are taking their interim budget before it is approved. So parents are forced to pay that interim before the Ministry has approved and adopted. The schools are bulldozing and forcing parents to pay that interim.
*HON. ZIYAMBI: Thank you Madam President. I want to thank the Hon. Senator for his understanding that he said interim. It means that on the interim budget, the figure that is taken to the Ministry, adjustments are made. The Ministry has been given indicative fees according to calculations but what normally happens in boarding schools is that those who know the requirements for children to be educated is that they do the calculation using price adjustments and they give you the interim and they seek approval. When the approval is made the adjustments are made. I thank you Madam President.
*HON. SEN. CHINAKE: My question is directed to the Deputy Minister of Energy. What measures have you put in place as a Ministry in order to increase the electricity available in Zimbabwe?
*THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF ENERGY AND POWER
DEVELOPMENT (HON. MUDYIWA): I want to thank the Hon.
Senator for the question concerning electricity. We have measures that we have not looking at importing electricity. Firstly, we have Hwange Thermal Power Station where we get some of our electricity. There are six units that are supposed to be working to generate 705 mega watts because the generators are now obsolete, they are working for at least two days and they break down, hence we are experiencing serious electricity shortages. In Hwange we have measures and have started a project called Hwange seven and eight expansion project. We are building new generators, two units in order to generate electricity. Right now the project is at 30% and is progressing as expected. By 2021, the first generator or the first unit can be in operation and will give us 300 mega watts. The other one is supposed to work in 2022 and should give us 300 mega watts. So from Hwange, we will get 600 mega watts. We also have plans that funding being available, we need to upgrade our thermal stations such as Bulawayo, Munyati and Harare that have units that have also become old but need upgrading. They can give us 290 mega watts once upgraded. Right now we are not even getting 60 mega watts because they are always breaking down. The report today shows that there is no electricity coming from these units.
Thirdly, we have the issue of renewable energy that is energy from solar, whereby we use solar panels to harness electricity. That is what we are promoting; we talked about renewable energy policy, that policy encourages people to make use of solar energy to ensure that we get electricity from there. If possible, institutions should use solar, for example, here at Parliament, if we put solar panels, we can then use electricity from solar so that we switch off Parliament and Parliament will be using its own electricity. There are companies that we are encouraging such as Econet and Schweppes are already using solar. Through the renewable energy policy, institutions like hospitals and universities should have solar fields that they can generate solar for use. We also urge people who can afford to use solar energy to do so. When you have a lot of electricity through solar energy, you can then feed into the national grid, through an agreement with ZETDC who will buy energy from you. We have a lot of measures in place and I cannot complete all those measures now. Thank you.
*HON. SEN. KOMICHI: The plan that you have of the three other power stations, Bulawayo, Munyati and Harare; this is not the first time upgrading has been done. a lot of money is being channeled towards the upgrades, if you look at your records, Bulawayo was upgraded but nothing came up, Munyati was upgraded and nothing came up. Harare was also upgraded and yet nothing came up. So, why not build one thermal unit in each town, Bulawayo, Munyati and Harare? Those already there can be museums because they are useless. Put independent units because 200 mega watts in Harare, 200 in Munyati and 200 in Bulawayo, I think that will be a good thing that you can consider.
*THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF ENERGY AND POWER DEVELOPMENT (HON. MUDYIWA): Thank you Madam President
that is a good idea that the Hon. Member has brought in. We will take all those recommendations, we are considering them and I am sure they will come to fruition. What we have at the moment is also to upgrade, upgrading means we can even change the technology and it will result in better results.
*HON. SEN. CHIRONGOMA: My question is directed to he
Leader of the House. Currently, people are running around to go for the Christmas holiday. Have you put in place measures to protect the lives of the people? What has been put in place to ensure people travel safely during the festive season holidays?
*THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): The Government
has put in place measure which include encouraging people that as they travel for the festive season, drivers should be aware of the fact that they are traveling with commuters. A few days ago, the First Lady went to toll-gates raising awareness to drivers that they should avoid alcohol and drunk driving. We also have the police who have mounted road blocks to ensure that there is easy flow of traffic and road regulations are being adhered to.
*HON. SEN. CHIEF NTABENI: Thank you Madam President
for recognising me. My question is directed to the Minister of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services. My dear Minister, I moved around and I went to three garages and saw vehicles filling up with fuel. Are things normal now so that we can go and tell people that we are going back to our good old days?
*THE MINISTER OF INFORMATION, PUBLICITY AND BROADCASTING SERVICES (HON. SEN. MUTSVANGWA:
Madam President, I want to thank Hon. Sen. Chief Ntabeni and I realise that he is now in the Christmas mood. When we finished the last Cabinet briefing, I said that we are a Christian country. We want people to be happy over the festive season and Government will ensure that it does its part. You saw the Government doing its part and the Minister of Finance and Economic Development availing bonuses to civil servants. Prices are being slashed, especially for mealie-meal so that people can get food. I cannot say much about the energy sector because the
Minister is there but for this time, we are saying that we want fuel to be available to ensure that people travel safely for the festive season as they visit their homes. I thank you.
*HON. SEN. GUMPO: My question is directed to the Leader of the House and it is a question that was raised at an SDGs meeting concerning environment and the damage that is being caused by veld fires in this country. It was a request that the cost of the damage be availed. The damage that is caused by veld fires that destroy trees, grass and animals and the figure that was given by the Ministry of
Environment, Tourism and Hospitality Industry and we want to find out from him when we will get the figure. If it is $10 billion, we need to know that. I thank you.
*THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you
Madam President and I want to thank the Member for that question. What I can respond to off the cuff is what is related to policy but that is too specific and requires figures. It requires the Minister to come and to have the figures to say that veld fires destroyed such an area. I cannot give the figures without consultation with the Minister and the Ministry.
My request is that Hon. Sen. Gumpo, you put it in writing so that the Minister can go and research on the information and give us a substantive answer. I thank you.
THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Hon. Sen. Gumbo, can
you put the question in writing?
HON. SEN. TONGOGARA: My question is directed to the
Leader of the House. Minister, with the festive season approaching, what measures is Government putting in place to facilitate easy and speedy crossing at our borders so as to reduce the congestions as you know that large numbers of people are coming for the holidays?
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you
Madam President. Again, even though it is not a policy question, I will try to answer it. Our border posts were not built to cater for the traffic that we are now experiencing. We have now started the process of expanding our border posts. You should recall that the President went there for ground breaking ceremony so that we can expand the border post. So what will happen is something that is unavoidable that there will be congestion at our border posts. Inasmuch as we may want to increase the staff because of the nature of the border posts, however, the relevant department has put in place mechanisms to ensure that traffic is cleared as fast as possible. I thank you.
*HON. SEN. MAKONE: In the absence of the Minister of Finance and Economic Development, I would like to direct my question to the Leader of the House. Hon. Minister, we understand that the Government is having problems with generating enough electricity for the country and that it might take quite a while before we get it. I think the Minister has already confirmed that families, schools and businesses go solar so that they can have enough energy for themselves. In light of that because now the populace will be doing the job that Government should have been doing of providing power, would it not be good Government policy to take off duty on all the things that go into making a solar system to work and not just the solar panels because there are things like lithium batteries and inverters. Could Government not make it a policy that everything that has to do with solar construction comes in duty free? Thank you Madam President.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you
Madam President and I want to thank the Hon. Senator for the question. Indeed, Government has already started doing that. I think we now have a policy. If that is now done yet, I think it is going to happen pretty soon because the Government has already agreed that let us remove duty on solar components so that we encourage our people to import and install all those components. So there is a policy and if the Statutory
Instrument is not yet there, it is going to be there very soon. If it is not there, we will make sure that the relevant legal instruments are put in place to ensure that those components come in.
*HON. SEN. MAKONE: Give us an indication on whether it will be a month or two months because a lot of people want to do that and if you give an indication, you will see something really big happening and it will take pressure off ZESA.
HON. ZIYAMBI: Thank you Madam President. Madam
President, what I can say is, we want it to be done like yesterday. We are experiencing shortage of power and like what the Deputy Minister has just said we are now moving towards encouraging the use of renewable energy. She gave a perfect example of Parliament that we want to take it off the grid. She went on to say even those that can have access we want them to have arrangements to sell it off to ZESA. It is something that we are taking seriously that we want it to happen like now. That is why I said I am going to check on the progress, if it is our Drafting department we will sort that out so that we have relevant instruments to ensure that it happens.
THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Hon. Minister, you
also have to check on the timeframe, for example how many months is this going to take?
HON. ZIYAMBI: If possible we want it like now, so I am going to check on the progress. I cannot give a timeframe, the idea is - we want it immediately.
THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Thank you Hon.
Minister.
Questions Without Notice were interrupted by THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE in terms of Standing Order No. 62.
MOTION
ADJOURNMENT OF THE HOUSE
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you
Madam President. First of all, I want to thank you for the year that has gone past with you, we enjoyed sittings here. Having said that, I also want to thank all the Hon. Senators for the way you disposed of your duties here in Parliament. I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year. Madam President, I now move that the
House do now adjourn – [HON. SENATORS: Hear, hear.] –
THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Hon. Senators, please
note that Committees are suspended until 10th February, 2020.
The Senate accordingly adjourned at Twenty Six Minutes to Four o’clock p.m. until Tuesday, 11th February, 2020.
PARLIAMENT OF ZIMBABWE
Wednesday, 18th December, 2019
The Senate met at Half-past Two o’clock p.m.
PRAYERS
(THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE in the Chair)
SECOND READING
FINANCE (NO. 3) BILL [H. B. 21, 2019]
First Order read: Second Reading: Finance (No. 3) Bill [H. B. 21,
2019].
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE): Thank you Madam
President. The Finance (No. 3) Bill [H. B. 21, 2019] basically focuses on a budget of $59 billion. The central tenets of this budget are that we want to drive productivity, competitiveness, inclusiveness in terms of quality of infrastructure and we want to drive jobs. Those are the pillars of this budget for 2020. That is why it sounds so big but also the reason why these figures are so big - I will start by revenues and I will come to expenditure itself - it is because of inflation and we also believe that, that is what it will take to fund growth, jobs and competitiveness.
On expenditure, we are expecting expenditure of the order of $63 billion. That means we are targeting a deficit of the order of 1.5% of GDP and we believe that this is achievable. We will not have difficulty at all achieving this. If you look at the things that we have in terms of incentives that will drive growth, jobs and competitiveness – we have focused on the primary sectors of the economy.
In the agricultural sector, we have set aside a budget of $11.3 billion. Here, we are cognisant of the model that we have adopted, of partnering banks so that we share the burden but also crowd in the private sector and make sure that we deal with the issue of 99 year leases which has not been easily accepted by the banks. We have set aside a budget of the order of $500 million for irrigation because we wish to climate proof our agriculture. We have also set aside a budget of the order of $250 million to deal with dam construction but also to acquire meteorological equipment for us to track weather patterns. Everyone knows that the drought has been severe and it has depressed agriculture by as much as 18% of GDP and overall GDP of minus 6.5 %.
Coming to mining, Madam President, again we have set aside what we think is a decent budget for the mining sector. This is an area driven by the private sector in terms of overall investment and we expect that the sector will grow as much as US$12 billion by year 2020.
In industry, again our budget seeks to provide guarantees to those companies that need to be true. We are quickly aware that we need jobs and grow exports; we have set aside a budget for this. On tourism, we are continuing with the incentives that we have had over the years in the tourism sector. There is one that we really want to push in the 2020 Budget, that is to deal with our visa system so that it is easy for tourists to come here spend their dollars and enjoy their stay. It is easy for them to come in and out. If there is one area that we need to push on it is that area that we need to push on and certainly, it is not a big budgetary issue. It should be something that we should be able to do. When it comes to jobs Madam President, we were proposing a youth employment credit incentive (YET). We want to incentivise companies to employ our youth. We need to deal with unemployment. We think that an incentive to companies is one way to go. It may not be the best approach but that is the best we have come up with. We have proposed that companies that employ the youth for at least twelve months in terms of year of assessments without losing other employees deliberately; because we do not want them to fire people and employ the youth and expect a credit, they should be adding on employees rather than replacing those that they have fired. Do not be alarmed when we say youths within the age of 30 years and so forth. We are not trying to define youth but we are staying within the constitutional definition of up to age of 35, so it is a targeting exercise designed to contain our budget and we have set out the criteria very clearly. This has been used in other countries and we want to try it in our country. We think there is mileage that we will gain from this approach.
Let me turn to other issues around job creation and also entrepreneurship support Madam President. We have allocated $500 million towards the National Venture Fund to support start ups from young people, women and everyone but we want to prioritise those two categories; young people and women for their new businesses. We will work on the rules on how these monies can be accessed for start-ups to be supported. Why are we doing this? I recall coming to Parliament to explain a few things before during the course of the year and a bit of last year why banks are not well-suited to supporting start ups and small scale businesses, the reason being that they use depositors’ funds which have a very short duration. They can only lend those resources for a short period of time because there are risks that depositors may want their money back. So what is really proper and more appropriate is a venture fund which can invest for five or seven years. That is what we are trying to do with the National Venture Fund to support these kinds of start-ups.
There is quite a lot in the budget that we are doing Madam President. One issue which is worth highlighting is the export credit facility of US$20 million. We are desirous to grow our exports. Those of you who are old enough; a lot of you are even older than me, you will remember in the old days we used to have these kinds of schemes and they were working. I was working in the industry; I worked as an economist in CZI and I know it works. If you have an export revolving fund and you support your horticulture sector and so forth and the fund revolves, you replenish it through the proceeds and it can go a long way in supporting exports. So we were desirous to capitalise this and make sure that it works well.
As we stimulate the economy and drive employment, productivity and growth, it is important to also stimulate domestic demand. So what we are proposing in this budget is to cut the corporate tax by 1%. We have also cut the Value Added Tax (VAT) by 0.5%. We believe this will go a long way in stimulating domestic demand. I end on this note Madam President, that this budget is really meant to stimulate the economy and I repeat; austerity is over. It has served its purpose. We sitting in Treasury see the technical results. It might not be felt by the populace but the finances of the Government are in order. That is what we wanted to achieve. Now we have enough space to finance the growth, job creation, competitiveness, all towards achievement of Vision 2030 of an upper middle economy. I propose that the Bill be read a second time. I thank you.
Motion put and agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Committee Stage: With leave, forthwith.
COMMITTEE STAGE
FINANCE (NO.3) BILL [H. B. 21, 2019]
House in Committee.
Clauses 1 to 16 put and agreed to.
On Clause 17:
HON. SEN. TIMIRE: I might be lost because I do not have the Bill to follow but I wanted to speak about something to do with water. I only read about dams which are a long term water relief to irrigation, but I did not get the immediate relief of water as you can see that in
Zimbabwe people are really suffering trying to get water. The women
are suffering and are getting water from faraway places, even here in town you can see there are long queues. People are now crying for rain because of lack of water.
THE CHAIRPERSON: Hon. Senator, the procedure is that you
are supposed to raise an issue as it affects the clause as I put it. That is the procedure according to the Standing Rules and Orders of Parliament. However, I will give you the benefit of doubt and ask the Minister if he wants to respond to the issue of water, even though this is not normal procedure.
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. NCUBE): Hon. Chair, I thank and
agree this is not the issue for Committee Stage discussion but I appreciate the question and importance of the issue and I will respond. Thank you for giving me the opportunity. The issue of water is a critical one. What we did in the budget is to allocate Z$233 million to DDF for the purpose of drilling boreholes, mainly in the rural areas. We have another budget for about Z$45 million for ZINWA to do likewise because they have different capacities. ZINWA is capacitated to drill deeper boreholes, especially in the drier areas but we are aware that the Chinese have also given us aid for drilling boreholes where they pay contractors to drill boreholes. We are however, aware that they tend to pay the drilling companies on the back of what we call wet boreholes so if they strike nothing, no water they do not get paid. So they tend to skew their efforts towards those areas that are wetter than the dry areas when the real demand is in the dry areas.
In the urban areas, yes there have been some drying there but the core for water supply in the urban areas is the formal reticulated water. The issue in the main has not been raw water but rather water treatment so it is about clean water rather than raw water. So we have in the budget allocated resources for chemicals for upgrading the infrastructure in the urban areas. We are really focused on that and as we think how perhaps the devolution resources ought to be used in some of these metropolis maybe one area we should be targeting is the issue of water and sanitation. I thank you.
THE CHAIRPERSON: We have gone out of our way and accommodated you Hon. Senator but you should have raised this during the Second Reading stage, during the general debate.
Clause 17 put and agreed to.
Clauses 18 to 30 put and agreed to.
First Schedule put and agreed to.
House resumed.
Bill reported without amendments.
Third Reading: With leave, forthwith.
THIRD READING
FINANCE (NO. 3) BILL [H. B. 21, 2019]
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE): Mr. President, I move
that the Bill be now read the third time.
Motion put and agreed to.
Bill read the third time.
SECOND READING
APPROPRIATION (2020) BILL [H. B. 22, 2019]
Second Order read: Second Reading: Appropriation (2020) Bill
[H. B. 22, 2019].
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE): Mr. President, on the
14th November, 2019, I presented to this House the 2020 National Budget Estimates amounting to ZW$59 046 billion, broken down as consolidated revenue fund, ZW$57 053 billion in and retention funds at ZW$1 994 billion. The purpose of this Bill is to give effect to the 2020 Budget Estimates that were presented to the House. I seek approval for the 2020 National Budget of ZW$59 046 billion, broken down as consolidated revenue fund ZW$57 053 billion and retention funds of ZW$1 994 billion to cater for provisions to ensure achievement and realisation of the overall objectives of the transitional stabilisation programmes 2019-2020 programmes and projects being undertaken by Government.
The 2020 Budget Policy measures put emphasis on reviving key sectors of the economy through promotion of production oriented investment and productivity without losing focus on fiscal responsibility underpinned by the following key priority areas which I have already mentioned before; which is productivity and growth, job creation, competitiveness and quest for strong sustainable and shared growth.
Section 5 (1) of the Bill empowers the Minister of Finance and
Economic Development to transfer funds already approved by Parliament between Votes in respect of a function or responsibility transferred between ministries and departments during the course of the fiscal year. Section 5 (2) of the Bill allows discretion to the Minister of Finance and Economic Development to transfer funds from the unallocated revenue portion which appears on the Minister of Finance and Economic Development Vote to any other Vote as and when the need arises in order to meet inescapable expenditures. In addition, Mr.
President Sir, if necessary, the Minister of Finance and Economic Development can vary the amounts so transferred by taking back any surplus for re-allocation to other ministries to meet demands that may arise. Mr. President Sir, I accordingly move that the Bill be now read a second time. I thank you.
Motion put and agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Committee Stage: With leave, forthwith.
House in Committee.
COMMITTEE STAGE
APPROPRIATION 2020 BILL [H. B. 22, 2019]
House in Committee.
Clauses 1 to 6 put and agreed to.
Schedule 4 put and agreed to.
House resumed.
Bill reported without amendments.
Third Reading: With leave, forthwith.
THIRD READING
APPROPRIATION 2020 BILL [H. B. 22, 2019]
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE): I now move that the
Bill be read the third time.
Motion put and agreed to.
Bill read the third time.
On the motion of the MINISTER OF FINANCE AND
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, HON. PROF. M. NCUBE the
Senate adjourned at Seventeen Minutes past Three o’clock p.m.
PARLIAMENT OF ZIMBABWE
Tuesday, 17th December, 2019.
The National Assembly met at a Quarter-past Two O’clock p.m.
PRAYERS
(THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER in the Chair)
ANNOUNCEMENTS BY THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER
ERROR ON THE ORDER PAPER
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: I have to inform the House of
an error on the Order Paper, where today’s date has inadvertently been reflected as Thursday, 12th December, 2019 instead of Tuesday, 17th December, 2019.
OFFICIAL HAND-OVER CEREMONY OF TRACKSUITS
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: I also have to inform the
House that the Secretary General of the Parliament Sport Club – “The
Patriots”, is cordially inviting all paid up members of the club to the official hand-over ceremony of tracksuits donated by the Tobacco Industries Marketing Board (TIMB) on Wednesday, 18th December 2019, in the Members’ Dining Room at 1000 hours.
PETITION RECEIVED FROM DR. S. NYAGUSE
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: I have to inform the House
that on Thursday, 12th December, 2019, Parliament of Zimbabwe received a petition from Dr. S. Nyaguse, President of the Senior Hospital
Doctors’ Association, beseeching Parliament to urgently revive the health care delivery system in line with the Constitution of Zimbabwe and to enact a law establishing the Health Service Commission and disbanding the Health Service Board.
The petition has since been referred to the Portfolio Committee on Health and Child care.
PETITION RECEIVED FROM MR. C. CHITSUNGE
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: I also have to inform the
House that on Thursday, 12th December, 2019, Parliament of Zimbabwe received a petition from Mr. C. Chitsunge of the Broad Alliance Against Sanctions, beseeching Parliament to enact laws that penalise any Zimbabweans living in the country and abroad, who communicate or share material that negatively impacts on Zimbabwe.
The petition has since been referred to the Portfolio Committees on Foreign Affairs and Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs.
PETITION RECEIVED FROM MR. R. CHIMBITI
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Further to that, I wish to
inform the House that on Thursday, 12th December, 2019, Parliament of Zimbabwe received a petition from Mr. R. Chimbiti of the Chikunda
Language and Culture Association, beseeching Parliament to amend Section 6 of the 2013 Constitution of Zimbabwe to include Chikunda as one of the officially recognised languages.
The petition has since been referred to the Portfolio Committee on Defence, Home Affairs and Security Services.
PETITIONS RECEIVED FROM MR. Q. PETERSEN
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: I also have to inform the House that on Thursday, 12th December 2019, Parliament of Zimbabwe received two petitions from Mr. Q. Petersen of 22 Phillip Circle,
Suningdale 1, Harare:-
Imploring Parliament to exercise its constitutional mandate to safeguard the rights of the minority Zimbabweans, particularly
“Coloured Community.”
The petition has since been referred to the Portfolio Committee on Defence, Home Affairs and Security Services.
Secondly, beseeching Parliament to exercise its constitutional mandate to protect the constitutionally guaranteed rights of
Zimbabweans to safe, clean and potable water, review and align laws, policies and regulation on water to the 2013 Constitution.
The petition has since been referred to the Portfolio Committee on Lands, Agriculture, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement.
ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH SERVICE
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: I also have to inform the House that there will be a Roman Catholic Church Service tomorrow, Wednesday, 18th December, 2019, at 1230 hours in the Senate Chamber.
All Catholic and non-Catholic Members are invited.
HON. MUSHORIWA: Thank you Madam Speaker. I move on a
point of privilege as per Standing Order Number 68 (d) as raised with Standing Order Number 69. Madam Speaker, the mission of Parliament is to protect the Constitution, to make laws for the good governance and effectively represent the people as well as hold the Executive and public institutions to account.
According to Standing Order Number 65 (2), a notice of a motion must be submitted to the Journals Office within three sitting days before it is given. In light of that Standing Order, I gave a notice of my motion on 13th November, 2019 and by 14th November, the Assistant Clerk and
Counsel to Parliament had approved it. By 18th November, 2019, the Clerk of Parliament had also approved it because I was actually checking with the Journals Office.
One month down line, the motion has not yet been approved by the
Speaker’s office, inspite of personal visits to the office and to the Clerk’s office to check the reason why it was delaying. Having seen that 30 days had elapsed, I then on 13th December, 2019 did give notice in this House but shockingly, the notice did not appear on the Order Paper.
I am aware that Standing Order Number 66 does allow the Speaker to withhold a notice of motion if he/she feels it has got derogatory or disrespectful or offensive aspects in that motion but in my view, the Speaker did not make any ruling to that effect. I also find it difficult to understand the rationale why it is not on the Order Paper. Now therefore, Madam Speaker, I ask whether it is now the position of Parliament that only motions that are politically correct are allowed to be moved in this august House.
Madam Speaker, you appreciate giving a notice of motion on 13th November and is well recorded in the Journals Office, yet to date nothing has been done. I am wondering what could be the problem because the Counsel to Parliament and Clerk of Parliament approved it.
Surely something needs to be done. I urge you Hon. Speaker to advise accordingly.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Mushoriwa, please
approach the Chair.
*HON. CHINOTIMBA: On a point of privilege Madam Speaker,
I think we have come to a point where Parliament should do its job. This country is now in tatters because of some people. To be honest with you, a senior who was once a Parliamentarian left Zimbabwe and went to Germany, Britain and America to ensure that this country suffers economically. We have been quiet but it is now time that we come up with legislation with a mandatory sentence for people who go out of the country and advocate for sanctions that economically harm the nation to be arrested. People are suffering and they are living in poverty yet they are the same people who are supposed to vote for them. It is time that as authorities of this nation we interrogate these issues, especially countries like America.
HON. P. D. SIBANDA: Madam Speaker it is fair to say that as
Hon. Members we should not abuse the point of privilege.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: You are not the one who is
supposed to give a ruling on that.
HON. P. D. SIBANDA: No, no, no this is a point of order Hon. Speaker. We cannot allow him to continue to abuse the point of privilege.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Take your seat Hon. Sibanda.
*HON. CHINOTIMBA; Madam Speaker, I think I am done with
that one. The people of this nation are suffering. If you go to the bus termini, the 50 cents and $1 coins are no longer acceptable. We do not know whether this is because of sanctions or not. So as a country we need from today to come up with legislation as MPS, which should be fast tracked by the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs which deters people from taking advantage of the coins that are used in the country.
*THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Chinotimba, I have
heard your issue. I will look into it and give a ruling later.
HON. P.D. SIBANDA: Madam Speaker, my point of order is on the point of privilege raised by Hon. Chinotimba. Why I am raising the point of order is that Hon. Chinotimba is abusing the point of privilege in the following manner:
Hon. Speaker, I know that my colleague Hon. Chinotimba is referring to my leader, Hon. Chamisa – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible
interjections.]-
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Sibanda! Hon.
Chinotimba, please take your seat. Hon. Sibanda!
HON. P. D. SIBANDA: Yes, Madam Speaker.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: You are assuming. We
cannot work with assumptions.
HON. P. D. SIBANDA: No, you cannot judge that I am assuming before you have heard me. I think you need to hear me fully Hon.
Speaker, before you make that judgment. I think that judgment Hon. Speaker, is a bit rushed for you to judge me and say that I am assuming before I have finished saying what I am saying.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Okay, go ahead and tell us
why you think he is referring to your leader.
HON. P. D. SIBANDA: What I want to say then Hon. Speaker, is this - it is important as Hon. Members that if there is something that you want to raise which you think is important, why not listen to the whole clip rather than choosing on a 13 seconds clip and then you want to go to town about it – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – So I think Hon. Speaker, it is unfair because it is dishonorable and I think it is unpatriotic as well.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Sibanda, we cannot
debate those issues in the House. Please take your seat.
HON. MAVETERA: Thank you very much Madam Speaker. I
rise on a point of privilege. I would like to start by first commending our First Lady, Her Excellency Hon. Auxillia Mnangagwa, for launching yesterday an anti accident campaign. Right now, if you look at what we are having as a country, it is that we are having a lot of accidents and for her to be taking it upon herself to be going to
Mashonaland Central yesterday, Mashonaland East, Harare Province and Mashonaland West and conscientise, especially now since we are going into the festive season, she has gone on to remind all drivers to take great care and make sure that at least they drive well. We realise that in this country accidents have actually been one issue that has caused a lot of problems to a lot of people. So, we would like to commend her and would like to say to every person in Zimbabwe, to make sure that since now we are going into the festive season, they should drive skillfully and that is one thing that I think we also need to do.
Madam Speaker, I also want to say that if we look at the statistics that we have, they show that a lot of accidents have been caused by human error. Also, if you come to think of it you realise that there are even police out there who are not doing their job properly. We would like to call upon them to say they should refrain from even negotiating to allow unroadworthy vehicles to be travelling on the roads.
We want to say right now, since we are going into this festive season, there is great need for us to make sure that we do not have such accidents. In this august House, Hon. Madam Speaker, over the last two weeks we have had two honourable Members who have lost their two very close relatives because of accidents. Accidents indeed have been one of the major causes of death especially during the festive season.
Therefore, I would like to say Madam Speaker, during this festive season, let us be able to drive carefully and I would like to wish all the Zimbabweans a happy festive season. I thank you Madam Speaker.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you Hon. Mavetera.
Indeed, it is very commendable what the First Lady did yesterday.
Thank you.
HON. MATEWU: Thank you Madam Speaker. On a point of
privilege and it is as follows: about four weeks ago we got letters from the Ministry of Environment, Tourism and Hospitality Industry in our pigeon holes asking Hon. Members to plant trees in their constituencies. Actually, it was asking us to plant two lots of trees. So two weeks ago when I was performing my constitutional duty and I was actually going in line with what the Minister had said to plant trees, we were surprised that during the time we were planting trees we saw the police coming in, storming through the gates.
HON. TOGAREPI: It is not a matter of national interest.
HON. MATEWU: It is a privilege. Chief Whip, can you allow me to talk please?
During the time that we were planting trees, as we approached the police to talk to them they started to fire bullets. This put the lives of the people and the children at risk. This was at a clinic where you have pregnant women. The police fired bullets and tear gas and some of the people who were there were actually people with chronic diseases. Also present was our president, His Excellency president Chamisa – [HON.
MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.]-
Madam Speaker, we need to ensure that State apparatus do not hinder us.
HON. CHINOTIMBA: Madam Speaker, on a point of order
[HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.]-
HON. MATEWU: Madam Speaker, we need the State to protect us to ensure that we are protected when we do our constitutional duties.
Thank you – [HON. MEMBERS: He must withdraw that.]-
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Member, you must withdraw where you said His Excellency Hon. Chamisa – [HON. MEMBERS: Withdraw.]- Chamisa is the president of your party and not the country, so you cannot say His Excellency – [HON. MEMBERS:
Inaudible interjections.]-
HON. MATEWU: Madam Speaker, if you read your dictionary
‘excellency’ means executive powers.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: You must withdraw that.
HON. MATEWU: He has executive powers in MDC.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: You must withdraw that, it is not allowed.
HON. MATEWU: I cannot withdraw because I am saying what the executive – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.]-
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: You must withdraw that, it is not allowed. You cannot say His Excellency president Chamisa in this Parliament – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – Hon. Member, it is very wrong for you to say that. Please withdraw. We cannot have two His Excellencies – never, ever! – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – This Parliament cannot have two His Excellencies. Hon. Members, please approach the Chair. Hon. Member please, may you take your seat. The Hon. Member must go out since he has refused to withdraw his statement. –[HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections]-
HON. T. MLISWA: Madam Speaker, I think it is very important
that we respect the laws of this country and titles. I will go to Google and talk about what His Excellency means. It is a high official of the State especially Ambassadors. So, I think it is wrong to refer to Cde. Chamisa as Head of State. We must know that we are learned and it is wrong for us to do that. We cannot continue because he is not Head of State neither is he an Ambassador. That is the meaning and it does not change. You have your own vocabulary and your own dictionary but not the dictionary of the world - it does not recognise Chamisa because he is not Head of State. For now, he is not Head of State. He can be Head of State and you can create your own Parliament at Harvest House and not here. –[HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections]- Some Hon. Members having stood up.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: No more points of privilege
and points of order. We are wasting time. I have ruled, please take your seats.
HON. CHIKWINYA: Madam Speaker, with all due respect –
Hon. Mavetera referred to the First Lady as Her Excellency. You said it is unparliamentary and so she must also withdraw.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: I did not say that and I did not
talk to you.
HON. CHIKWINYA: You have said Hon. Mavetera...
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: I did not talk to you and I did
not say that. Please may you take your seat? Do not put words into my mouth.
HON. CHIKWINYA: Hon. Speaker, with all due respect, you have dismissed Hon. Matewu for using unparliamentary language, but Hon. Mavetera also used the same language.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Take your seat.
HON. CHIKWINYA: She is not denying it. It must be a fair
Parliament. I am using your own judgment and your own ruling. She is not denying it.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Take your seat, no more point
of order.
HON. CHIKWINYA: Hon. Speaker, I am not being disrespectful,
I am simply using your own words.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: You are because you are
refusing what I am ordering you to do.
HON. CHIKWINYA: I am simply using your own judgement Madam Speaker. Can you be fair to all of us? Is this now a ZANU PF Parliament?
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: No more points of order please! May you take your seats? – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible
interjections]-
An Hon. Member having stood up.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Member, please take
your seat.
HON. J. PARADZA: Tanga wambonochinja bhachi iwe Chikwinya.
HON. CHIKWINYA: I think I am being abused Madam Speaker.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order Hon. Members. Hon.
Member, that is unparliamentary, please withdraw that.
HON. J. PARADZA: Thank you Madam Speaker, I identify Hon.
Chikwinya because of the kind of jacket he puts on - I withdraw. –
[HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections]-
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Withdraw that Hon. Member.
HON. J. PARADZA: I withdraw Madam Speaker – [HON.
MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Hon. Member please take your seat. Why are you standing – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – Order! Hon. Members order.
SECOND READING
FINANCE (No. 3) BILL [H.B. 21, 2019]
Second Order read: Second Reading: Finance (No. 3) Bill [H.B.
21, 2019].
HON. MUSHORIWA: Thank you Madam Speaker. I rise to make my contribution to the Finance No. 3 Bill which is before this honourable House.
Before I go into the details pertaining to this Bill, I want to raise what I call hygienic issues. If you go to the memorandum of this Bill, I am not sure if the Hon. Minister is aware that what is contained in the memorandum and the numbering – the sequence does not add up with what is in the Bill. It is actually very crucial because the Finance Bill’s intention is to amend several pieces of legislation. Once the numbering is out of sync with what is contained within the Bill, it makes it very difficult for most Hon. Members to then try to tie a particular clause in this Bill to the Act which is being amended. I am not so sure whether the Hon. Minister did look into it – for instance, if you check in the memorandum, there is Clause 6 and we do not know whether it refers to
Clause 4 or what. There is Clause 8 – you actually see that the way this
Bill was done leaves a lot to be desired.
The second issue is to do with the other issue which I think is a bit unfair to this august House. If you check on our Order Paper, we have got the Reserve Bank Amendment which is supposed to go for the Second Reading. What the Hon. Minister of Finance has done, which I think is meant to make it difficult for this august House to do its function as a Parliament – almost half of this Finance Bill contains issues which relate to the RBZ.
I am also not sure why the Hon. Minister could not take this entire half and put it under the Reserve Bank Amendment Bill which is before this august House. The reason why this has to come under the RBZ Amendment Bill is to make sure that all the processes of Parliament are applied; that the portfolio Committee on Budget and Finance have the chance to look at that Reserve Bank Amendment. Now when the Hon. Minister then tries to bring things that are supposed to go under a Reserve Bank Amendment Bill which is on the Order Paper and then he tries to smuggle into the Finance Bill – it is unfair because what it tends to do is that we are going to rush through this because remember, the Hon. Leader of the House has moved that we were going to suspend the other processes. This is unfair and retrogressive in terms of making laws for this nation.
If you look into the Bill, you want to read this Finance Bill in conjunction with the Hon. Minister’s Budget Statement. You also want to read it in conjunction with the Appropriation Bill which is before the House. If you go through it, Hon. Speaker, you will find that the Hon. Minister – apart from whatever he has been telling this House in terms of what he foresees or his projection or predictions pertaining to the movement of the exchange rate, you will see that in this Finance Bill, he is projecting that the exchange rate will be somewhere around 28, rather than the people’s rate which is around 22 – let alone the interbank which is around 16. That tells you a lot that this Bill was badly done and we will be pointing out as we go to the Committee Stage, indicating how this issue is.
The other aspect is that when the Hon. Minister presented the
Budget, he stood in this august House and boosted that they were going to reward those companies that are going to employ youths. If you read through this Bill, you then realise that it is just a token appreciation. It is like what Shakespear says – there are a lot of words with little meaning. There was nothing in it that says that the Hon. Minister intends to reward those companies. If you go through it, you will find that there is nothing – [HON. GUMBO: What does Shakespear say?] – You want me to quote what Shakespear says – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible
interjections.]
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Address the Chair Hon.
Member – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.]
HON. MUSHORIWA: The other aspect with is crucial and tells you that the Hon. Minister of Finance is not in sync with reality – we have raised before to the Hon. Minister that the Zimbabwean employee is highly taxed and there is no doubt about it. We thought that this was something that the Hon. Minister was going to consider.
A person who is formally employed today – apart from paying
P.A.Y.E is supposed to make sure that he or she pays the 2% tax. What this then means is that if the Minister wanted to be fair to the ordinary worker of this country, the taxation rate should have been reduced by 2% because the current reality is that a Government employee who gets his or her salary – what does he or she do, she quickly takes the money either through Ecocash to Ecocash or transfer the money from the bank to Ecocash and then the next time when he/she wants to buy, they will be liable to be charged 2% - there is no balance. Whilst we appreciate the fact that the Hon. Minister wanted to ensure that those people in the informal market contribute some sort of tax, I think that it is unfair Madam Speaker to then also punish those who are already in the formal sector.
In the same vein Madam Speaker, there is also the question of companies. I would have thought that the Hon. Minister was also going to reduce the Corporate Tax further by another 2% and if he was not agreeable to the 2% reduction then the Hon. Minister should have treated the 2% tax as an expense that can be considered when companies submit their tax returns.
Madam Speaker, the other aspect that I think is also crucial is to look into the Venture Capital. Madam Speaker, there is something amiss – the Hon. Minister projects, when he does his things as if we want to turn a leaf in terms of this economy. However, there is a problem whenever you talk of Presidential input or Presidential scholarship and whenever the Hon. Minister then provides that there is going to be that $500 million Venture Capital that he talks about will be under the Presidential Fund. History Madam Speaker has taught us that anything that has got ‘Presidential’, in quotes – has tended to be abused on political lines. In my view, it is actually wrong to even have it.
Then the other aspect that I also consider unfair Madam Speaker is that the Hon. Minister tends to choose those that he wants to reward selectively. You cannot have selectively applied policies – you know Madam Speaker that in this Finance Bill, the Hon. Minister when it comes to the 2% tax, there is selective application. When it comes to the dolarisation, the question of the RTGs, the Zimbabwe Dollar being the official currency – you again see that there are certain companies that
are being allowed to operate outside the law. Then you say to yourself,
‘What type of a law are we coming with when we have laws that are selectively applied?’ Then when it comes to other organisations, you will see Madam Speaker that we have been complaining in this august House that Zimbabwe has got a lot of minerals but one of the major challenges that we have is we are not making sure that we export refined or processed minerals. We are exporting minerals in their raw form.
What does the Hon. Minister do? Last year when he tabled his Finance Bill, he informed us that he had allowed people in platinum mining to continue exporting platinum in its raw form provided that they make commitments to build refineries. Now he comes back again with another mineral and is now saying, ‘No, no, I am now going to exempt them as long as they make that commitment’.
The question is simple – the Hon. Minister does not come to this august House to tell us the benefits that have accrued to the nation. What is it that we have gained by the policies that he enunciated last year before coming up with this one? The other issue that I raised is to do with the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ). All the clauses that are here, I advised you that they are actually half of the Finance Bill.
Madam Speaker, what this does is that the Hon. Minister is trying by all means to take this House for granted. I believe that there are several issues under the Exchange Control Act and that there are other issues that have been raised in this august House severally. For instance, Madam Speaker you will recall that people have always had a problem with the RBZ in this House. We have the RBZ Governor who is the Chairperson of the RBZ Board. In this Finance Bill, the Hon. Minister proposes the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) and he then says that the MPC is independent of the Board consisting of the Governor as the Chair.
How do you have a MPC independent of the Board? The Monetary Policy Committee is being chaired by the Governor who also happens to be the Chairperson of the RBZ Board. How does the independence come in? This tells you that the Hon. Minister has not been listening to what Hon. Members in this august House have been saying. This tells me Madam Speaker that the reason why the Hon. Minister has brought the RBZ under the Finance Bill was to make sure that he takes this House for granted. Madam Speaker, it is wrong.
Lastly Madam Speaker, we will be deliberating on some of the issues at Committee Stage. It is my prayer Madam Speaker - [HON.
MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, order Hon. Members.
HON. MUSHORIWA: It is my prayer Madam Speaker for the Hon. Minister to truly consider and ensure that all the issues and amendments that are contained in the Finance Bill that have to do with the RBZ are brought under this Bill that is before Parliament. I will tell you Madam Speaker that our problem with RBZ is that our Central Bank has become one of the worst performing entity in the country in terms of its key deliverables.
Primarily Madam Speaker, we are not focusing and paying attention to what we want the Central Bank to do for this country. This is the reason why I am asking the Hon. Minister to make sure that all the things we put under the Finance Bill that have to do with the RBZ are brought under the RBZ Amendment Bill that is already before the august
House…
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, Order Hon.
Mushoriwa, you are left with five minutes.
HON. MUSHORIWA: Thank you Madam Speaker. I will stop
here and wait for the Hon. Minister’s submissions. I thank you. –
[HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] –
HON. NDUNA: Thank you so very much Madam Speaker
Ma’am and good afternoon. Madam Speaker Ma’am, I have no problem with this Finance Amendment Bill (No. 3) in that I have institutional memory.
We had a General Laws Amendment Bill that came into the House and consequentially it amended about 144 pieces of legislation and aligned them with the Constitution. I certainly have no challenges with the Hon. Minister bringing this one in order to amend certain sections of the Acts of Parliament – that is the first point. So I should allay any challenges that the Hon. Minister might have in terms of phobia and in terms of the application of his duty and the methodology that he has used in sorting out the issue of his modus operandi.
The second issue Madam Speaker, I ask that during Committee
Stage, if the Minister is so moved by my submission, he can flight the Acts that he wants amended, if it pleases him on television and ICT gadgets so that we can be referring to them in terms of numbering, otherwise this is good.
On page 7 (VII), where he seeks to amend the Tax Act [2306], the value of income is, I am sorry on page 8 where the value of income is attached to the years the vehicle has been utilised by any employee who would have been given that vehicle. I make this presentation with a heavy heart because it is my thinking that for as long as the employee is using that vehicle he then at the end of the 5 year period, be given that vehicle and sold to him for zero value or pitence. Where I come from, we have got management at Council level, whether it is a delinquent behaviour or mere mischievous behaviour, where the council officials right at employment stage and where they get that vehicle they immediately register it in their names. I get worried Hon. Speaker when such things happen. It is my thinking that the Tax Act is very clear and has clarity of purpose and when the legislators put across such an Act they had that idea in mind. They conceived such a mantra in that if somebody gets employed today, gets a vehicle, they might get what they can and move on which is not right.
So, having conceived that idea and enshrine and embed it in the
Act, it is therefore prudent for management, especially at Chegutu Municipality to tour the line, this is where my point is. I think that you are going to find that I think it is page 8, no it is page 7 or it is on page 12 but I am done with that. Then I come to my last, point 12 on page 8, if you go to section 1(c)...
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Nduna you should avoid
chosing specific pages because this is a general debate.
HON. NDUNA: Thank you for your guidance, however, I am going to continue – [HON. MUSHORIWA: So, you are disregarding that the Madam Speaker has said.] – Thank you Madam Speaker, it says
‘any small scale gold miner as defined in the 13th Schedule, making any delivery of gold to Fidelity Printers and Refineries Private Limited, the agent of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe for the purchase of gold from gold producers’. This Act seeks to observe and to also embrace the effort coming from small scale miners. It seeks to identify and also recognise that this class of people exists.
I therefore, make a clarion call Hon. Minister, to your humble office as the gold finger, the gold finger because in the military terms you are called gold finger, the money markers, to go further and recognise these small scale miners by making sure that the Mines and Minerals Minister comes here to repeal the small scale miners in the primary Act of the Mines and Minerals Act, because they are not recognised. Even though you have gone further to propose the taxes to be lower than those for the large scale miners, but those people as it relates to the primary source document are not recognised, so you will then find that you have challenges where you will then want to identify who it is that is called small scale miner as it relates to who your agency of the Reserve Bank are going to be buying from.
As I conclude in making my submissions, I say the recognition of small scale miners is very key and I am quite elated that you have recognised them in that they have also given you a lot of gold deliveries last year much more than the large scale miners. Let us go further now to make sure that they are recognised in the primary document that seeks to empower you with ambiguous amounts of mineral wealth in the finances so that we can use what we have to get what we want Hon. Minister. If you recognise the small scale miners you have recognised the people of Chegutu West constituency who have reposed their trust in me. I want to thank you Madam Speaker for giving me this opportunity to fervently, efficiently, effectively and vociferously - [HON. MEMBERS: You are a mistake of ZEC.] - put across my points on these formally marginalised people of Chegutu West Constituency in particular and Zimbabwe in general.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, Isuzu vehicle
registration number ADA 1601is blocking other vehicles. Please may the owner go and remove it.
HON. S. BANDA: Thank you very much Madam Speaker. I just
want to add my voice to Finance Bill No. 3. For me it shows that this Bill stipules the normal operation of the business environment. For me the Bill affects the easy of doing business, the Bill is about confusion policies. Why I am saying so is if you look at this Bill, it is moving from dollarisation to Zimbabwean dollars to dollarization, so there is an acceptance in this Bill that re-dollarization is occurring.
Madam Speaker, just yesterday, in my constituency in Mt Pleasant, we were trying to use CDF funds, we had a problem. What was the problem? We could not get a quotation which was valid for more than
48 hours, yet there was an option where we could get one in US dollar. So, the quotation that was in Zimbabwean dollars was valid for 48 hours yet the other one dollarised was fixed, they do not really care. So this budget is stifling normal business growth, it is just like fighting God, you can never win. If you go anywhere right now Madam Speaker, you ask somebody how much they are selling for, they will tell you ‘eight,’ eight what? Is it eight RTGS? No, it is $8. What is your price now,
‘four,’ what is your local equivalent price, you get another price. So basically, the mindset of small business holders and business in Mt. Pleasant, the constituency which I represent has been dollarised. A number of sections in this Finance Bill – I am prayerful that the Minister will allow both to work, otherwise if we do not do that, it does not really represent what is happening on the ground.
Madam Speaker, Hon. Mushoriwa spoke of the issue of
Monitoring Policy Committee; again, you find that the Reserve Bank Governor is there. So there is no independence, it is like he is holding both portfolios where maybe you are trying to have ZEC on one point being an independent Commission and at the same time being a political party. So we really need to respect the independence of those institutions and make sure that the Reserve Bank Governor is not in both of them. He should just be in one.
Madam Speaker, I look at the issue of radios and televisions; here this Bill is trying to give a decree to force everybody to watch ZBC yet even most of the Members who are here, especially most of the people in my constituency Mt. Pleasant, they rarely watch ZBC and if they do, it is normally during news time. This Bill here is trying to force people to watch something that they do not want to watch. Therefore, it is fighting the Constitution; it is ultra-vires the Constitution.
Madam Speaker, I want to speak of a section where they are referring to Afreximbank and the relationship with intermediate tax. I do not know, maybe it was taken out of context, but I feel that now it is as if Afreximbank is related to intermediate transfer tax. I think the Minister will need to look at that.
Madam Speaker, I was speaking of the issue of liquidity. Most banks have now what we call high quality liquid assets and if they are going to fall down at the moment, depositors are not going to get their finances. I think we are aware that at the moment, we almost have about RTGS$20 billion in circulation. If everyone would go to the bank at the same time to withdraw their money, nobody will be able to get their money. Equally in US$ terms, the banks will not be able to provide that. So, this Finance Bill that we have here is not really solving that aspect, we really need our banks to be in a good state. Yes, no bank has been closed in 2019 but I think we really need to look at the banks.
Lastly Madam Speaker, I want to speak about how this budget is not systematic. If you look at the rates which are being quoted here when we are trying to move from ZW$ to US$; you said we should not refer to pages but it will be difficult for the Minister not to look at the correct section if I do not mention the correct page. On page No. 5, if you look at the rates, the first one you find that it is 28.57, another one for 25, other 2 for 15 and 2 for 16.67 – there is no system, it is unsystematic Madam Speaker. So this Bill here ends up being unsystematic and it is not only on that page, even if you turn to page Number 7, it is the same; there are three different rates which are operating. This Finance Bill has to be relooked at if it is going to do the work that it is supposed to do. I thank you Madam Speaker.
HON. CHIKWINYA: Point of clarification. Thank you Madam Speaker, the point of clarification is that the Appropriation Bill is denominated in US$ whilst we are dealing with a Budget in RTGS. I want the Hon. Minister to clarify. Are we dealing with US$ because what is on text is US$ and we are dealing with RTGS as presented in the Monetary Statement. That is the clarification I thought he could give.
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE): Thank you Madam
Speaker Ma’am. I thank the two Hon. Members for their comments, questions and requests for clarification. Starting with Hon. Mushoriwa, he refers to the clauses in the Memorandum versus what is contained in the actual Bill. Let me say what is in the Bill and the Memorandum is just to guide Members to try to understand what the Bill is trying to do. Some of the clauses have been amalgamated because if the issues are related, it tries to explain two clauses together because they go together. That is what we have done and I am sure that the Member will even be clearer when we go through the Bill clause by clause, that is what we are going to do. It will be very clear as to what the Bill is trying to do clause by clause. He raises a question about the RBZ Amendment Bill and so on; the RBZ Amendment Bill which is before Parliament is being withdrawn and the issues that we wanted to deal with in that Bill have been inserted into the Finance Act Number 2, with respect to the issue contained in Finance Bill Number 5. This is because these issues pertain to the use of currency and this is a finance issue; the enforcement of the use of the ZW$ and also the penalties surrounding its abuse or a lack of adherence to the mono-currency pronouncements.
Coming to the issue of the exchange rate that is an implied exchange rate projected in the Finance Bill which is different from other documents, there is no difference. There is absolute consistency in terms of the exchange rate. There is also a comment that the Youth Employment Tax incentives is not what – it is very clear and what we set up in the Finance Bill is the rules that will be used for checking if companies have been compliant or not for it to receive the tax credit or rebate from having employed a youthful person in the company for at least a year during the year of assessment. It is very clear; it is about the rules for how companies seek credit or rebate.
That the tax rates should be reduced, VAT should be reduced because of the 2% tax – that is exactly what we have done. VAT has been reduced by half percent and corporate tax has been reduced by 1%. Tax reductions are never once-off; you review every year and see what you do from year to year. However, the tax thresholds have also been raised from 700 to 2000, which is close to the poverty datum line. All of that is to recognise that when it comes to PAYE, Income tax, if you earn less than that you ought not to pay income tax …
Hon. Members having stood between the Hon. Minister speaking and the Chair.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order Hon. Members, please
take your seats, why are you standing?
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: On the National Venture Fund, the Hon. Member was a little bit mixed up and I can explain to them what is going on there. There is the Presidential Entrepreneurship Programme which is very different from the National Venture Fund. The National Venture Fund is a fund for financing all entrepreneurs, especially startups. So it is not under the Presidential Scheme nor any presidential issue; it is just a National Venture Fund and we will be in the process of putting the structure together to make sure that the public can access these resources. Our youth, individuals and anybody can access these resources.
Then on reference to selective rewards or operational rules for companies, I do not think this is so. Certainly, there are neither selective rules nor rewards; absolutely not. On the Monitoring Policy Committee, there is a claim that it is independent from the Reserve Bank but it is not independent and all that; this is global best practice. You have MPC, Monetary Policy Committee independence and all that. This is global best practice in Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) which we are following. This Committee is chaired by the Governor of the Reserve Bank. If you check everywhere that is what you will find. What you then do is to make sure that there are more independent members of the Committee than those who are employed in the Central Bank. That ensures independence but also eventually the minutes of the Monetary Policy Committee should be produced publicly and sent out to the public. So whilst we have the systems and the rules working well, the minutes of the MPC will be there for all to see and analyse.
I will switch on to Hon. Nduna on the usage of vehicles that perhaps is evidence of abuse and misuse, even before the vehicle is theirs - they immediately put it in their names. Clearly, this is not in order and we will look into this issue but I thank him for raising it. I will not repeat the constituencies that he mentioned and certainly, it is a good place to start to see if there is wider abuse of this provision. On gold deliveries, we are very serious about supporting small scale miners who produce the bulk of our gold and must be given a lot of support for them to continue producing. We need upscale productivity and if there is any misalignment between what you are pronouncing and the Mines and Minerals Act, again I will have a conversation with my Hon. Friend Minister Chitando to make sure there is complete alignment in our thinking regarding the best way to support this sector.
Then Hon. Banda talked about the possibility that we use both US$ and ZWL$ currencies. No, the sole legal tender in our shops is the Zimbabwe dollar and that is very clear. However, we are aware and more-so allow that people save in US$, that is why we have FCA accounts, under mattresses and wherever. We have allowed the use of US$ as a savings currency. We are aware of this and it is already happening but we need to promote the domestic currency as the sole legal tender within our borders. We approved this together in July under Finance Bill (No. 2), 2019.
He also referred to the MPC, I dealt with this as global best practice. There is also reference to the use of the currency whether it is
ZWL$ or US$ for the Appropriation Bill. It is the Zimbabwe dollar and I want to be clear about that. Then on that we are promoting ZBC through some of the clauses and forcing everyone towards ZBC, that is not our intention. You are already watching other channels; we all do that and that is ok. We have ZBC and other global radio stations. However, we want people to pay their fair share of taxes and not evade those taxes.
Then on liquidity he mentioned that there is ZWL$20 billion circulating on the market, and that there is systemic risks in terms of institutions coming under pressure and depositors being unable to withdraw their monies. We do have a Deposit Protection Corporation which protects depositors funds in the event of challenges with any financial institutions and depositors will be compensated somewhat for the loss of those resources. Also, the Central Bank is raising the capital base of banks to make sure they are able to support any withdrawals from depositors going forward. The Central bank has also improved the regulations of these banks, there are regular onsite inspections and compliance to BIS rules in terms of Basel II at least by the banks and Central Bank. So there is global best practice in terms of the regulation of the banking sector and risks such as the ones cited by the Hon.
Member. They are very low in terms of probability of recurrence but if they do, this is adequately covered through depositor protection and corporation processes. I therefore move that this Finance (No 3), 2019 Bill be read a second time Madam Speaker. I thank you.
Motion put and agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Committee Stage: With leave, forthwith.
COMMITTEE STAGE
FINANCE (NO 3) BILL [H. B. 21, 2019]
House in Committee.
Clause 1 put and agreed to.
On Clause 2:
HON. MUSHORIWA: Madam Chair, I just want clarification
from the Hon. Minister. As you are aware, we now have the bank rate, so is it still necessary for us to continuously specify the need to have payments to be done in foreign currency? You appreciate that when this started it was when there was no clarity in terms of our Zimbabwe dollar and the US$. Remember we were coming from the 1:1 exchange rate and it was before we had come up with the inter-bank rate. I am of the opinion that it is no longer necessary to ask companies or organisations to make payments in foreign currency. All you need them to do is to make payment even in ZWL$ as long as they are paying it using the bank rate because at the end of the day I think it is more or less the same. It also gives confidence to the market in terms of the inter-bank rate but once Government which is trying to push for the inter-bank rate does not have the desire to utilise the inter-bank rate most people will also shy away from it. So I think it is prudent to simply say let the inter-bank rate prevail.
HON. NDUNA: I also want to ask the Minister to go further where it says, ‘requires the royalties of sale of minerals to be paid in foreign currency’. Remittances also should go on this section in that those that have been sold outside the country, the proceeds also need to be banked locally in hard currency. This is how we can grow our foreign currency reserves because what is currently happening for those that are beneficiating and value adding our PGMs, I am quite sure that they are banking outside the country and we are then rated on a Rand versus our RTGS and the like. I ask that you use this section to enforce the remittances back home so that we get them banked in foreign currency into our local market and it should be very clear. Thank you.
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE): Madam Chair, I
thank Hon. Mushoriwa and Hon. Nduna for their input. On the issue of the royalties being paid in foreign currency or domestic currency, this is simple as it is about meeting your obligations as a miner in the currency in which you earn your revenues. This is for consistency. So their revenues are in US dollars and for the royalties, they will be paid in US dollars – this is in the currency of trade of revenues. Actually, it is very fair that it should be done and the companies are not complaining about this because they are earning the US dollars.
When it comes to the issue that Hon. Nduna mentions, which is important that the US dollar proceeds in terms of earnings should be banked, this is correct but we have this provision elsewhere under the Exchange Control Act already. So we need not repeat it but we should merely enforce it and we will endeavour to enforce it. I thank you.
HON. MUSHORIWA: Hon. Minister, the question is not about whether or not they are receiving money in foreign currency. What happens if I receive my money and I want to put the forex that I have received, I turn it into Zimbabwe dollar using the inter-bank rate, and then I pay my royalty using the inter-bank rate? Surely as a country, is the fiscus or Treasury being short-changed in that respect because I actually think that there should be confidence? If you want companies and private players to have confidence in the inter-bank, surely it should start with the Government.
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: Madam Chair, we as Government
have full confidence in the inter-bank market and that is why we support it and we introduced it in the first place. It is certainly the way to go. Companies have neither difficulty nor objection towards meeting their obligations in the form of royalties in this case, in the currency in which they are earning their revenues. Their whole business model is built around earning revenues in foreign currency. So they have no difficulty in meeting their royalties in foreign currency – they suffer no prejudice whatsoever. I think the Hon. Member recognises this and there is no issue about them paying in foreign currency. We would like them to pay in the currency of trade in which they earn their revenues which is as simple as that. I thank you.
Clause 2 put and agreed to.
On Clause 3:
HON. MUSHORIWA: Madam Chair, I want to start with line No. 4 on page 4. Generally, our definition of youth in this country has always been defined as those people that are below the age of 35. It appears from the reading of this Bill that youth according to this Bill is someone under the age of 30 years. The other challenge that I have is for instance, if you say the definition of an employee, you are saying that an employee excludes a trainee intern, apprentice and managerial employee.
The first thing is that, surely you cannot punish a company. Let us assume that somebody is 28 years old and joins a company. That youth has done his first degree and has done his masters and you want to employ that person. He is still a youth and you want to employ him in your company as a junior manager and you then say, no because you are employing him as a junior manager, that person cannot be defined as an employee. I thought the mischief that you wanted to deal with was that you want to reward companies for employing the youth but if you then say no, these ones because of the positions - you are simply saying no, you cannot have people that are educated.
Then if you go to lines 13,14 and 15 – it says the amount of credit deducted in terms of subsection 2 shall be calculated at a rate of $500 per month for each additional employee up to a maximum aggregate of $60 000 in any year of assessment. What it means is that $60 000 is the ceiling but if you divide $60 000 by 12, that gives you $5 000 a month. If you then divide $5 000 by $500, it then says that you are just limiting to ten employees. For a company that wants to employ more youth say 11, 12, 20 or 30 ends up not benefitting and this is why I was saying that it is like a teaser. You appear as if you are giving but in reality you are not giving much.
Then the other aspect which I also want is, if you go to line No. 22, you say the credit may not be claimed before the additional employee concerned has completed 12 consecutive months in employment with the claimant or at a wage not less than $2 000 per month. Again Hon. Minister, remember I had actually raised that you are punishing those who are over skilled and those that are highly educated but under this one, you are also punishing those who are unskilled. Explain to me Hon. Minister, if you are coming with a policy to say you want to reward a company that is going to employ youths, what if a company is employing those youths that might have failed their ‘O’ level or ‘A’ level and they are getting salaries of $1 500 per month. Surely, should you punish them or they should also benefit? That is why I am saying there is an anomally because you cannot then say, a wage not less than $2 000 when in actual fact you know that we do not have a minimum wage policy in this country.
Then if you go to C, the credit may not be claimed by companies, trusts or individual taxpayers engaging in trade or investment having an annual turnover in equal to exceeding the equivalent of US$1 million. Again Hon. Minister, it is discrimination because what you are basically saying is that for the big companies that want to employ the youths they do not benefit. So it means that the benefit is meant for a certain type of organisation and I think Hon. Minister, we cannot have a policy or a law that seems to be targeting a minute group of companies. Because, if you say big companies – Old Mutual or other big companies, because they have annual turnover which you consider to be equivalent to more than $1 million they should not benefit, I think that is discrimination in my view.
Then you go to (d) again, you said to the extent that any credit under this exceeds the tax payable by the qualifying claimant, the Commissioner shall not refund such excesses to the taxpayer. I actually think that Hon.
Minister, again I actually believe that if you try to look the way you had actually put this whole thing in your Budget Statement, and the manner that you are putting some limitation there. Suppose the company’s amount is less than the amount stipulated, surely you should credit that company rather than to concentrate on that if it exceeds the amount, we will not refund. Hon. Minister, are we serious in terms of this benefit. If you look at the anomalies that I have raised, it is very clear that this youth employment credit has not been well thought out in terms of its application and it is not well covered in this Finance Bill. I thank you.
HON. NDUNA: Thank you Madam Chair. There are few items that have been taken by Hon. Mushoriwa, so I will not repeat. However, what I think is very key is consideration of those that are currently employing the youth. Hon. Minister, can it be clear that companies that are progressive in terms of engaging the youths, who are not only engaging the youths after your Act but have been engaging the youth even before need recognition. However, in terms of tax recognition, can it be also clear that it will not be dealt with in retrospect but dealt with from the Act’s inception going forward but for those that are employing youths, it should be made clear that they need to bring out their employment books. What this section seeks to do is to harmonise a lot of Acts in terms of registration.
Madam Chair, what it means is that anybody who is employed needs to have a registration certificate or an identification card of some sort which is currently not happening in the informal sector. This section seeks also to formalise the informal sector. I say this because I come from a place where a lot of employed young men are artisanal miners and a number of them do not have birth certificates. They do not have identification cards but I hope that because of this section we can encourage employers to get their employees registered.
Madam Chair, I want to also go further to find out how you will adjudicate the age of somebody who does not have a birth certificate or does not have an identification card. I ask that the Birth and
Registration Act, because of the subsistence of this Act also gets to have some enforcement. I therefore ask that you use your office Hon. Minister as a platform to make sure that we have a moratorium of some sort, for example twelve months. This should apply for those who do not have IDs and birth certificates but are adults who have been in this country for more than ten years. According to Section 35 up to Section 38 of the Constitution, they should be registered as citizens and get registration certificates to make sure that the generation they sire also is registered and has IDs.
Going further, Hon. Mushoriwa spoke about the Constitution recognising a youth to be between 18 to 35; years yours just goes to as far as 30. I ask the Hon. Minister to align the ages with the Constitution so that anybody who is 35 years and below is called a youth. First and foremost, before we define who has employed who, we need to define a youth as somebody who is 18 up to 35 years of age.
The last one Hon. Minister, I ask because you are the purse holder.
These people that we call the youths constitute 62% of the population. By recognising those that recognise the youths you are looking into the future and you are not putting your foot wrong, if at all you are doing the right thing. If you recognise the youth, you are recognising an agenda which says nothing about us without us. I also want to say using this Act and this incentive that you are talking about, let us reduce the pensionable age.
Madam Chair, let us reduce the pensionable age to 55 and they should get all their pensions. We have seen inflationary pressures because of monies that have been eroded. It is my clarion call and fervent view that if you can get pensionable age to be 55. People should get their pensions at 55 and also in tandem with the goings on of the section that incentivises. I ask that you apply this for serving employers currently who have in their organisations youths that they would have employed without first waiting for your incentive. Recognise them but do not pay them in retrospect but pay them going forward because of what they would have done as a service to the nation. I thank you.
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE): Thank you Madam
Chair, again I thank Hon. Mushoriwa and Hon. Nduna for their contributions. Coming to this youth employment credit incentive, this is an incentive, it is not punishment. I realise that Hon. Mushoriwa kept on using a phrase like ‘why this company should be punished’. It is not about punishment, it is an incentive. They are getting the incentive, they are not being punished, they are not getting it because they have not met the criteria to be given that incentive. The Hon. Members are of the opinion that the incentive is not wide enough. It is limited to a specific size of company in terms of turnover because we have specified that in this clause. Yes, we have to do that because large companies, typical of the means to employ whoever they want to employ can afford it, so we need to target the next little tier of companies who typically do not have the means but are making an effort to grow their businesses and when they do that, this is when we want to really apply this rebate. We think it is fair to do so and the large companies can basically afford it.
We also want to make sure that it is at least 12 months of employment. What we do not want is a reward for one month or two months for temporary employment. We want permanent employment or semi-permanent employment, so it should be at least 12 months. We look back on that and then be able to hold the company for the full the 12 months. We would also want to make sure the company does not first of all eject other employees, cause unemployment then employ youth, then seek a rebate or a reward on that. Also, they are not increasing the stock of employment in the country. We want this to be additional employees. This is also critical; we want incentives that, I think that is a good thing indeed.
Also, Government does not have unlimited resources, we have been here trying to deal with the Appropriation but we do not have unlimited resources. So, it is important that then we obviously have to limit it so that we can afford it. So, putting a cap is absolutely the right thing to do so that we can also stay the cost, beneficiaries but also make sure it does not erode our tax base or the revenues that we have collected.
On setting the recognition of the employee under this incentive
$2000 more or less, this is also an important thing. We want to make sure the job is also a meaningfully but also it is not too senior a job like a managerial one; neither do we want it to be a simple internship, because usually there is no sense of permanency but it should be a meaningful job so setting this floor of $2000, we think it is the right thing to do.
Hon, Nduna, we do not want to go back in terms of rewarding these companies that have already employed the youths before the Act comes into force. We want to face forward and only reward from the date that the Acts starts, that is when we start rewarding companies and not before. We also have a situation that perhaps we should think of rewarding companies for all their employees at the moment. Again, we will run into this issue of - we do not have unlimited resources, we will run out of resources if we do that, I think we should be targeted, it should be narrow but deep and impactful. We can always review it next year if we need to make adjustments. I will come before the House and say, you know what we need to fine tune this and that. We are doing this for the first time, for the first year and maybe it may need some fine tuning. For now let us restrict it in the way we have tried to do to target it and also to conserve revenue and not to load the tax revenue base.
I have listened carefully to his contribution to this exercise and also to make sure we can make certain enforcements when it comes to birth and registration. I will also pass this on to the responsible Ministry of Home Affairs.
The issue around the definition of youth – look, it is an incentive. We define the target beneficiaries as those below the age of 30. We are not trying to come up with the generic definition of what youth means, but we are targeting that again because of we need to target number 2, it is about limited resources. It is a start when I evaluate it, I will be able to come before this House at the end of 12 months and explain how this has proceeded, has it been successful or not using certain criteria and make relevant adjustments. I think we can start for now and make progress, evaluate and make adjustments. I am sure there will be a lot of debate when we do the usual pre-debate retreat just before the budget for
2021 and I look forward to that debate. I thank you.
HON. MUSHORIWA: I heard what the Hon. Minister is saying.
The Hon. Minister keeps on saying it is an incentive, but the point that I am raising- an incentive in my view should be an incentive to a bigger chunk of people but when you have got an incentive which is tailor made for a very small group of people, then it loses its purpose. What I thought the Hon. Minister could probably address is that when you talk of this youth employment credit, what is the mischief that you want to correct, what is that you want to deliver?
For some of us; we thought the Hon. Minister; your idea was to say no, most of our youth are spending their time out of the work place. As for me, I looked at the youth that spend most of their time seated on the pavements in Dzivarasekwa and I thought maybe this was a type of thing that Hon. Minister you were going to try to fix. The message that I
am getting from you is that you are saying look, imperfect as it is- it is okay for us to push it as it is and we could possibly do a review. I am saying to you Hon. Minister that a company that employs people who are unskilled at Z$1 500 and $1 800 per month should not benefit,
neither should a company that employs those that are skilled that probably can become junior managerial employees should not benefit.
I think there is a bit of unfairness in this whole thing. You do not want the word unfairness because you say it is incentive, but incentive if it is coming from the Government, surely in my view should benefit a big chunk of people, not the way I am looking at it.
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: Madam Chair, once again I thank
Hon. Mushoriwa for coming back for that clarification. Again I repeat we are not correcting a wrong, the youth sitting around without jobs. I am not trying to correct that. I am trying to incentivize companies to give our youth an opportunity – that is all. It is not correcting a wrong because they are not obliged to give people jobs. It is not as if they are violating an obligation and therefore we need to correct that wrong, that is not what we are doing. We want to incentivize and create jobs for the youths, we want to deal with unemployment – it is narrow and that is the intention. We want to make sure it works and it is targeted and large companies can afford to manage their own employment. They do not need an incentive from Government. We are targeting the missing middle; it is so called missing middle meeting tier companies.
There is a feeling that these are few. A lot of our companies sit in that category. They are small to medium scale companies. They sit in that category and they will benefit from this tax credit and drive job creation. It is fair and it is targeted and it is not correcting a wrong. It is incentivizing opportunity for our youth, thank you.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: I am informing that the
Secretary General of the Parliament Sports Club, The Patriots, is saying that tracksuits will be given to paid up Members on a first come first serve basis and it is going to be tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. here at Parliament.
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE): Thank you Madam
Chair. Colleagues were consulting with the lawyers and everyone in the room who is a lawyer regarding some of the issues.
Coming to the issue of the choice of the age group, those 30 and below, this is actually a financial decision, Madam Chair because we are seeking to limit our financial exposure. We do not have unlimited resources. This is to limit our financial exposure and those below the age of 30 are part of the youth and so are those below the age of 35.
I think where we would have gone off track in terms of calling this a youth incentive is if we had included those above 35, then it would have been totally out of sync with the Constitution and other global provisions. We are within the 35 years. In terms of band we have chosen 30. It is targeted but this is designed to limit our financial exposure and liability because we do not have unlimited resources. I thank you.
Clause 3 put and agreed to.
On Clause 4:
HON. MUSHORIWA: Thank you Madam Speaker. Madam
Chair, the Hon. Minister in the second reading told us that the poverty datum line is around $2 000 and I want to humbly submit to the Hon.
Minister that the poverty datum line is around $4 483 050.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Order Hon. Members, may the
Hon. Member be heard in silence.
HON. MUSHORIWA: Having said that, Madam Chair, that the poverty datum line is around $4 483 050, not the $2 000 that the Hon. Minister alluded to in the second reading I want to argue that the tax free threshold should actually be moved from the $24 000 that the Hon.
Minister is proposing to a figure of around $54 000 which equates from $2 000 to $4 500. Hon. Chair, most of our employees in this nation are living beyond the poverty datum line. Anybody that is earning $4 500 or less is being punished in this country. To that extent, I want the Hon.
Minister to consider that.
The second issue is that the Hon. Minister, in his second reading, refuted the argument that he is quoting different exchange rate, but this one is a clear example. If you go to page 5, around line 12 or 13 under
(a), he says in sub-paragraph (1) US$$840.00. What the Hon. Minister is trying to tell this august House is that US$840 is equivalent to Z$24 000. If what he is saying is correct, it therefore means that if you do that it tells you that the Hon. Minister is using an exchange rate of 28.57%. This is because US$840 at the prevailing bank rate at the moment, let us take the bank rate at around 16%, it should bring you an equivalent of Z$13 440.
The mere fact that the Hon. Minister changes goal posts when it comes to the US$, it tells you that the Hon. Minister knows in his heart of hearts that the current bank rate of 16% is not the one that underpins the real budget. The real rate according to the figures that are here is
28.57% and this one is actually there in black and white and the Hon. Minister cannot claim to say it is not there. We have put US$840 – is it the same with $24 000 using the current bank rate? The answer is no. The real rate which is implied is 28.57%. We go again to line 35 under page 5. The Hon. Minister says if an employee is being paid part of his salaries in US$ and part of the money in Z$, how does the Hon. Minister want that person charged when it comes to tax. He prefers that the person should be charged as if he is earning the amount in foreign currency. I think that one is totally wrong.
The correct position in my view is that when a person is being paid part of his money in foreign currency and part of his money in local currency, for purposes of taxation, I think the Government should be sympathetic to that employee and that employee should be charged tax in local currency rather than to convert the Z$ component into US$ and say to the employee now you have to pay your tax in US$. The best approach is to convert that US$ component into the local currency and the employee should pay it as if he/she is earning the money in Z$. I think this one needs to be relooked into because I think it will create a bit of a problem. Those are my submissions.
HON. NDUNA: Thank you Madam Chair. I am not a financial
guru or an expert but it is my thinking that in so far as we have a two tier system in payment of money, when you deliver your gold where part of it the percentage is paid in US$ and part of it is paid in RTGS$ converted. It is my thinking that we need to have a two tier system in terms of taxation for employees who are paid in either currency.
If it is too difficult for the Minister to do that, he can explain how he hopes to do it. It is my thinking that if tax for US$ salaries will be 5% of gross income, let it be like that casting stone. If it is going to be RTGS$, to say for example 2% of gross income, let it be but let these be taxed using a different two tier system because of their denominations or their denominated salary schedules. This is my thinking, otherwise if the Minister has got a different view, he is the gold finger and if he can explain to us so that we are left with no doubt in our minds that the people will get substance out of their earnings. There is certainly the reason why the employer seeks to give the incentives or salaries in different denominated salaries. There is a reason and I ask that the Minister does not take away that incentive of the employer to the employee via exchange of some denominated salary to another mode of currency. I ask that there be a two tier system. However, if there is a different view, if the Hon. learned Prof. Minister can explain so that we are left with no doubt in our minds that we are quite clear on such modus operandi. Thank you.
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. NCUBE): Thank you Hon. Chair.
There are only two Hon. Members who debated. It makes it interesting. Let me start with Hon. Nduna and there is a reason why I am starting with him and I will come to Hon. Mushoriwa. The idea that we should run a two tier system if the employees are earning forex and in Z$ all for the same jobs and service - this would really complicate our lives in the tax department at ZIMRA. That is why we convert to one currency where we deem it to be US$ by converting the Z$ into US$ at the going interbank rate and then tax in US$. It just makes life easier. I just need to do one conversion and I tax the salary as if one of it is in US$. It is just for ease of accounting if we run a track and two tier system it will just complicate our lives – accounting-wise it will be hell.
On the issue of different exchange rate and so forth, the US$840 that Hon. Mushoriwa refers to in terms of the tax free threshold for those earning US$ is a result of a survey that we did on those organisations, institutions and companies that are paid in US$. This was found to be reasonable threshold. We did not do an exchange rate conversion at all. The $2 000 threshold limit again was a result of a survey and extensive consultation arrived at that level of the threshold for those who are earning Z$, the salaries which are denominated in Z$. So, the two are not linked through an exchange rate. What we are finding is that there is a dual set up within our economy and each has their rules and we try to find the right level of threshold for each of those compartments. The right threshold do about for taxation is RTGs2000 and US$830, the bands are then accordingly calibrated beyond that for taxation. So there is no exchange rate conversion there at all.
On the threshold itself, Hon. Mushoriwa says why RTGS2000, it should be RTGS4 500. As I said, again we have done a survey and we found out that this RTGS 2000 is appropriate. Also, one thing that I should never do as a policy maker of my position is to chase inflation whenever you are doing these kinds of adjustments. If you do you might think you are chasing inflation but actually you are adding to it by trying to catch up with or trying to get ahead of it. You should always stay behind it but also it turns out that RTGs2000 is a product of the survey that we did; we think that it is appropriate. I thank you Madam Chair.
HON. MUSHORIWA: Madam Chair, I am not convinced by the
Hon. Minister’s response. When you pass this Bill into an Act, it should send a message to whoever is going to be affected by this Bill. For you Hon. Minister to say that there has been a survey that has resulted in you saying RTGS2000 is the amount of money, I am actually putting it to you that the poverty datum line truly speaking is way beyond the RTGS2000 that your survey indicated. Our indication is that the poverty datum line is standing around RTGS4 483.50.
The other aspect that you said, you did not link this to exchange rate. Hon. Minister, are you aware that if there is a company that has been paying RTGS24 000, that amount at the prevailing exchange rate is actually US$1 500. So ordinarily anybody who is actually earning US$1 500 per annum and if you divide you then realise that even if you go to pre-Zim dollar era, you will find that we used to exempt when it was 1:1. We used to say that a person who is earning US$300 a month has actually tax exemption. I do not understand how your survey was done which then told you that US$840 was actually the correct amount.
The unintended consequences of passing such a law is to simply have companies changing and instead of paying their workers in forex they will then pay in Zimbabwean dollars. You will then find that in terms of revenue collection as a Ministry you will have actually shot yourself in the leg. I actually want a situation whereby if you are coming with any figure, a figure has to be related. What is it that it relates to? It can only relate to the exchange rate that is prevailing. If your argument Hon. Minister was to say - without possibly coming out to us and saying that you foresee the exchange moving and this is the reason why you had put it at a figure which is slightly quite higher, I could understand. For you to then simply want to silence us to say that you did a survey, a survey is not sufficient. Let us look historically; what was the amount of money that was exempt from tax prior to the 1:1 or to the conversion into the Zimbabwe dollar? Hon. Minister, I still believe that we need to change that US$840 to US$1 500 or alternatively you really need to convince us the basis of your survey.
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: Thank you Madam Chair. Let me
come to the issue of a survey. This is not something we did just because we wanted to change the threshold this year. Every year that is what we do. Whatever we come up with, any recommendation in the budget, it is based on extensive consultations, and we consult the employment councils. We check with them and from what they are telling us, it is that companies out there are not paying the poverty datum level that the Hon. Member is suggesting the RTGs4500, they are not and this is the
fact.
When we spoke to the employment councils, employers and right through the economy, we were finding that this RTGS2000 is what is fair as a level below which tax should not be applied. On that issue, perhaps exemption might be incentivise to pay their employees in
Zimbabwean dollars; that is their choice. We cannot decide for them, it is up to them to choose what currency they will use to pay their employees but the taxes will be applied accordingly where below US$840 you do not pay taxes but above that you start paying taxes. So we did not use an exchange rate. Every year what we did is, we went to consult and survey and then we made a recommendation for Parliament to consider. That is what we have done. So, it is RTGs 2000 and US$840 as tax free threshold. I thank you.
HON. NYABANI: Thank you Chair. I have got two issues here,
the first one is - I want to get clarification from the Minister, on payment of tobacco farmers who are getting payment equivalent to exchange rate whilst gold producers are getting US dollars. What is the position next year – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – hamusi Minister imi chimbomirai. How is your Ministry going to rectify the circulation of money in banks since banks are not providing interest rates to depositors?
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: Thank you Hon. Chair. I must first of
all say that the questions, whilst they are valid and are good questions, they do not relate to the clause at all. I want to make that very clear. I am still happy to answer; either I can answer offline or now. Can I carry on now?
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: Not now.
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: Thank you but Hon. Member, I am
very happy to have a conversation with you.
Clause 4 put and agreed to.
Clauses 5 to 9 put and agreed to.
On Clause 10:
HON. MUSHORIWA: Madam Chair, I want the Hon. Minister,
before I get it wrong, I seek clarity on what this amendment seeks to do, amendment No. 10, where it says any interest expenditure incurred in foreign loans. Could you probably just do a clarification, may be my understanding of it may be wrong.
This clause is a tax exemption interest on foreign loans. It is to make sure that it is able to attract as much as possible foreign resources that we so require to finance the economy – that is all this is about. You can almost treat it as a kind of tax incentive in a way.
Clause 10 put and agreed to.
Clause 11 put and agreed to.
On Clause 12:
HON. MUSHORIWA: Hon. Chair, the question of withholding
amounts payable under the Contract State or Statutory Corporation. I would like the Hon. Minister to clarify on (d) – any person making any delivery of grain to the GMB…; any small scale gold miner making any delivery of gold to Fidelity Printers and Refiners... Then you go on to say that, ‘The failure by the GMB to withhold income tax from payments to persons making grain deliveries to it from 1st August, 2013 to the end of the financial year on 31st December 2019 is hereby condoned’.
Hon. Chair, I have two problems. First, is the condonation because
I actually do not believe that we should be making backward laws but should be making laws that start from now going forward. In fact, we should be making laws coming from January 2020 moving forward.
Then my other challenge Hon. Minister, is that I want to take that farming should be treated as a business the same way as the small scale miners. We need to make sure that we term the informalisation of our economy. Let us come up with policies that tend to look at bringing everybody on the formal sector, be it small scale or farming so that we do not create a – Hon. Minister, I tend to feel that we actually reward the informal way of doing things rather than rewarding those who are moving into the formal sector. I believe that farming is a business and small scale mining is also a business. This is the reason why we resolved not to call them ‘makorokoza’, we want to call them ‘artisanal miners. Let us promote them from being informal but the way that we do it – when it comes to small scale miners, when they deliver their gold to Fidelity they are treated differently from the big companies. I think it is as if we are rewarding informal rather than formalisation of this economy.
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: Again, I thank the Hon. Member for
his contributions. You see, if you look at that clause (a) to (e) – that is nothing rather than an exemption from taxes – it is a tax exemption, that
is all there is to it.
Reference to GMB is because that is a Government owned entity – that is all we are doing and this is an internal issue. It also applies to Clause 2 where we are saying that we are exempting GMB. You know that if we were to say to them, ‘Look, you owe Government as GMB so much in withholding tax’, it is us as Government actually who have to pay that tax to ourselves – that is what will happen there because we fund GMB and we set a sub-budget every year for it. So this really is about tax exemptions for GMB, the small scale miners and the others who have been defined from (a) to (e) – that is all there is to it.
Clause 12 put and agreed to.
On Clause 13:
HON. MUSHORIWA: - [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible
interjections] - Hon. Members in this august House should not punish those Members of Parliament who have taken time to read this Bill.
They do not have the Bill, so they should allow us to debate. - [HON.
MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections] –
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: Yes, proceed Hon.
Mushoriwa.
HON. MUSHORIWA: Amendment of Third Schedule, if we go
under sub-section (B) (II) which says, ‘Business ordinarily carried on by financial institutions;
I think Hon. Minister, what I would want you to do here is to clarify. How do you define business ordinarily carried on by financial institutions? More so given the fact that financial institutions lend to building societies, do mortgages, infrastructure and a lot of other things.
Now when you say, ‘ordinarily’, how are you defining that?
Then on (d) you say, ‘the recipient is or proposes to be active in agriculture, mining, manufacturing, tourism or other aspects of the economy deemed by the Minister by statutory instrument to be critical for national development.’ Again Hon. Minister, we have always complained that we cannot continue to have this country being governed and run by Statutory Instruments. Why should there be a Statutory Instrument? As far as we are concerned, areas that are critical for national development should well be known and when an issue is well known, those are the issues that you contain in your Budget Statement. So I do not understand why we should leave you with room to come up with another Statutory Instrument. If you want to bring them on board, you should just have brought them within this Act of Parliament – that is what I believe.
The last point is on (b) with effect from the 1st November, 2019,’ where you say (o) by the deletion of “one thousand dollars” and the substitution of “five thousand dollars (or three hundred and twenty United States dollars if the recipient is remunerated with foreign currency …’
I want to ask you Hon. Minister, do you want to confirm that on this one, you are now using the prevailing exchange rate and if it is so, which prevailing exchange rate did you use for you to have that conversion because we want to know whether this one is based on survey, on the prevailing exchange rate or the preferred exchange rate that your Ministry wants to come up with. What we want to do Hon. Minister is that the Bill should actually talk of an exchange rate that is understandable – that people can relate to. When you were changing the figures, which exchange rate were you implying?
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: Thank you very much Madam Chair
and again, I thank Hon. Mushoriwa for his contributions. You see, this clause pertains to exemptions from income tax – how does a Venture Fund access these exemptions? What makes them eligible? Now two things – [HON. SIKHALA: Inaudible interjection.] – Yes to stay young, it is a good idea. Two things – [Laughter.] – Madam Chair, I cannot avoid laughing.
Hon. Chair on a very serious note, Hon. Mushoriwa raises an issue under (B) (II) that businesses ordinarily carried on by financial institutions are excluded from enjoying this tax exemption. This is very deliberate. This budget is about supporting productivity. It is about supporting the real sector. We want to make sure that this venture funds support the real sectors of the economy. That is why we are excluding the financial services. The same answer applies to (d) where we have said it is about agriculture, mining, manufacturing, tourism or other aspects of the economy that we think again support this motion of the resector productivity, gross and job creation. This is in order and it is consistent with that banter.
The Hon. Members goes on about the exchange rate and so forth. This again is a result of consultations out there. We consult, we do not seek to use the interbank rate when on some of these decisions, it is best to consult and find the right level at which we should apply our incentives or rules in Zimbabwean dollars versus US dollars. That is what we did on this occasion.
Clause 13 put and agreed to.
On Clause 14:
HON. MUSHORIWA: On amendment 14, my query rests on (b).
It says, “tangible or intangible property in the form of computer software as defined in paragraph (i) of the 4th Schedule that is acquired, developed or used by a tax payer in connection with his or her mining operations”. My question to you Hon. Minister is – why are you restricting this one to mining operations? What about other sectors of the economy? What about those ones in transport or other types of industries? I just want to understand why you are targeting the only ones under the mining operations and why are you not having this to cascade to all sectors of the economy.
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: In our long and deep discussions with the mining sector, this was found to be an issue and no other sector raised this conundrum. After our internal deliberations, we felt that we ought to put this issue under the list of items that are tax deductable or allowable. We think it is in order to support the mining sector as a productive sector by allowing these tangibles and intangibles around this computer software as tax deductable items. There is nothing wrong with that. It is a tax incentive. They pushed hard for it. No one else did other than the sector. If other sectors also wish to have the same incentive, they should have expressed it because we consulted the retail sector and manufacturing sector and that issue did not come up in those sectors. Only the mining sector raised it and we thought that it is something that we should follow through and give them that incentive.
HON. MUSHORIWA: I hear what the Hon. Minister has said. Are you therefore telling us that if the mining sector raised this – because the others did not raise it, then it is alright to grant that to the mining sectors? Part of my problem with granting it to the mining at the exclusion of other economic sectors is that I tend to see that progressively your Finance Bills tend to favour mining operations. You see that even when it comes to the question of royalties, there is this progressive giving leeway to the mining operations. More-so, in my view, I actually think that most mining operations are not paying sufficient tax. Most of these mining operations in this country are not even giving resources to the local community. I think that what we own are our minerals. In other countries they simply say – our minerals, our land is our contribution as a Government. When the miner comes to do the mining, he or she should actually do - firstly look at uplifting the community and secondly pay sufficient resources to the fiscus.
In our case, we tend to do the opposite and we tend to allow mining operations a free rider. If we are going to come up with a policy, let it cascade to all sectors of the economy. This selective application – I am not convinced it is the correct thing.
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: This is not selective application of incentives. Other sectors have their incentives as well. We can spent a lot of time talking about the incentives that we are giving to the tourism, manufacturing and industry. Every sector has its own incentives in the form of other rebates or tax deductable allowances and all of that. This is evenly spread around, so there is no issue of favouritism of the sector.
We have been very clear that the mining sector is a key sector and I think that we all agree that Zimbabwe has so many minerals and we desire to have those minerals exploited to the benefit of Zimbabweans but the investors also want to earn a fair return and why not? That the mining sector is not paying enough taxes – again you know we benefit a lot from foreign direct investment from the jobs that the mining sector creates. We benefit a lot from the exports and forex that the mining sector generates. The mining sector is the largest generator of foreign currency into Zimbabwe, showing we ought to recognise that this is an important sector for driving our exports.
Any incentives are welcome for the sector because it will create jobs and also drive our forex earnings. There is no bias but these are incentives and a lot of other sectors are receiving incentives in different types of incentives.
HON. MUSHORIWA: I just need clarification from the Hon.
Minister –[HON. SIKHALA: Kana musingadi kudebator shut up!] –
- [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections!] –
THE TEMPORARYCHAIRPERSON: Hon. Sikhala, may you
please withdraw - [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections!] – HON. SIKHALA: I withdraw Madam Chair - [Laughter] – HON. MUSHORIWA: I just want clarification from the Hon.
Minister. Hon. Minister, on 15 (ii) you said there is exemption on Africa Export and Import Bank. I may understand why you want it but why should you mention it alone? What about the other developmental banks whether the ADB, World Bank or any other bank for that instance – why are you focussing on Africa Export and Import Bank? Is there any reason that puts it aside compared to other developmental banks?
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: At the moment, Africa Export and
Import Bank transactions were being charged the 2% tax – Intermediate Money Transfer Tax but the other institutions which you have equivalent standing within the country are not being charged. So the World Bank, AFDB and others are not being charged and they rank pari passu with the Afreximbank as international organisations. We need to make sure that Afreximbank is not excluded in that exemption, that is why we have been very specific about it. For some reason, I do not know why they were paying this 2% tax, I thought initially they were exempted. We all thought that, then we thought they are not but let us just make sure, for avoidance of doubt we make it clear that they be exempted. I thank you.
Clauses 16 to 18 put and agreed to.
On Clause 19:
HON. MUSHORIWA: Thank you Madam Chair. This one is a
matter close to my heart. You recall last year that we passed a similar clause under the Finance Bill where the Hon. Minister came to this august House and made a clause similar pertaining to platinum. Now he has come back with lithium. Hon. Chair, my view is simple; I strongly believe that it is wrong to allow these mining operations to continue to export raw materials and we allow them simply because they have given us an undertaking that they are going come up with a refinery in so many years and the like. The Hon. Minister should be in a position to explain to us what happened to platinum for instance, we gave a nod - what is the progress that has been made so far? We actually believe that mining operations Madam Chair, are taking advantage. I do not think these provisions exist in other countries where we compete with. Look at Botswana and South Africa for instance, they do not get all these benefits. I wonder why the Minister is so soft when it comes to these mining operators.
THE HON. MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE): Chair, we are not
being soft on the mining sector or favouring it. You know, we are trying to promote investment in the sector and incentivise the sector. We are trying to grow our export earnings in the sector. Really, we do not want the tax to be an impediment towards that kind of investment. We want to make sure that the investment flows in; it is our desire that we have an investment of US$500 million equivalent between now and the year 2023 in the lithium sector. We believe that through these tax incentives in the form of a tax exemption is one way to attract investment. Imagine if you say to a new investor – this is a new area by the way unlike platinum which is now an old area in terms of minerals. Lithium is a new area; if you say to them, look, you cannot invest if you are not going to build a battery manufacturing factory which is full beneficiation, it then takes a while for investors to digest all of that and make the right skills available for that to be the case. We feel that if we leave it like that at this stage; have this tax exemption, that is a major investment for investment into the lithium sector. I thank you.
Clause 19 put and agreed to.
On Clause 20:
HON. MUSHORIWA: I want the Hon. Minister again to clarify to me the necessity of the new provision. Does the Hon. Minister want to tell us that this is a DSTV Clause and if so, what is the mischief that you want to correct? I want to understand why we are doing that; why are we saying that certain imported services deemed to be locally provided – are we saying that the DSTV the Multichoice, you want it to be deemed as if it is local or am I understanding it differently? Maybe the Hon. Minister can probably help me there.
THE HON. MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE): These services are
foreign, but the consumption is local and we want to make sure that a fair share of taxes on the consumption of these services is paid. So this is to make sure that on the ground there is full payment and fair payment of the taxes for a service that is foreign but consumed locally. There is nothing wrong with that, we think that this is absolutely fair, it is not targeting anyone. It could be DSTV today, it could be something else tomorrow – there used to be Kwese as well, there could be another service so it is not targeting a specific company but this is generic and it
is fair.
HON. MUSHORIWA: One question Hon. Minister, are we
therefore saying – what form of taxation are we talking of, are they going to pay because remember the payments are made in forex. Is the tax going to be in forex or in local currency? Remember, somewhere, you then say that those who are earning foreign currency have to pay their tax in forex. This is why I needed a clarification, what are we saying in regard to this issue?
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: The recipients of the service are paying for their services in ZW$ and therefore their taxes is going to be in ZW$.
Clause 20 as amended put and agreed to.
On Clause 21:
Hon. Mushoriwa having stood up.
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: I had already put the
question and said no objection.
HON. MUSHORIWA: No, but there was…
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: I was so clear, I have
already passed that, we are now on Section 22.
HON. MUSHORIWA: But Madam…
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: No, it is about
procedure.
HON. MUSHORIWA: But we said ‘objection,’ Madam Chair.
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: Did you say objection
then I put a question?
HON. MUSHORIWA: No, but I think this one is actually important, this is an important…
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: No, look, I had already
said – when I said ‘objection,’ if you had objected then we put a question. You never responded on the objection.
HON. MUSHORIWA: No, we did Madam Chair. We just want the Hon. Minister to explain because…
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: No. Look here Hon.
Mushoriwa, unless you have got an objection.
HON. MUSHORIWA: No, that is what we said, we said, we
object.
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: Did you say ‘I object’?
HON. MUSHORIWA: Yes.
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: You never said you
object.
HON. MUSHORIWA: No, maybe you did not hear me.
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: You just said…
HON. MUSHORIWA: I said I object and I stood up. I also do not understand Hon. Chair…
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: I think it is a matter of
procedure.
HON. MUSHORIWA: No, but Hon. Chair, you lose nothing, the
Hon. Minister…
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: It is alright.
HON. MUSHORIWA: What I simply want is; this one says they are backdating up to the 1st January, 2017. Generally, Hon. Minister, this is not a good law, why do we have to backdate. Why do we not just start now or start in January, 2020. What is it that you want to correct that has to be backdated to 2 years back?
HON. BITI: The rule of law requires that there should be certainty on laws. The rule of law means that you cannot be penalised for having committed a crime that was not a crime at the time that you committed an act. You are putting on a nice cream and red dress, it will be a travesty of justice if two years later, someone were to pass a law that says anyone who was putting on a red and cream dress on 17th December, 2019 commits an offence. The problem with this provision is, it is seeking to retrospectively impose a tax from 1st January 2017. That is bad law, it offends the rule of law. So, we would like the Minister of Finance and Economic Development to withdraw that and let the tax be introspective. I thank you Madam Chair.
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: We are going to defer
Section 21 and we will come back to it.
Clause 22 put and agreed to.
On Clause 23:
HON. BITI: Madam Chair, I apologise for not being here at the beginning of the second reading of the Bill. I have a problem with the tone of this Bill, the Finance Bill of 2019. Three-quarters of this Bill, including the provision before you Ma’am, Section 23 seeks to oblige the tax payer to pay whether it is capital gains or VAT to pay in foreign currency.
My problem Madam Chair is that if we are going to oblige the citizen to pay everything in US dollars, then we are acknowledging that we are not ready for the de-dollarisation of the regime of multiple currency. The problem we are going to create Madam Chair is that we are going to have a stream of revenues. Now, virtually I would say a third of all Government revenues is going to be collected in US dollars or in multiple currencies. This imposes a certain fiscal matrix. It means that we now need two budgets. One expressed in US dollars and the other expressed in the local currency, the Zimbabwe dollar because there are now two different parallel system streams of revenue collection.
Madam Chair, if we are going to be true to the provisions of
Section 305 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe which says the Minister of
Finance and Economic Development must present estimates of revenue and expenditure, it means that the Minister must come with two Blue Books, one expressed in US dollars and the other expressed in the local currency because there are two different revenue sheets. It is a nightmare for accountants, business people and ordinary citizens, the ordinary wananchi. Hon. Chair, I would submit that we must make up our minds on what currency we want to use because we cannot reprobate and approbate; we cannot have our cake and eat it at the same time. Is it US dollars or it is the regime of multiple currency? That is the problem that I have with Section 23 and with three-quarters of this Bill, they attempt to sneak the US dollar through the back door. In Shona we say, if you decide to eat a dog, eat the biggest one. Here we do not know whether we are eating a puppy or a small one. I thank you Madam Chair
Ma’am.
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE): Thank you. I thank
Hon. Biti for his comments and I can assure him that in this Bill we are going to eat the biggest dog; it is our time to eat the biggest dog. Clause 23 actually seeks to reinforce the declaration of receipts of income from sale of assets in Zimbabwe dollars, so in a sense by deeming that, your refusal to disclose that you received Zimbabwe dollars means actually you are hiding that. In fact, you must have received US dollars so we want to make sure that you pay in that currency of trade – [HON. BITI: Inaudible interjections.] – No, no. We are very clear. Otherwise why hide Madam Chair? Why would you claim that you received Zimbabwe dollars and then you do not confirm that it was Zimbabwe dollars? We want to make sure you confirm that it was Zimbabwe dollars and show proof and you pay tax accordingly in Zimbabwe dollars. Otherwise we will assume you are breaking the law and you want to make sure that you escape and pay in Zimbabwe dollars when in fact you received US dollars. So, we want to make sure that the practice stops. It is very simple. This is reinforcing the use of the Zimbabwe dollar in the payment of taxes. I thank you.
HON. BITI: This Bill, we have been going through every clause.
As I said before, three-quarters of it is the Government seeking to
enforce payment of taxes in US dollars. If that is the case, why should we pretend that the US dollar is not alive and kicking in our economy? Why should we not simply repeal Statutory Instrument 142 of 2019 and allow the two currencies to operate together; the US dollar and the exchange rate? That way Madam Chair, the rate will force it to come down because the true exchange rate in Fourth Street will find a natural balance. Now because we are operating nocturnally, the rate goes up due to the fact that everyone is hiding money in every part of his or her geography and the parallel market is spared. Let us confront the elephant in the living room and it is our mismanagement of monetary policy. The country is not ready for the de-monetisation of regime of multiple currency, so let us continue with the two streams of currencies; the US dollar and the Zimbabwean dollar. I thank you Madam Chair.
HON. MUSHORIWA: Madam Chair, I also want to add my view. The Hon. Minister earlier when we were talking again in terms of the payments in foreign currency about the $840, his argument was to say, it will be cumbersome and will create a lot of work for the accountants. In this case, the valuation if you are going to then say you want to charge the capital gains tax in forex, it means there should be evaluators who should bring the valuation in foreign currency. That is inconsistence; at one time you say no if we do this we are giving a lot of work to our accountants to do the calculations but in this case, where it fits the Government it is okay to then allow the extra work to happen. This is my call to also simply say if we are doing the Zimbabwe dollar, let us simply say people pay in Zimbabwe dollar.
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE): Again I thank Hon.
Mushoriwa and Hon. Biti for their – Hon. Biti listen you cannot be playing on your phone, “uri kutamba nephone terera. Handiti ndange ndakaterera inini uchitaura, so teerera.” Wakatarisa pasi. No, I am teasing him Hon. Chair, it is not meant to be hostile. You know Hon. Biti, the contents you were making are very generic and are about the credibility or lack of it, of the monetary system. You are not speaking directly to this clause. This is a compliance clause. It is a simple compliance clause, that is all. You are supposed to comply but if you do not and you refuse to comply, then you are going to do the following - very simple and again it is simple Hon. Mushoriwa. We are saying the default position will be US$ if you do not tell or confirm to us your transaction was in Z$ when you seek to hide that and do not show us proof. We assume to hide that and therefore breaking the law and we redeem it in US$ and request our taxes accordingly. This is very simple.
HON. BITI: Madam Chair, if you look at Section 23, it says in respect of any sale of a specified asset that is purported to have been sold for ZWL, it shall be presumed that the specified asset was paid for in foreign currency in the US$ market valuation unless the seller provides documentary proof satisfactory to the Commissioner and the specified asset in question was sold for in ZWL. The presumption there Madam Speaker, does not start from saying you sold the asset in ZWL. The presumption starts from a mindset of guilt. You are guilty already and therefore, you must pay in US$. This provision must be reworded by saying which is the normal thing; “the seller must prove that he sold the asset in ZWL. Where the seller however fails to provide evidence that he sold the asset in ZWL, that is where the presumption should start”. This in law Madam Chair is called a reverse onus provision. So the onus is shifted to the taxpayer when the onus should be on the tax collector to say my friend I am not happy with the information you have provided because Madam Chair, section 50 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe says,
‘you are presumed innocent until proven guilty’. Here you are guilty until you prove yourself innocent. So there is something structurally wrong with this from a drafting point of view, which is why I was asking for the learned ears of the learned Minister of Justice. I thank you.
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: Hon. Chair, that is just a sentence
construction issue. The effect of the clause is exactly the same. It could be stated in the way that the Hon. learned member has stated it or the way we have put it across. The impact and the effect is exactly the same. Nothing changes as far as the liability to the taxpayer is concerned if they seek to hide the fact that they sold their property in US$ but tell us that it is ZWL and do not show proof. So then we will assume it was US$, otherwise why hide and we will demand that they pay their capital gains tax in US$. The effect is exactly the same. The wording maybe different and I respectfully request that we accept it as it is and move on.
HON. TSUNGA: It does not look like there is consensus and agreement on this one and from what I have been hearing, I would suggest as with Clause 21 that we defer this clause because in any case we may then attend to it together with Clause 21 at the appropriate time.
I suggest deferment.
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: I do not know what
exactly you would want the Minister to clarify because as for Clause 21 the reasons we have had to defer it is because there are consultations that are actually taking place now. For this one, I would really want to know why you say it needs a deferment whilst the Hon. Minister is saying he has already responded to it.
HON. TSUNGA: I think for the same reasons, there is concurrence that the wording might be changed and it does not look like the Minister is in dispute. As we look at the clause with the drafters, I think it will allow for refinement of the clause even thought the context is by and large the same.
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: But would you really
agree with what I said that they are actually two instances which are quite different here. On 21, it needed consultation and on 23 the Minister has said it is okay as it is. You might phrase it the way you want but all is the same. That is where we are at the moment. So when you look at these two instances, I believe they are quite different in that in one there is no consultation which is needed and if you look at it, it is quite clear according to what the Minister has said.
HON. TSUNGA: I have acceded to the fact that the context is generally agreed to but the wording there is contestation and as I see it, already there is consultation going on in the background in regard to the same clause. If you could allow those consultations to be done then it can be helpful unless if the Minister is adamant that we continue in its form but this is what I thought in the interest of all.
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: I thank the Hon. Member. He says
that there is consultation. I am sitting there and I am not consulting anyone. There is no consultation. There are some legal minds that are having a wonderful time at the back. I do not even know what they are talking about and I cannot hear them but I am sure they are enjoying themselves intensely. I propose that we proceed Madam Chair.
HON. MUSHORIWA: I want to restate that whenever we come up with a law, we should make sure that at least we come from a positive perspective rather than from a negative point of view. Hon. Minister, you lose nothing if what you say that it is just a question of semantics; if you think that is just the words that are interplayed you lose also nothing to just change them because I think that will be the proper thing. Let us start from a basis that any taxpayer is compliant. let us just start from that route because we do not want to start from the route to say a taxpayer is not compliant because he sold his house, car or that and so he should have sold in foreign currency. Why do we not start from a positive point of view to simply give the benefit of doubt to the taxpayer to say he or she complied with the law? I think that is a positive thing. All the laws start from that angle. Are we now starting from a negative perspective? It appears as if we are simply saying every taxpayer is not compliant and they should be hit by a hammer.
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: The tone of this paragraph is not negative at all. In fact, if the Hon. Members were to read the entire Finance Act they will find that it does not make a difference and it emphasizes the need to pay your taxes in ZWL. This insertion is mainly saying that if you do not comply with that and then you hide the income that you have earned in USD and you claim it is ZWL when it is not then we will ask you to pay in USD, but you are hiding that information. So this is a deemed provision in the Act. However, the Act is always positive, I do not know where you got this impression that this paragraph defines how the entire tone of the Act, absolutely not – the impact is exactly the same. I propose that we proceed.
Clause 23 put and agreed to.
On Clause 24:
HON. MUSHORIWA: Madam Chair, in paragraph sub (1) where
the Bill says that they will have to use the selling rate, I actually think that it is being punitive. Ordinarily, Hon. Minister, the best rate to use should be the buying rate and if you are not happy with the buying rate then you need to look for the mid rate between the buying and the selling. To simply come and say the rate of exchange on conversion should be based on the selling rate, I think it is not right. I believe that the best that you can do, the compromise there should actually be the mid-rate. I think that has always been the case rather than to use the selling rate. It is as if you are looking at a punitive approach rather than the proper way of collecting taxes. Normally, we have known that the customs have always charged the mid-rate between the buying rate and
the selling rate.
HON. BITI: Madam Chair, we have a very problematic provision. We have got the law, we have got Statutory Instrument 33 of 2019, which codified the Reserve Bank Governor’s Monetary Policy
Statement of the 20th February 2019, that Statutory Instrument sets an exchange rate which initially was 1:2,5 which then become the interbank exchange rate and that is SI 33 of 2019 defines an interbank exchange rate. The interbank exchange rate is the official exchange rate in Zimbabwe, it is not Fourth Street. The interbank rate is the official exchange rate in this country, it is the rate in which an individual like you and me can go and sell our foreign currency at the bank.
Now, what this provision seeks to do is to introduce another exchange rate which is in the discretion of the Commissioner General, it is a dog’s breakfast. It is feja feja economics. The law Section 116 (a) must relate to the interbank exchange rate, so the Commissioner should not have discretion, this provision should simply say when a good has been brought into the country which was bought in USD or Rands, the interbank exchange rate at the time that the clearance form is filled is the one that applies.
If you leave it like that, you are just allowing the chaos that is arising out of an operation of multiple regime of exchange rate. We have one exchange rate in this country which is the interbank exchange rate, codified in SI 33 of 2019 which was later incorporated in the Finance Act Number 2 of 2019 which this august House adopted in August of 2019. I thank you.
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: Thank you for allowing me to
respond. I just want to thank Hon. Members for raising the issues that they raised. Let me deal with this issue of the mid rate that Hon. Mushoriwa raised. You buy your currency at the selling rate; the conversion from the foreign currency ZWL is at the selling rate that is why you are referencing the selling rate. When you buy your currency, you use the selling rate that is why you are referencing that.
Now, on the issue of the Customs Exchange Rate; it is always benchmarked on the interbank rate. So there is no deviation from that but we would want to make sure that those who also would have bought their currency elsewhere, other than in the formal market, that customs rate is able to accommodate them accordingly. So, we want to make sure that that happens, hence we referred to Customs Exchange Rate - but the guiding exchange rate is always interbank rate. The selling rate is the rate at which you would buy the foreign currency at which you would convert foreign currency to Zimbabwe dollars that is why we have worded it like that.
HON. MUSHORIWA: Hon. Chair, with all due respect to the
Hon. Minister; we cannot leave this House and say that there is going to be a customs exchange rate. Let us be clear, it has to be the bank rate.
We should never leave things to the discretion of the commissioner. Remember Hon. Minister, previously we used to have this; it goes back to what I was saying earlier that we seem as a Government not to have confidence with interbank rate. If we have got confidence with interbank rate, surely we should just simply state, it does not kill, at prevailing bank rate - remove the Customs Exchange Rate, and just simply say at the prevailing bank rate.
I will concede to selling rate that you referred to, to say let it be the selling rate but let it be the selling bank rate not the customs rate. The moment you leave; what if the Commissioner General decides to say the customs exchange rate for today because Mushoriwa is importing his goods, he then uses an exchange rate of 10 and tomorrow because Hon. Sithole is importing his goods, he then uses an exchange rate of 20, then the customs exchange rate - I do not think we can allow that to happen.
If we have got confidence in the bank rate, let us use the bank rate unless Hon. Minister you are basically telling us that as a Government, we do not have confidence with bank rates.
HON. TSUNGA: Just to buttress what Hon. Mushoriwa has just said. The provision that the Commissioner in consultation with the
Reserve Bank does not help matters at all because it is only consultation. When one consults, they are seeking the views of others. It is not the direction of the Reserve Bank but simply consulting. I can consult and hear your views but not necessarily take them. So I think the work consultation is misplaced. If it is as directed by the Reserve Bank, it makes better sense if you still insist on Reserve Bank, but consultation - they may consult but not take the views. So, look at that more closely and do the necessary adjustments. I thank you.
HON. BITI: The whole purpose of law and policy is certainty. The whole purpose of law and policy is to mitigate the life of a citizen, is to make the life of a citizen soft and mitigated and accommodated. If you have a law Madam Speaker that applies differently to different people to different classes, it is not a law. A law according to the founders of positivist jurisprudence, people like John Bentham and Thomas Aquinas, the law is something that is fixed, something that is certain, something that is predictable and applies to everyone. What this provision seeks to do is to introduce another exchange rate.
We have the exchange rate which we know exists, which is the inter-bank exchange rate which is already there by operation of law. If you go to Statutory Instrument 33 of 2019, it defines what the inter-bank exchange rate is. We all know it. In the past few months, it has been floating around 1 is to 15. This law now seeks to introduce another exchange rate which Section 115 A, if you look at the last line described as a customs exchange rate. So we now have a customs exchange rate, an inter-bank exchange rate, a fourth street exchange rate – why are we doing that? Why are we creating uncertainty and why is the Minister of Finance and Economic Development, the one person creating these various pockets of distortion and confusion? It is not good law and it is not good policy. Just substitute customs exchange rate with inter-bank exchange rate because everyone knows what that is and if there is any doubt, you ask the Reserve Bank to define for you on that particular day the existing inter-bank rate. I thank you Mr. Chairman Sir.
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE): Thank you Hon.
Chair and again I thank the Hon. Members Biti and Hon. Mushoriwa for their contributions. If you read that clause, it says these customs exchange rate will be a rate determined in consultation with the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe. The rate that the Reserve Bank will advise the Commissioner on is the market rate which is the inter-bank rate. So there is no inconsistency at all.
HON. MUSHORIWA: Mr. Chair, I think the Hon. Minister is not being fair. Can he answer the question – why are you running away from saying interbank rate because that is the question? Unless Hon. Minister you are just telling us that you do not have confidence with the inter-bank rate. That is what you should simply say and once you have said that, it means that if the Government does not have faith and confidence in the inter-bank rate, who else do you want to have faith in the inter-bank rate? In any event Hon. Minister, it will be cumbersome even for the Commissioner General to simply say that he or she has to consult the RBZ. Let the inter-bank be the ruling rate.
HON. NDUNA: What I need to hear from the Hon. Minister is to say, whatever it is, the language that he has used here, does it mean inter-bank rate and if so, is it just a question of semantics and if it is, would we then have challenges in passing it as it is? Does he want it to be as flowery as it is? Does he mean to say that this is inter-bank? This is what I want to hear from him and if so, I have no challenges with this. So I need him to clarify and then we move on.
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: Thank you Hon. Chair and I thank the
Hon. Members for their comments. The rate that the Reserve Bank will advise the Commissioner on is the inter-bank rate. So there is no deviation of the advice from the Reserve Bank, from the customs exchange rate. So there is no inconsistence there and I propose that we accept the clause as it is and move on.
HON. BITI: Hon. Chair, if the Minister says the rate that will be applied by the Commissioner of Customs for the purposes of Section 115 which we are talking about is the inter-bank rate, why should he not simply say so because we already know it in another law brought by him that it already defines what the inter-bank rate is. Why do we need to go to Masvingo when we want to go Dotito?
HON. TSUNGA: Further to that Hon. Chair, the responsibility to designate the rate in terms of this provision rests with the Commissioner and not the Reserve Bank. So it means that we have two centres of power in a sense, that on the one hand we have the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe as monetary authorities that have the responsibility of fixing the exchange rate. In this case, the Commissioner also has powers vested in him in terms of this provision to fix the exchange rate. So there is some kind of distortions that may arise. I am sure it is only proper that the Minister states categorically that the ruling rate will obtain. Thank you.
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: The ruling rate will obtain and the ruling rate is the one that the Reserve Bank Governor will advise the Commissioner on when they seek that information and that rate will be the inter-bank rate. So there is no inconsistency. I suggest that we accept this clause as it is and we move on.
HON. BITI: Hon. Chairman, if this precedent is set that you have a customs exchange rate then the inter-bank exchange rate and next year, the Registrar General will come with a different exchange rate for passports. The Minister of Energy and Power development will come with a different exchange rate for fuel; it does not work. We only have one currency with one exchange rate and that exchange rate is known as the inter-bank exchange rate. So why do you want to be eclectic – it is fejafeja economics.
HON. TOGAREPI: I understand where you are coming from but
the issue is, all these agencies that you are talking about, if they want to talk about the exchange rate, there is a common place where the true exchange rate will come from. It is the Reserve Bank. So whether you call it exchange rate or inter-bank rate, it is going to come from the Reserve Bank. So, it is correct that the Commissioner at any place would ask the Reserve Bank for the true exchange rate. In fact, this will be protecting the public because the source is the correct place where the exchange rate is going to come from.
Clause 24 put and agreed to.
HON. MUSHORIWA: Hon. Chair, divide the House.
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON (HON. KHUMALO):
Order, order, I want to follow the rules. I can determine who are more than the others – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections] – I want to read that section. Let me exercise my power by using this section. ‘If however the Chair is of the opinion that a division is unnecessarily claimed or is an abuse of the rules of the House, he or she must decline to direct that a division must take place and must immediately declare the resolution of the Committee as the case may be’.
So I declare that Clause 24 stands part of the Bill – [HON.
MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] – On Clause 25:
HON. MUSHORIWA: I have problems with this clause. If you
look at the rates of special excise duty on second hand motor vehicles, the amounts that are stated there are those pegged in US dollars or RTGs. I want the Minister to clarify this. The other thing which I find it so difficult to understand is that we have been making an argument and that one has been raised from an environmental perspective and it has been raised several times. Why should we as a country be so happy to import all vehicles into this country?
Hon. Minister, why should we reward a person who wants to import a vehicle which is more than 20 years and we punish a person that wants to import a vehicle which is less than five years? I thought the Hon. Minister was going to simply say any vehicle which is more than ten years has to be charged high excise duty. But this clause is saying any vehicle which is less than four years is charged a maximum of six thousand United States dollars, any vehicle which is around ten years is charged up to four thousand United States dollars, any vehicle which is about 15 years is charged around two thousand United States dollars and any vehicle which is over 20 years is only charged US$ 500.
So what it means is that the best way to buy cars is for people to go to Japan and get vehicles which are 20 to 25 years old and put them into the market and they end up flooding the market. They only have to pay US$500; you are not putting into consideration the issue of the environmental impact. The Hon. Minister is also not taking into consideration that we are wasting foreign currency by buying those vehicles. I think this is not good. Hon. Chair, I am worried that the Hon. Minister is not listening, this is crucial; we cannot allow foreign currency to continually be pumped out. Why should you allow people to just buy wreckages/mazenge from outside and simply have them as if a person has bought a vehicle? People should buy vehicles which are worthy.
HON. NDUNA: Hon. Chair, we have to make laws for the good of the people as enshrined in Section 117 and Section 119. So, it is my thinking that the choice of vehicles that people choose to bring in should not be curtailed. People should choose to bring in whatever it is that they choose to bring in. However, it is my thinking that we propose the law here, of special economic zones. People currently are going to Musina to buy their vehicles in bonded warehouses. So we are actually giving a lot of income to South Africa.
The last time I checked when I was Chairperson of the Transport
Committee, a thousand vehicles were being imported each month, and at US$4 million that we are losing as a country to foreign lands. So it is my thinking that if we allow those bonded warehouses to take refuge here in Zimbabwe in a special economic zone, the people get to be allowed to buy the choice of their vehicle. The carbon tax gets to be in sync with the type of emissions from those vehicles in order to mitigate the climate change effect.
However, to then say we are forcing the ordinary Zimbabweans to buy brand new vehicles is out of this world. I applaud the Minister for not trying to hold the ex-japanese vehicles from getting into the country. I go further to say if he can establish a geographical location in order to harness and mop up all the forex that we are currently losing to foreign lands and he continues to levy the duties in the amount so stated by himself in Clause 25.
This is my thinking, but we need to harness all the forex that we are currently losing by just a stroke of a pen, establishing special economic zones so that we get much more than we are currently getting. Further to the duty we get to also bank the amount that we are losing at a rate of US$4million monthly at a rate of thousand vehicles minimum US$4000 per Honda Fit or per BMW which ever applies.
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: Thank you Hon Chair. On the issue
of these rates being too high compared to previous rates, what we did
was to convert the old US$ rates using a factor of 8 to the current rate. That is way below the inter-bank rate of 15. So these are not high at all and these are in Zimbabwe dollars. Hon. Nduna mentioned the issue of looking at other ways to maximise the benefit from these imported cars. I have listened and I think that there is merit in having a conversation with him privately to see how some of these ideas could be implemented and how additional revenues could be realised. This is simply an issue of excise duty in terms of livelihoods in line with the size of the engine capacity and the number of years. Thank you very much.
HON. MUSHORIWA: From the submissions proffered no-one
even said the figures are too high. The question is very simple. The objection is that we cannot have Zimbabwe being a dumping ground for very old vehicles. I would be happier to have a situation where – you said up to 4 years a person will pay a special excise duty of around $6000, but as you go, the more one imports an old vehicle he/she ends up paying $500. So why are we allowing that to happen? Why do we have to get a vehicle which is over 20 years cheaply than a modern vehicle?
There should be a deliberate way to discourage very old vehicles by setting car age limits where you say this $6000 should apply to vehicles over 16 to 20 years and then you leave the vehicles in the middle, the one under 5 to 10 years. I would be happy with that. Right now Hon. Minister if you move around within the neighbourhood you will see in parking spaces many dumped old Japanese vehicles because they are no longer serviceable and it becomes a problem. So I am saying we should have a middle of the road approach. People should actually be punished for bringing in very old vehicles like 20 year old vehicles.
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: I think duty is meant to be
progressive rather than regressive. That is why you find that it drops as the age of the car goes up. We are trying to take into account the remaining life of the car in the hands of the user or the owner. That is all. We are not trying to necessarily restrict the old vehicles over new vehicles. The intention rather is to recognise the remaining life and making sure the excise duty is progressive enough. Those with newer cars pay more because of longer shelf life and those with older cars pay less. That is how we have designed it and we think it is fair to design it that way. It is not in any way that we would have to do something else to make that restriction on older cars. I thank you.
HON. MUSHORIWA: Hon. Minister, you are not only the Hon. Minister of Finance but also for Economic Development. I need you to clarify the issue of environmental costs. Are you factoring that in?
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: Hon. Chair, I had to consult because
there is some history that is necessary to understand this schedule. There used to be a rule that if you are selling cars in the second hand market you pay 5% of the value of the car. That is all you did. So it was never linked to the size of the engine or the age of the car, but now actually these rates – I was really consulting hard and deep, these rates pertain to the sale of cars in the second hand market domestically. The cars are not necessarily imported cars. They are not only imported cars, they could be from Willowvale – the domestic sale of cars in the domestic market and we are differentiating according to age and engine size. That is all that is going on here.
So, older cars then pay less than newer cars, but also bigger cars in terms of engine size pay more than the smaller cars. That is what is going on here. I think there is really a mix up in the language. Even I got a bit strung up. When I saw customs I thought, what? It is not necessarily imported cars; this is just the second hand market for cars.
HON. CHIKWINYA: Can you change the language to protect us.
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: No, I think that it says rates of special excise duty on second hand motor vehicles. I think it is clear enough. It just so happens to be governed by the Customs and Excise Act, hence the thinking that it might mean that these are imported, but they are not necessarily imported, it is domestic cars. We are differentiating using engine size or indeed age, that is all. Thank you. Amendment to Clause 25 put and agreed to Clause 25, as amended put and agreed to.
On Clause 26:
HON. MUSHORIWA: Chair, I need the Hon. Minister to explain to us why is it that there is no royalty paid on diamonds where it says
‘diamonds but no royalty is payable in respect of diamonds, so get a discount equivalent to the value of royalty otherwise payable to any local diamond manufacturer.’
My major issue is that we do not have a market of diamonds in Zimbabwe and the question is, how do you define and come up with these figures to know whether the value is otherwise equivalent or lower than the prevailing local diamond manufacturer? I do not know how do you come up with this?
HON. TSUNGA: Thank you very much Hon. Chair, just clarity. It could be minor but it is important. The Clause talks of diamond manufacturers and I was just wondering and thinking to myself whether there is anybody or any company that manufactures diamonds, unless if it is synthetic diamonds, I am not too sure? Minister, maybe you could clarify. Thank you.
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: On the issue of diamond
manufacturer. This is possible in future, absolutely, but that is not really the point of the Clause. The Clause is about how the royalty should be treated. It says, ‘diamonds but no royalty is payable in respect of diamonds sold at a discount equivalent to the value of the royalty otherwise payable to any local diamond manufacturer.’
So really you do not over penalise here where the royalty is more than the discount. I think that is fair, otherwise then you are punishing the seller of diamonds. That is all that is going on here. If you look at the second part of that Clause it really pertains to royalties in terms of other minerals, in which case here it is black granite or other cut or uncut dimensional stone. This again was requested by the sector that they would like to be classified as a mineral, once they are classified as a mineral, which we agreed to, then naturally the royalties apply accordingly as to other minerals. That is all there is to it. There is no confusion here really, Hon. Chair.
Amendment to Clause 26 put and agreed to.
Clause 26 as amended put and agreed to.
Clauses 27 and 28 put and agreed to.
On Clause 29:
HON. MUSHORIWA: We need the Hon. Minister to explain to us the rationale in terms of drastically changing the period from six months to about three months because in my view 180 days to 90 days is drastic. What is the mischief that the Minister wants to cure in this regard?
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: Hon. Chair, this Clause amends the regulation making provision of the Revenue Authority Act, especially the provision empowering the Minister to provide for civil penalties for the infringement of revenue laws.
The maximum period for compliance with a civil penalty is reduced from 181 days to 91 days before criminal penalties also apply.
So it has got to do with the compliance or else penalties begin to kick in.
I thank you.
Amendments to Clause 29 put and agreed to.
Clause 29 as amended put and agreed to.
On Clause 30:
HON. TSUNGA: Thank you very much Hon. Chair. On Clause 30, as stated in the preamble paragraphs the Clause amends the RBZ Act by reinstating the Monetary Policy Committee which committee was abolished after the adoption of the multi-currency system in 2009. The committee composition at the top comprises senior staff of the RBZ and of course other members for their expertise in finance and monetary policy. If you look at the terms of reference or the functions of the Committee, they bring back the memories of the quasi-fiscal operations of the RBZ pre 2009, characterised by such interventions as bacossi, and as foliwas resulting in the economic instability in the country...
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON (HON. KHUMALO):
Can you proceed Hon. Member. What is your point?
HON. TSUNGA: The point is I just want to find out from the
Hon. Minister what safeguards are going to be put in place to ensure that decisions made by the committee prior 2009 will not recur because as I see it in terms of the clauses – the monetary policy committee is an autonomous authority entire unto itself and only consults the board or simply submits its reports or findings to the RBZ board only for information and not for direction or supervision.
In other words there is no oversight in terms of the operations of the Monetary Policy Committee. So, what safeguards is this legislation going to put in place to ensure that the previous negative experiences of pre 2009 do not recur. Thank you.
HON. MUSHORIWA: Mr. Chairman, this is one Clause that
should not have been part of this Bill. Firstly, it is wrong for the Hon. Minister to tell us that this monetary policy committee is going to be independent of the board. Apparently, if you read the Reserve Bank Act, it tells you that the Reserve Bank Board consists of the Governor as the
Chairperson of the Board and the Deputy Governors. The correct procedure that should have happened was that the Minister was supposed to bring the RBZ Amendment Bill because we believe that RBZ Act needs to be amended so that it fits into the requirement of this country.
Secondly, this one says that there is the Governor and the Deputy
Governors who will be the Deputy Chairpersons just as the RBZ Board. That is what it also says and not less than five or more than seven persons appointed by the President after consultation with the Minister. There is no way in this provision which says that the other members are going to come outside the RBZ. It is left to the discretion of the Minister. The Minister pointed out during the Second Reading to simply say these one will be independent, but even assuming we were going to concede that the Minister is going to take people who are not necessarily from the RBZ, the question is very simple. Here is a committee that is chaired by the Governor and deputised by the Deputy Governor. After doing their business they will come back to the RBZ board and reports
to the Governor as the chair and the Deputy Governor as deputy of the committee.
The whole thing on corporate governance falls off and this is my view that there was no rationale to even try to smuggle this into the Finance Bill. It is better for the Hon. Minister to really consider because the market out there is calling for an amendment to the RBZ Act. Let us bring a proper RBZ Amendment Act not this piece-meal. Thank you.
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: Thank you Hon. Chair - this section
firmly belongs in the Finance Bill. When it was initially repealed, it was repealed through the Finance Bill. Let me also explain about the monetary policy committee and how they function. What we have inserted is global best practice. Monetary policy committee is meant to be custodian of monetary policy conduct especially around the setting of interest rates which is very clear here. The composition is that while it is independent of the board and it has to be independent of the board, there is some cross fertilization via the presence of the Governor and the two deputies who are members of the MPC.
The Governor chairs but what really gives it independence is the five additional members who are appointed from outside the Reserve Bank. They are always outside the institution. Otherwise, we would have said appoint three plus others – it is very prescriptive. It is outside the Reserve Bank and the decisions are not through the dictates of the Chair but it is through voting process. Those are the rules. If we say we are increasing interest rates, they have to vote. It is by voting simple like that. If we have to do something else we vote.
I have no record that bacossi was introduced by a Monetary Policy Committee. So, the member should not fear too much regarding independence. The MPC, the current one is made of very strong headed people. All of them are strong headed and so, you can be sure that they are having very robust debate. I am pleased that they are having robust debate and I am pleased with the results so far. For instance, the last decision about lowering the interest rates - because we realise that if we need to focus on the productive sector, we need to do something about the cost of capital.
The debates are raging and I am very pleased with it. So, there is no issue about them being coerced or co-opted or whatever by the Central Bank officials. The decisions are through a voting process and again this is standard. It is global best practice. We cannot think of a better way to craft it. Thank you.
HON. MUSHORIWA: Hon. Chair, I really wish I would actually
be saying that I had the same confidence that the Hon. Minister is raising. From where I am standing I am not seeing anything that is happening. Specifically, I think this Clause that five or more than seven other persons appointed by the President, we should insert where it says, outside the RBZ and outside the Ministry of Finance. One of the problems that we face in this regard is that there are certain individuals who may not necessarily be under RBZ but may be spread to organisations or to areas which in a way are answerable to the RBZ.
The Hon. Minister talks of the global best practice but you will also appreciate Hon. Minister that where this one works well, the board of the Central Bank is not chaired by the Governor and that is where it works well. If the Minister is true and by the way Hon. Minister I am not aware and may be you could educate us on the current composition of the monetary policy where they are coming from. I will bet you that we want a clause here to simply say that the 5 or more than 7, what percentage of the 5 or more than 7 who are not coming out from the RBZ and the Ministry of Finance, because to me it is more or less one and the same.
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE): Hon. Mushoriwa must
actually sleep well. Out of the independent 5, none of them work for RBZ, neither are they under any institution that is supervised by RBZ which is typically a bank. In fact we will not allow anyone who actually sits on a bank as part of management or whatever to be part of the Monetary Policy Committee, that will be problematic. It means that they will be privy to information in the market, they will front run and do all manner of things. Again it is global best practice that we do not do that. We know the rules well. In the Ministry of Finance we do not have a Ministry of Finance official sitting in the MPC Committee at the moment. I thank you.
Clause 30 put and agreed to.
On Clause 31:
HON. MUSHORIWA: Thank you Hon. Chair. Hon. Minister,
this Clause is tricky. You recall that using Statutory Instrument, you have gone on to exempt other stakeholders from not using the Zimbabwe dollars as an inclusive transaction. The challenge that we face is if you look into the RBZ amendment which you have actually said you are now withdrawing. You notice that there are certain areas that have been excluded, areas like petrol or diesel dispensed to guests of State, diplomatic missions, gazetted regional international organisations, diplomats, members and staff of diplomatic organisations and international airline services.
Under this clause, that is not mentioned and we want this one to be covered here. There is something that is worse, currently as we are speaking the Simbisa group that owns Chicken Inn and company, they are allowed to charge forex, apparently they say that they are in the tourism sector so they can actually be allowed to charge in forex. Now that cannot be exclusive, we want a policy that governs everybody.
Why should we have Chicken Inn charging forex, what about Chicken Slice and Mushoriwa take aways, they are all in the same category. The way the Minister is actually putting it is actually creating a huge challenge. To that extent, I put it to the Minister to simply say that this clause does not tally with what he has already done using other Statutory Instrument. This clause is supposed to take over all those Statutory Instruments. I want him to clarify to us that those areas that he had actually said they will not be covered, what is going to happen to them.
HON. TSUNGA: Thank you Hon. Chair. To simplify what Hon.
Mushoriwa has said under Clause 31, I take it that the clause contradicts sever other clauses within the Bill and a good many of the clauses in the
Bill state that certain payments will have to be made in foreign currency.
There has also been debate about the presumption that if you do prove that you have paid in Zimbabwean dollars, it will be deemed that you received payment in US dollars and therefore will be taxed accordingly in foreign currency. Where this Clauses says the enforcement of the exclusive use of the Zimbabwean dollars for all domestic transactions. So this clause contradicts the whole essence of having the use of US dollars instances. I think there is need for refinement so that it is clear there is probably a proviso to qualify that clause. Otherwise one can stand in a court of law and say I may not pay the tax as demanded in US dollars because that clause states categorically that all transactions have to be in Zimbabwean dollars. So take care of that contradiction Hon. Minister, I thank you.
*HON. CHINOTIMBA: Thank you Chair. In other countries like
in South Africa and Namibia, whether it is a tourism sector or not they change their money at their banks and foreigners will go and pay in that country’s currency. I know we are short of foreign currency in this country, the Minister of Finance does not have access to all the foreign currency received from Chicken Inn and hotels et cetera. We have thieves in this country. I suggest we use our local currency because we noticed that the Simbisa Group is given that privilege but they are not truthful in their transactions on the question that they receive both RTGs and foreign currency. We need just to state that the proper thing that we must do is to use the same currency which is RTGS and not give license some to use foreign currency. In other countries they only use one currency. The Simbisa group should be relieved of that privilege.
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE): I am very pleased
over the spirit of the debate around the enthusiasm over the use of the Zimbabwe dollars and I really welcome that. Through the Chair, the call of Clause 31 is about the penalty that is what it is all about. It is focusing on the penalty and all we are trying to do is to give the Reserve Bank teeth so they it can impose penalty, enforce penalty on those who are violating the law, for those areas we expect them to use Zimbabwean dollars. Yes, it is true there are areas where we have made exemptions, the US dollar is being accepted and you pay your taxes in that currency of trade, that is also true. It is also true that we are going through a transition, you can be sure that all those areas where you see US dollars being used, with or without permission will be closed over time and they will be a complete switch to Zimbabwe dollars.
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe did not have teeth in the form of these civil penalties and enforcing them and that is why we spent a lot of time going through all those penalties and that is what Clause 31 is really about. I thank you.
*HON. CHINOTIMBA: Mr. Chairman, I agree that we should give more power to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe. I am giving you a background so that you understand where I am going to.
At the moment, we are facing challenges especially cash challenges regarding the coins that are not being accepted for some transactions. As far as I am concerned, we seem to be living in two worlds where we have the Ministry of Finance and Economic
Development through the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe issuing notes and coins. On the other hand, we have monetary street vendors who are also creating their own world of currencies and they really enforce their decisions like what you are saying where they are refusing to accept some coins and notes. The people who are doing this are from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe who are supposed to be policing the collection of monies from these street cash vendors. We are in financial challenges yet we have a lot of money in this country. We have a few people who are fueling these challenges. We want the Ministry to formulate stiffer rules and penalties in the control of finances in the country because people are suffering and being harassed. We are told that money has been put into the system but there is nothing.
I am still talking about the Simbisa Group of Chicken Inn because we are not getting any money from the transactions that come through that source. Unless if the Hon. Minister can state how much foreign currency he is receiving from the Simbisa Group who are the only ones allowed who are allowed to transact in foreign currency since they are a food outlet. At the moment, it is the same whether or not we have foreign currency or local currency – we still have challenges.
Currently, we have challenges in acquiring fuel. Why should we still be having that challenge when we have some retail outlets that are transacting in foreign currency? Something sinister is happening here and I know some people are into business. They collect a lot of money and at the end of the day, they have a lot of money that they would have collected. These people also indulge in money laundering and this is why I am saying let us create a law that will impose strict and stiffer penalties to those people who breach these financial laws.’
+HON. MAHLANGU: I totally agree with Chinotimba …
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: Order, order it is Hon.
Chinotimba!
+HON. MAHLANGU: Hon. Chinotimba and Hon. Minister, I dispute the fact that the Zimbabwe Dollar is in existence because I am yet to see it ever since it came into existence. I think that the USD$ is far much better than the Zimbabwe Dollar. Where is the Zimbabwean currency that you are saying is the currency that we have?
Like what Hon. Chinotimba said that you can only access if from the black market but cannot get it from the banks - yes, I heard that a new Zimbabwe Dollar was introduced but I am yet to see it. Why can we not allow everyone to use the United States Dollar, maybe it is a way to curb the black market? Why do you keep saying that we have a Zimbabwe dollar whilst we are not even seeing it in the formal sector? I thank you.
HON. CHIKWINYA: To share my point on Clause 31, Hon. Minister, I think that you are missing the point somehow. The point is that you have not managed to convince us as parliamentarians the benefits of partial liberalisation in terms of licensing or exemption towards the use of purely Zimbabwe dollars or – [HON. TOGAREPI: You should not say, convincing us parliamentarians. You should rather say ‘convincing me and not include all of us.’] – You have not convinced me as an Hon. Member.
I am saying so Hon. Chair, because what is the criterion that informs the Hon. Minister for him to be able to licence Chicken Inn and not Chikwinya Restaurant? That is one and what I am seeing is that the partial licencing of your Chicken Inns is actually creating that demand for the United States Dollar which is now being abused. The argument favoured by Hon. Chinotimba stands true, that in every other country that has got its sovereign currency tourists go to the Bureau de Change which you have established Hon. Minister and they change their foreign currency and buy in the local currency. It then creates uniformity in terms of exchange rates and exchange controls.
The moment we have other pockets of the community or the business community being able to trade in United States Dollars, we are creating that leverage and gap for the abuse of foreign currency. Right now Hon. Chair, I want to challenge the Hon. Minister – the market has completely dollarised, the market has dollarised. Today I bought fuel at an Engen garage in Kadoma – the garage owner does not want Ecocash or swipe and has rated the United States dollars. I think law enforcement agents – this owner was selling fuel in United States dollars last week. So I went there with my United States dollars intending to buy fuel and I think that the law enforcement agents paid him a visit and told him that it was unlawful.
What does he do? He has rated the United States dollars to the parallel market exchange rate, so it is 1:23 and selling a litre of diesel at twenty-three cents (USD$0.23). So what this guy is simply doing is taking the twenty-three Bond and goes into the black market to buy United States dollars. How does he buy these United States dollars? He has got Chicken Inn as a ready market because Chicken Inn now has other domestic debts to settle in terms of water, power and everything.
They will then take that United States dollars and sell to the fuel guy.
So you are now creating an opportunity for the exchange of between the Bond note and the United States dollars. My proposal is to support Hon. Members who have said that anyone who has their United States dollars and we get these from various sources – the diaspora and some are in the mining industry, let them go to the Bureau de Change or the bank and change at interbank rates and then go and buy. This will kill the parallel market rates.
Currently, the parallel market rate is being created by the high demand of foreign currency to businesses that have been allowed to sell in foreign currency. So I beg with you Hon. Minister that I am sure that this is the opportune time for you to consider this so that at least you protect the very few money that is available. If we are going to make that public pronouncement tomorrow that no one is allowed to sell in foreign currency, you are going to see the merging of the parallel market rate and the official exchange rate to a stabilised exchange rate which then determines the market going forward. This is my submission Hon.
Chair.
HON. MAYIHLOME: Maybe just to add a point here Mr. Chairman. The reality on the ground is that, imagine everyday you say that every Zimbabwean is allowed to withdraw ZWD$300.00 from the bank, where does the ZWD$300.00 go to at the end of the day?
Hon. Chairman, I think that we need to be very serious on this issue. Where does the $300 end up? Very little of it ends up in people’s pockets. It ends up in the shops and those shops convert it to US$ immediately. That is what is happening with our money. Nobody takes any cash to the bank because banks are not paying anything – they have got very negative interest rates. That is the reality. Banks are profiteering from bank charges. That is where they are making their money from. Where you have an economy where banks are profiteering from bank charges nobody will take the money to the bank. We need to be sober enough and be realistic on this issue and say we have to deal with the black market rate because it is affecting us as pensioners. We are pained everyday that we get our money and that money is transferred because people are using the US$ as a store of value. They are no longer using it for transactions but if you get your $300, convert it to US$ to keep the money – that is what the perceptions are out there.
HON. MUSHORIWA: This one is very crucial. I think the Hon.
Minister is not paying cognisant to what the Hon. Members are saying.
There is no country where you have got one law which applies favourably to Paul and then applies unfavourably to John. You cannot have such a law in a country.
We are very aware that this one relates to the question of punishing but how do you punish Peter when I am seeing that John is being allowed to go free. It does not make sense. The Minister has to make a decision. Are we going for exclusive Zimbabwean dollar or are we going back to the dollarisation or we are allowing both systems to run concurrently? There are a lot of policy inconsistencies.
Hon. Minister, you will recall that Chicken Inn and other companies that are selling in foreign currency did not start to sell in foreign currency. When it was gazetted that we were now going for the Zimbabwean dollar, everybody went to Zimbabwean dollar then one by one exemption were now ditched by the Hon. Minister and now having given all those exemptions, I then have to ask the reason why some of us tend to disagree to say is it real parallel market. Some of us prefer to call it people’s market because the majority of the people in Dzivarasekwa which I represent get their forex at what they call the parallel market. This is the reason why some of us will then say it is the people’s market. There are a very few people that are going to the interbank market.
This law tends to punish the majority of the people. I will give you a good example; we were being told by the Hon. Member that represents Victoria Falls that most of the companies that operate there charge in foreign currency. They also pay their workers in forex. It is not only Victoria Falls – quite a number of areas that are actually even in areas that are frequented by tourists are doing that.
This law is not relevant at this particular moment. The truth of the moment is very simple – the Hon. Minister must do an honourable thing. The honourable thing is to simply say – you cannot continue to be saying we are moving this direction when the whole country is moving the other direction. Otherwise all that we are doing here becomes irrelevant to people we purport to be representing or purport to be leading.
HON. TOGAREPI: I hear what Hon. Members are saying on this issue and I really sympathise. When we talk about the challenges that we face in the usage of different currencies but I think we are widening the discussion, it is no longer on this clause. The issue of using foreign currency in any country – the hospitality industry and many other industries; what is needed is control. What we should be mourning as Members of Parliament is – does the Minister have enough controls to protect the use of that money when it gets to Chicken Inn? The issue if I understood very well what the Minister is saying, is when you then charge offenders on this use of foreign currency and how they are going to be penalised. What people are now talking about is that – agreed; people are suffering because of the use of foreign currency but is it the issue in relation to the clause? If it is not, let us debate it on another day.
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: Togarepi has put it very well. The debate has been widened - [HON. HAMAUSWA: It is Hon. Togarepi and not Togarepi.] – Hon. Togarepi, our Chief Whip has argued very well. I was also listening to the debate and I could feel it widening.
People were raising very valid concerns but they are not part of this clause. This clause is narrowly about civil penalties. That is all we are doing.
I understood what Hon. Chinotimba was talking about which is boots on the ground. Again, that is an additional enforcement mechanism which the Reserve Bank after having given all these powers must get boots on the ground. I agree with that. There are many other ways again for enforcement. You could come up with a bouquet of enforcement mechanisms but all we are requesting is very clean and narrow. It is about civil penalties.
Clause 31 put and agreed to.
On Clause 32:
HON. MUSHORIWA: I am standing to debate.
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON (HON. KHUMALO):
There is no debate....
HON. MUSHORIWA: There is a challenge because Clause 32
does not exist.
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: What do you want to
debate on since the Clause is not there?
HON. MUSHORIWA: I want to point out something that you should actually see – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: You are failing to
debate.
HON. MUSHORIWA: No, no. The Hon. Minister is there – I want him to listen to what I am saying so that he will be in a position to debate – [AN HON. MEMBER: You are just flipping the papers and you have nothing to say] –
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: Go to page 24 please.
HON. TOGAREPI: On a point of order. I think we are dealing with this Bill on a serious note. So, Hon. Members should have gone through the Bill and get areas they would want to debate. However, if somebody says there is no 32 and yet he wants to debate 32, I think he is wasting our time.
HON. MUSHORIWA: Hon. Chair, there is no valid reason for this august House to backdate the validation of Statutory Instrument 295 of 2019 to 20 September. I think it is wrong and the Hon. Minister, just like we are saying; one of the major challenges we are facing as a country is we cannot have a country that is run by statutory instruments. Whenever we bring a Finance Bill, all the provisions that were contained in a Statutory Instrument should actually be put into the Bill and then they start with immediate effect. We are seeing a push by the Hon. Minister that he wants to leave room to maneuver outside the purview of this House, working through statutory instrument. Business is complaining about such behaviour.
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: Thank you. Hon. Chair, I think Hon.
Mushoriwa has been very participative this evening, very busy indeed.
Clause 32, regarding SI 295; what happened is, in the Finance Bill No.
2, 2019, the top rate in terms of income tax was reduced from 45 to
40%. However, when the Bill was typed and all that, there was actually an error, the rate was still maintained at 45%, it should have been dropped to 40%. So we had now issued this SI295 to correct that. However, because Statutory Instrument cannot amend and Act; what we are doing now is actually effectively reducing that top rate from 45 to 40% but we are doing it via confirming the Statutory Instrument. That is all we are doing; actually this is to clean up an error in the previous Finance Bill. There is nothing amiss about running the country through statutory instruments, which is a little bit overstated. That is all we are trying to do Chair, I thank you.
Clause 33 put and agreed to.
On Schedule Section 31:
HON. MUSHORIWA: That was my point Chair, when
everybody thought I was sleeping. Chair, part of the reason why some of us strongly feel that the Hon. Minister is abusing this House by bringing this; this is the reason why we wanted a proper RBZ
Amendment Act. If you read the schedule, in my view, there was need for the Parliamentary Committee so that it is subjected to the Parliamentary Committee. We are creating the RBZ, giving it some judicial powers. In my view, it is difficult as it stands right now for people to properly ventilate because we wanted stakeholders to also contribute and tell us what their views will be pertaining to all these civil penalties.
Whenever you bring such a Bill with all these penalties Mr. Chair, I actually believe that these amendments are the ones which require consultations with various stakeholders. I think what we are being driven into by the Hon. Minister is to try to cut the work of Parliament. There is no reason and no justification for this issue to come under the Finance Bill. It is my view that Hon. Minister, if possible, this one was supposed to be removed from the Finance Bill. I believe that the Parliamentary Committee on Finance and Budget should be given time to go through it.
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: I think Hon. Mushoriwa, I appreciate his energy this afternoon and evening but you are mixing up things. The Schedule here is an Income Tax Schedule, it is not an RBZ issue.
HON. CHIKWINYA: Hon. Chair, as we passed the 2019 Budget in November of 2018 – I am saying this because I can see that the Minister is about wind up.
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: Order please, has it to do with…
HON. CHIKWINYA: Yes, it has to do with the Finance Bill.
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: We are doing the
Schedule, does it have anything to do with the schedule.
HON. CHIKWINYA: No, it has to do with the Bill but…
THE CHAIRPERSON: Order please, we are not doing that.
HON. MUSHORIWA: I wanted to say to the Minister, have you gone through the Schedule? If the Hon. Minister has gone through the Schedule, he would understand my rationale. Starting from page 18, power of the Reserve Bank to issue civil…
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: Order Hon. Mushoriwa.
Schedule Section 31 put and agreed to.
On Clause 21:
THE HON. MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE): I wanted to really find
out what this was about. It actually turns out to be a benefit to tax payers Hon. Chair. What happened was that, we are here trying to deal with cases where if you use a piece of machinery to produce a product and this product is zero-rated and we change the tax on it, that machinery is deemed to be taxable and so on. We want to make sure that the supplier/producer is not unfairly treated and ZIMRA should stay far away from taxing the owner of that piece of machinery. That is all there is to it. We want to make sure ZIMRA does not go back and demand taxes from those who own machinery, whose products are now zero rated. That is all we are trying to do. This is actually a benefit to tax payers rather than a cost. I thank you.
HON. MUSHORIWA: Hon. Chair, I think the clarification is not clear. When you say the owner of the machinery, whom do you mean? If the machinery has been imported, are we saying that ZIMRA is going to look positively to the imported machinery or you are talking of the owners of machinery that is locally manufactured that is producing zero rated products?
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: This is about the taxation of machinery that is deemed to have been disposed, because its product is now zero rated. We are saying if the product has now been zero rated, in other words, we are the ones who have changed the tax rates and zero rated a product. The machinery used to produce it and is deemed to have been sold, ZIMRA should not go after owners of the machinery and demand Capital Gains Tax, sales tax or whatever. They should leave them alone. That is all we are saying, so it is actually benefitting the economy rather than punishing it. It is very clear. Thank you.
HON. CHIKWINYA: Thank you. My point of clarification Hon.
Chair is that when we were discussing the 2019 Budget, in November
2018, we inserted a clause that had to deal with the gratuity of an Hon. Member of Parliament who would have served one term and there was a formula which the Minister had stated. The Hon. Minister gave feedback to the Standing Rules and Orders Committee that the formula did not produce a figure that would sustain a meaningful gratuity and secondly that it was not backed by law.
I am raising this point of clarity at this stage because I am not seeing that particular law being made as we debate the Finance Bill. How does the Hon. Minister intend to deal with that particular section of the 2019 Budget, which has not been carried over into the 2020 Budget?
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: Hon. Member, this is
Committee Stage. That issue should have come at Second Reading. You missed it, otherwise it cannot be captured in this Bill.
HON. MUTSEYAMI: Thank you. Mr. Chair, with all respect,
this has nothing to do with political machinations. This is purely to do with the welfare of Members of Parliament. This thing was discussed at a higher level in the Committee of… - [AN HON. MEMBER: Inaudible interjections.] – This benefits even you Hon. Chinotimba. Give me a chance. Mr. Chair, this thing is important. You will realise it when you are home. We agreed as a Committee on Standing Rules that we have first time Members of Parliament and their allocation of gratuity does not put value to the five years that they were in Parliament. There was supposed to be a legal instrument which addresses buds that so that Parliamentarians who happen to fail the next primary election will be able to get their gratuity which is useful and reasonable. There is need for this amendment to include that clause which is supposed to cater for the first time gratuity of a Member of Parliament who finishes one term. It is time that we have to include that. This is the opportunity that we must include that and with the intelligence of our Leader of the House, that can be done now and get approval from Members of Parliament.
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: Hon. Member, I heard
you.
HON. MUTSEYAMI: Mr. Chair, you can argue from an
academic point of view. This is for the future of Parliament. It is to do with this amendment and that room is there.
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: Thank you Hon. Chair. What
Members of Parliament are raising pertains to benefits of Members; it has nothing to do with tax obligations. This clause is about tax obligations arising from the use of machinery for production and you change that use. That is what this clause is about. We are saying that we do not wish for ZIMRA to go back to deal – [AN. HON. MEMBER:
This is a new clause.] –
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Hon. Chair,
with all due respect, if they had brought that as an amendment because this Bill was already – [AN HON. MEMBER: Inaudible interjections.]
– No, no, no. We cannot do it now, we have already finished everything. We can do it later and see how it can be accommodated but for now Hon. Chair can we proceed. We are not disagreeing that it is a matter than needs to be looked into but surely if this matter has been brought earlier and put on the Order Paper we could have dealt with it as it arose. Now, I suggest that we proceed and we will deal with it.
The Minister is amenable to dealing with it and we are all in agreement.
I thank you.
House resumed.
The Bill reported without amendments.
Third reading: With leave, forthwith.
THIRD READING
FINANCE (NO.3) BILL [H. B. 21, 2019]
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE): I move that the Bill be
read the third time.
Motion put and agreed to.
Bill read the third time.
SECOND READING
APPROPRIATION (2020) BILL [H. B. 22, 2019]
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE): I move that the Bill be
read a second time.
Motion put and agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Third Reading: With leave, forthwith.
THIRD READING
APPROPRIATION (2020) BILL [H. B. 22, 2019]
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE): I move that the Bill be
read the third time.
Motion put and agreed to.
Bill read the third time.
On the motion of THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI), the House
adjourned at Twenty-Nine Minutes past Seven o’clock p.m.
PARLIAMENT OF ZIMBABWE
Thursday, 12th December, 2019
The National Assembly met at a Quarter-past Two O’clock p.m.
PRAYERS
(THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER in the Chair)
MOTION
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you
Madam Speaker. I move that Order of the Day, Number 1 be stood over until Order of the Day; Number 2 has been disposed of.
Motion put and agreed to.
RECOMMITTAL TO COMMITTEE STAGE
MONEY LAUNDERING AND PROCEEDS OF CRIME
AMENDMENT BILL [H. B. 4B, 2019]
Second Order read: Recommittal to Committee Stage: Money
Laundering and Proceeds of Crime Amendment Bill [H. B. 4B, 2019] House in Committee.
On Clause 2:
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): The Senate
considered the Money Laundering and Proceeds of Crime Amendment
Bill and on Clause…
HON. MUSHORIWA: On a point of order Madam Speaker.
My point of order arises on the basis that most Members in this august House have been told to check out of their hotels and they have to travel to their constituencies. As a result, it will be unfair to continue with the business of the House today; because it is not their desire or choice not to participate in Parliamentary business, but it is as a result of circumstances beyond their control. In actual fact Madam Speaker, some of them have literally been evicted from the hotels. So for that reason and for the sake of the people that sent them to this august House, I think it is only proper that this House be adjourned until everybody is prepared to come to this august House – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear,
hear.] –
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Hon. Mushoriwa, I
have heard your point of order. We are consulting; we will get back to you.
Business was suspended at Twenty Minutes to Three o’clock p.m.
and resumed at Ten Minutes to Three o’clock p.m.
SECOND READING
FINANCE (NO. 3) BILL [H. B. 21, 2019]
First Order read: Adjourned debate on motion on the Second
Reading of the Finance (No. 3) Bill [H. B. 21, 2019].
Question again proposed.
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE): I move that the
debate do now adjourn.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Tuesday, 17th December, 2019.
ANNOUNCEMENT BY THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER
NON-ADVERSE REPORT RECEIVED FROM THE
PARLIAMENTARY LEGAL COMMITTEE
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: I have to inform the House that I have received a Non-Adverse Report from the Parliament Legal Committee on the Appropriation (2020) Bill [H. B. 22, 2019].
Second Reading: Tuesday, 17th December, 2019.
On the motion of THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS, the House adjourned at a Minute past
Three o’clock p.m. until Tuesday, 17th December, 2019.
PARLIAMENT OF ZIMBABWE
Wednesday, 11th December, 2019
The National Assembly met at a Quarter-past Two O’clock p.m.
PRAYERS
(THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER in the Chair)
+HON. MATHE: Thank you Madam Speaker. My point of
privilege is, I would like to implore the House and request your powers that this House as the representative of people from various constituencies should thank God for the rains that are being received almost all over the country. We are happy and grateful to the Lord. We therefore request this House to give the prominence this week to thank the Lord for the rains. I thank you.
HON. T. MLISWA: Madam Speaker let me bring to your
attention a report which was in the social media on Hon. Raidza’s behaviour in terms of disrupting a prize giving day at a school because he believes that he must be present at every prize giving day in his constituency. I think we also had a similar case of Hon. Musikavanhu.
With due respect, we are Members of Parliament and we work with everyone. I think we cannot interfere with the education sector which is quite sensitive. I think we must respect the civil servants who are working tirelessly for this country. As Members of Parliament we must be seen to be complimenting them rather than causing havoc. As a result, I would like you Madam Speaker to investigate that matter. If so, you need to really give a stern warning to all Members of Parliament because you cannot be political. We are political when we are campaigning and after that we work with everybody in the constituency.
Secondly, I want to support Hon Mathe’s point of the rains which have been great but there are no inputs. I would like the Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement to immediately come and give us how much has been distributed so far in terms of inputs. The Command Agriculture is there but to date people have still not gotten inputs. While the rains have been good, the inputs have not been distributed on time, which has been a major point that we have been talking about. The good Lord blesses us with rains and at the same time there are no inputs. When is the Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement going to give us a statement of the inputs which have been distributed this year?
By now everybody must be having inputs if you are a farmer. Beyond that you can no longer be a farmer. You cannot produce anything. We must take advantage of these rains but people have no inputs. It is important as a matter of urgency that the Minister of Agriculture comes here because even the budget that we are debating has a lot to do with production. If production is not there as a result of inputs, we will still be in the same situation. I implore you Madam
Speaker to look into those two areas on behalf of this nation.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: On the issue of Hon Raidza, I
think we all now know that social media is not something which we can trust but I will make some investigations.
On the issue of agricultural inputs, yes that is very important so we will ask the Minister to give us a detailed report on what has taken place on the distribution of inputs. I thank you.
HON. MASANGO: I rise on a point of privilege. We are all aware that doctors have been on strike for the past three months. During this period, many lives have been lost due to lack of medical attention. His Excellency, President E. D. Mnangagwa being the listening President that he is, offered the doctors a 48 hours moratorium for them to go back to work with no questions asked. I would like to commend the 42 doctors who heeded this call and reported for duty. As of yesterday, the figure of doctors returning back to work had risen to 80. They have shown that they have people’s lives at heart.
My prayer and plea now Madam Speaker, is for the remaining doctors to return to work. His Excellency has promised continued dialogue with those who are at work. His Excellency being a listening leader, the doctors’ grievances are being heard and will be met. I thank you.
*HON. MADZIMURE: If you look at written questions that are asked by Hon Members, they are usually questions that are received from constituencies. Therefore, those questions are usually specific and need responses so that they take back the responses to their constituencies. Ministers do not normally come to this House maybe because they are tied up but Ministers are collectively or individually responsible to respond on behalf of Government. Is it therefore possible that before we end next week all the Ministers should submit responses or respond to all the questions that appear on the Order Paper so that Hon Members can be able to take back the responses to their constituencies?
*THE HON DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you Hon Madzimure.
Your question is very important; we will forward your request to Cabinet Ministers and we will make sure that all the questions are responded to.
*HON MLAMBO: I would like to bring to the attention of this
House the issue of lack of money to be distributed to the poor especially in Chipinge East. People used to receive funds from the social welfare to buy food but for the past three months they have not received that money. When we asked we were told that the RBZ has not been able to print money to disburse to social welfare. Now cash is available and people were stopped from using the US dollar – the World Food Programme is saying it has enough funds to give people but the RBZ does not have the local currency to distribute to the people. I hereby request that the RBZ should speed up the process of printing out money.
*THE HON DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you very much Hon.
Member. We will ensure that your request is forwarded to the authorities so that it can quickly be attended to.
HON. T. MOYO: I rise on a point of privilege pertaining to political developments obtaining in Malawi. The Leader of the Opposition in Malawi, Mr. Lazarus Chakwera had this to say regarding the Constitutional Court verdict on the outcome of the presidential elections. Here is what he said on 7 December 2019 - he said, “I know this has been a historic case. My message here is that let us respect the judiciary. We believe in justice, we believe in peace, we believe in foundations that can truly make a nation great. We must respect what the judges decide”.
If we had to superimpose with what was happening in Zimbabwe, we saw the judiciary not being respected. When the Speaker of the
National Assembly was sworn in, the Chief Justice was heckled by Members of the opposition. So they should learn to respect the Constitution and the judiciary. This is a message to the opposition to respect what is right and to have respect for the rule of law.
HON. T. MLISWA: He is lost. The President is in control. It is only him who is doubting –[HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible
interjections.]-
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, order Hon. Mliswa!
Thank you Hon. Moyo, your point of privilege has been noted.
COMMITTEE OF SUPPLY
MAIN ESTIMATES OF EXPENDITURE
First Order read: Committee of Supply: Main Estimates of Expenditure.
House in Committee.
On Vote 5 – Finance and Economic Development –
ZWL$3,987,047,000;
HON. MATEWU: Thank you Hon. Chair. My contribution to Vote 5, which is the Finance and Economic Development, is very simple. Whereas I understand the importance of gender awareness and also the importance of gender mainstreaming interventions, I fail to understand why the money has been given to the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development. Gender mainstreaming in terms of policy development should be the prerogative of every Ministry. So my proposal to the Minister is simple; transfer the ZWL$22.5million that you have given to your Ministry to the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprises to ensure that they do the central coordination in all Ministries as far as gender mainstreaming is concerned. It is a very important issue and I agree with the money that has been given, the ZWL$22.5million but I implore the Minister to remove this money and put it to the appropriate Ministry so that the Ministry responsible for women can be the one that actually policies and trains all other Ministries as far as gender policy is concerned. Thank you.
HON. MUSHORIWA: Thank you Hon. Chair. I rise to submit my contribution in terms of Vote 5, which is the Finance and Economic Development. Hon. Chair, I need the Hon. Minister to clarify this vote.
In reading through this vote, there are certain key issues that are missing. I want the Hon. Minister to tell us where the ZIMRA fund or provision is under and also the ZIMSTATS. Apparently, when I look into the Blue Book and the way it is actually done, it appears as if the funds have been consolidated under different headings. The reason why I say this Hon. Chair is to simply raise the issue that ZIMRA needs to be capacitated if this Government is going to be in a position to generate...
Hon. P.D. Sibanda having stood in front of the Minister.
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON (HON. M.
KHUMALO): Order Hon. Sibanda, the Minister must hear what the Hon. Member is saying. Can you go and sit down. Please do not interrupt the proceedings. Hon. Member you may continue.
HON. MUSHORIWA: My point is on ZIMRA. One of the
challenges that we are facing as a nation is actually to do with revenue generation. You find that in terms of capacitation, in spite of the fact that ZIMRA is the agency that brings revenue to the Government, you realise that in terms of capacitation for ZIMRA, it is lacking. Even the amounts of funds that are being given to ZIMRA are so little. If you go where the officers stay along the borders, this is the reason why you find that our borders are porous and there is a lot of corruption. Why is it so? It is primarily because we are pretending and we are turning a blind eye when it comes to the remuneration of the people that work at ZIMRA. We are also turning a blind eye in terms of the infrastructure; basic things like accommodation.
The second aspect Hon. Chair which I thought is important is to do with ZIMSTATS. One of the major challenges that we have faced as a country as the Hon. Minister in his budget presentation told us is that he has now stopped the publishing of annual inflation. The reason that the Hon. Minister raised is not sufficient and one of the major challenges that we then face is that ZIMSTATS which is supposed to produce statistics for this nation is also incapacitated. If you go there, most of
the information that they are getting, they are actually doing desktop analysis. They do not even have vehicles. They have nothing to use. It is even worse as we now prepare to go to the census. The Hon. Minister speaks in his budget that they have poured in funds to ZIMSTAT but we are not seeing it in the Blue Book and I want the Hon. Minister to help
Lastly Mr. Chair is the issue to do with the accounting system of Government. You recall that the Government has said that they are now going IPSAS, which we believe is actually a noble idea and a step in the right direction, but what we do not find in the Blue Book are the things that we have been told by the Accountant General in terms of the steps and processes that the Treasury was going to take towards the implementation of IPSAS, is not covered within the Blue Book. We do not see sufficient resources that have been allocated towards that.
If we do not do that Mr. Chair, you will find that most of our books of accounts will continue to be in a shambolic state. This is the reason why even when it comes to the debt amount, we do not know it because the accounting system that we are using – the cash basis does not really do us justice and want the Hon. Minister to advise us and this House whether the Government is serious in terms of movement towards
IPSAS. I thank you.
HON. CHIKWINYA: Thank you Hon. Chair of the Committee of
Supply. Allow me to indulge the Ministry on and unfortunately, the Blue
Book is not paginated but it is basically the first page where it reads
“Key Results Areas”. If I may refer the Minister to Key Result Areas under his Ministry, the very first page of Vote 5. Hon. Chair, one of the key result areas is resource mobilisation. Now, the Transitional Stabilisation Programme (TSP) introduced a 2% tax whose justification was that it was money which was going to be channelled towards tangible projects in our constituencies. As he introduced the 2% tax, the Hon. Minister of Finance spoke about this money going towards social services, clinics and classrooms in the education sector. We are not seeing anything in the 2020 Budget where the Minister reports back to Parliament that this is how much he got from the 2% tax and of that these are the tangible projects which came about out of the 2% tax in our constituencies.
As Members of Parliament, we have moved motions and questions one after another calling for the Hon. Minister to respond to specific items and issues in our constituencies, some of which speak to developmental issues in terms of infrastructure. We are not seeing funds being allocated in this Budget which respond to those questions and motions. It is my belief Hon. Chair that as we move along the year, the
Minister of Finance should be capturing the issues that are being raised.
I will give you an example, in the 2019 Budget as presented in
November 2018, there was US$$2,4 million allocated to Kwekwe City Council towards sewer and water reticulation, none of that amount came by.
So, these are the issues which we will be tracking as Members of Parliament. I am sure various Members of Parliament have got their individual project items in their constituencies which were allocated money but the councillors and the community leadership tell us that whilst this money appears in the Blue Book, it has not been disbursed from the Ministry of Finance. I am not seeing again such a formula coming about in this Blue Book to say because we had given money towards Kwekwe City Council in 2019 and we had not disbursed, therefore we are giving this much again in 2020 because the problem is still there which requires a solution which had been identified before in 2018.
Hon. Chair, there are various road networks in our constituencies which had been allocated money but these road networks remain exposed. They are in fact becoming worse because of the continuous rains and more volumes of traffic. These roads are not being funded and when I look at the Blue Book, I must be able to speak to our constituencies to say this road network has been allocated this amount of funding in this year’s Budget.
Under Key Result Areas Hon. Chair, the Hon. Minister of Finance one of his priority areas is efficient – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections] –
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: Hon. Tsvangirayi and
Hon. T. Zhou, please can you stop what you are doing there.
HON. CHIKWINYA: One of the issues is Public Debt Management under his own Key Result Areas and I am speaking towards his own Key Result Areas as set out in the Blue Book. The country continues to sink in the doldrums of public debt by failure to service both internal and external debt. I want the Hon. Minister of Finance to point to us as Parliament that for this year in 2020, this is how much I am going to give towards external and internal debt. This is how much I gave in 2019 and therefore, you can consolidate the same so that at least we do not continue to mortgage generations who are to come.
I am also perturbed Hon. Chair that the Minister of Finance continues to borrow without Parliament approval as enshrined in our Constitution. As we speak, he has got a pending Bill for condonation of debts which were accrued in 2015. I thought before we discuss this Budget, he was supposed to be honourable enough to come and seek condonation but we are now discussing another budget before we have even condoned other debts which have been accrued as far back as 2015.
I thought this is one of his key priority areas as enshrined in his own Blue Book.
Hon. Chair, I will go over to the last point which is basically production of quality statistics in time. After the presentation of the 2020 Budget Statement, the Chinese Embassy and the American Embassy gave contradicting statements which are at variance from what the Minister of Finance gave. This goes to core of our funding models because we are a nation which continues to beg other developed nations in terms of funding and our budget is supported by other nations who are friends to us, the Chinese for example.
So the moment we give contradicting figures from those institutions and embassies, it means everyone else will begin to fold their hands and wait for us to be able to produce accurate results. It is one of his key result areas, the Minister of Finance, to be able to produce quality statistics on time. If he is lying to the Chinese or the Americans who are the superpowers of this world, what will the Swedish, Finnish and South Africans do? These are our neighbours who hold us to account. So if the Hon. Minister cannot be accountable to such big financing institutions, I am sure all these other donors who are around the country have their figures being distorted, more-so for political expedience ahead of anything else. Therefore, I implore the Hon. Minister to be able to respect these four key issues before we even pass
Vote number 5. Thank you.
HON. MADZIMURE: My first issue with the Minister with regards to the issue of IPSAS, which is a new accounting system. Hon. Chair is the reason why we should make sure that particular programme to implement the new system is well funded. It must be well funded because that is the only way we can improve on our accountability. The problems we are experiencing right now and what we are seeing, the variance in figures that are coming out is all because of the system that we are using. We must move away from a system where there is a lot of face to face interaction as far as accounting is concerned. We must move towards a system where there is very minimum human intervention in our accounting system. I think that is very important. Apart from that, the general accounting system of Government must move away from these piles and piles of papers. We must move away from the paper system and introduce electronic computerised system, a system that uses more of computer systems – [HON. MEMBERS:
Inaudible interjections.] –
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: Order please. Hon.
Member there and the Chief Whip, please if you have serious discussions can you go out all of you. You are disturbing, we are not hearing. Can you continue?
HON. MADZIMURE: My next point Mr. Chairman is the issue
of the production of statistics. It is important to produce statistics because it is the only way that you can use to measure economic performance and also take the appropriate action at the appropriate time. As a result, ZIMSTATS must be well funded but I am trying to find in the Blue Book where ZIMSTATS is funded and I cannot see it. Can the Minister elaborate on that or indicate to us where ZIMSTATS is. The same applies to ZIMRA. The continued collection of the transitional tax of 2%, it is important that the Minister also reports to this House because we have always talked about ring fencing of that 2%. I thought 2% was going to fund specific projects and programmes and the Minister would come to this House twice or quarterly to report to the House that the 2% that I said should be charged, these are the results. We are all aware that our Budget has always been biased towards consumption, leaving very little money for capital projects. Then the Minister convinced the House even though grudgingly so, to charge the 2% and the people are grudgingly paying. What the Minister can do to the people that we represent out there is to at least come to this House and say the 2% which we ring fenced for the health sector, this is what we did. We built so many hospitals, we have imported so much surgical equipment and these are the benefits. If we move from a system where we just spend and concentrate on programmes and projects, the people will understand the need for the Government to collect any taxes.
Lastly Mr. Chairman, the issue of overspending by the Ministry of Finance must come to a stop. The issue of using the Reserve Bank to issue Treasury Bills which sometimes cannot be reconciled, that must stop. Thank you Mr. Chairman.
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE): Thank you Mr.
Chairman. Let me begin by thanking Hon. Members for the very good questions indeed regarding various issues under the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development Budget. The first one pertains to gender mainstreaming. Gender mainstreaming applies to every ministry including the Office of the President and Cabinet. You will notice that every ministry has an issue around gender mainstreaming. We take this very seriously and we have to allocate a budget for it and for the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development it is $22.5 million. We think this is needed. It is necessary. We also want to make sure that within the Ministry, there is sufficient attention to the issue. It is a very important issue. We cannot have a zero budget. In fact, if we had a zero budget, you would be asking me where the budget for gender mainstreaming is. So we have put it in there, $22.5 million. Remember colleagues, the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development is your purse. This is where everyone draws from if they are short of money. Even if there seems to be a lot of money here and there, do not worry about that, we know who will come running for more money. Please allow us to have these resources even though we do not end up using them for specific areas but for gender mainstreaming, it is a very important issue. We should budget for it under the Ministry. I think you should be asking me where the budget is if I had not budgeted for it.
I think this is Hon. Mushoriwa, regarding the ZIMRA funds and the ZIMSTATS funds. This is sitting in the core Ministry of Finance budget. I will tell you exactly what it is. For ZIMRA, the Budget is $1.306 billion, for ZIMSTATS, the Budget is $186 million. For ZIMRA recurrent expenditure it is $672 million for capital, it is $634.5 million, the remainder and the total is $1306.5 billion. For ZIMSTATS, it is $186 million and for the census we have a budget of US$85 million. It is not in our budget, we are going to raise this outside the budget. I wanted to make sure you know just in case you are worrying about where are they going to get the resources for the census. We are going to raise this from outside and we are making a lot of progress in that direction. We are well supported when it comes to the census. On the census by the way, Treasury has already allocated $45 million this year 2019 Budget not even 2020, for the purchase of motor vehicles, iPads and motorbikes to prepare for the census. We are adequately funded.
Let me move on to the issue of IPSAS which was raised by Hon.
Madzimure. It is a very important issue indeed, then I will come to Hon.
Chikwinya’s comments. On IPSAS, on this Budget, this is our first stage in the transition towards IPSAS, towards full accrual accounting. This results based managed approach is also part of that. So the results based management approach or programmed based saw each programme well itemised under each Vote and a Budget has been attached to it. Secondly, again on that Table 1, if you notice before, I gave an example when I responded two days ago that before the cost of issuing Treasury Bills used it is called the acquisition of financial assets. Under IPSAS, that is a good example as to how this movement or migration towards IPSAS is being performed. It will require a full creation of registers. So far now, we have done very well in terms of getting every Ministry to create an asset register. Those assets will be properly valued because you need the values of those assets to have a full balance sheet under IPSAS. Our expectation is that the full migration will take another three years. By year 2024, 2025, we should have moved completely towards IPSAS. I thank you for those questions.
Coming back to Hon. Chikwinya and Hon. Madzimure, you asked about the 2% tax. Thanks for this question. This tax is very important and it has been very helpful. I think we do owe citizens an explanation as to how we are using the funds. I agree with you but what we have been doing so far, every time ZIMRA publishes the revenue figures, they mention how much has been collected month by month and for the quarter, very explicitly on the 2% tax. I would be able to report back the next time I am here on how much we have collected – I am happy to do that. Again, I will be happy to be telling you exactly which projects have received these resources. They have been very helpful and we must thank citizens. I argued in the Budget Statement that in recognition of the impact of the 2% tax, we must also give relief to citizens elsewhere.
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: Order, order! Hon.
Minister, whilst you are answering the questions from the Hon. Members, please may you respond through the Chair here, do not respond directly to them.
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: Thank you Hon. Chair. So, I will come back to the House and give an explanation as to which projects have benefited from the 2% tax. A lot of projects have benefited including those under the Cyclone Idai – roads, health sector and the education sector projects.
So I was explaining that we were giving relief to citizens; we dropped the VAT by half percent and then corporate tax by 1% to give relief to corporates and citizens in recognition of their contribution already through the 2% tax.
A question was asked by Hon. Chikwinya regarding projects out there in the constituencies that are being supported through the budget but I must say that these projects also overlap with those that are financed through the devolution resources. So the devolution resources are resources under Local Government - the PSIP, those three pots of resources impact on the projects and constituency level. That is where the information sits. If one will be able to pull out these PSIP projects and show them, I could pull out for example the infrastructure plan for
2019 and the infrastructure plan for 2020. The infrastructure plan for
2020, I am happy to share this with Members…
HON. MUSHORIWA: On a point of order! We are hardly
hearing what the Hon. Minister is saying. I am not so sure whether it is the mic or it is the general noise in the House.
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: I am also having
problems in hearing what the Minister is saying because of the noise that is coming from Members. So can we all keep quiet?
HON. T. MLISWA: Just to help you Hon. Chair. Unless these Members are so brilliant that they cannot refer to this book; for you to know where the noise is coming from, ask how many have got the Blue Book. Unless they are so brilliant that they do not need it then they really do not deserve to be here; they need to be scientists at Harvard. How are they following the debate, they do not have Blue Books, they are just talking. I thought I should help you.
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: Hon. Members, those
who do not have the Blue Book, can you use the Appropriation Bill, it has a lot of information and it is in your pigeon holes.
HON. CHIKWINYA: On the issue of Blue Books, when we went
for the half day workshop at Meikles Hotel, we were given Blue Books, it is sad to note that there are only 2019 Blue Books. Only one or two have the 2020 Blue Books but the majority of the people around here have 2019 Blue Books. So I am not sure where the mistake is unless you can show us where to find the 2020 Blue Books.
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: Thank you Hon. Chair. The Blue
Books were distributed; I do not understand why the Hon. Member did not receive the book pertaining to the 2020 budget. However, if I could press on; there are three pots of resources that are financing projects out there in the constituencies. It is through the Local Government pot, the devolution resources and the PSIP programme, and sometimes always overlaps. So we know exactly where the resources are coming from and I am happy to share information on the various projects out there. I just mentioned that we have got the infrastructure plan for 2020 and one for 2019, with a list of the infrastructure projects that we are supporting constituency by constituency.
On the issue of debt flaws; again, these are very clear from the book. There is no issue of wanton issuance of debt, and you have seen what we have done on the domestic fund. We have had a controlled Treasury bill auction system and we are very pleased with the progress so far. The yields have been within expected levels and we are slowly building the yield curve. As Government, we have stopped having recourse to the Central Bank window, the Reserve Bank window as we promised and converted the previous exposure 2019 and previously of about three billion into long term debt instruments.
On the foreign front, the interesting thing is that if you do not service your external debt no one out there wants to lend you a lot of money anyway. So it is not as if we can go out and borrow a lot of money from the outside world with our kind of credit position – we cannot in the first place. So borrowings have been very controlled in terms of external debt and we are beginning to service our external debt with the European Investment bank, the Afro-Exim Bank, the World Bank and BADEA. We are very clear with the debts that we owe and how to manage those debts. We have a well functioning debt management department, one of the best in Africa. They know what they are doing, there are very good staff, there is a very good leader and Members of the House, I think should sleep well when it comes to debt management. I thank you.
HON. GONESE: Thank you very much Hon. Chair. I was
listening very attentively to the response by the Hon. Minister and I think he has not done justice to the first issue which was raised by Hon.
Matewu. It appears that the Hon. Minister may have misunderstood the import of his contribution because from the Minister’s response, he was giving the impression that the issue was not about zero budgeting in respect of gender mainstreaming. The issue and the point raised by Hon. Matewu was to the effect that when we look at the issue of gender main streaming, it is something which is very important and I think we agree with the Hon. Minister. However, his proposal was that this Vote and this amount be transferred. We all know that we have been talking about gender mainstreaming because women and girls have always been marginalised and so on. So for that important aspect to be appropriately dealt with, the proposal by Hon. Matewu was that this should be transferred to the Women’s Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Ministry. That was his suggestion and the Hon. Minister did not adequately respond to that suggestion that it be transferred and not that it should not be budgetted for. What the Hon. Minister was responding to was to the effect that perhaps the question was why that amount had been allocated or provided for whereas in fact the issue was - why should it not be properly monitored under the
Ministry which is responsible for Women’s Affairs? I think if the Hon.
Minister can address and apply his mind to that suggestion and respond accordingly.
HON. MUSHORIWA: I just wanted a point of clarification from the Hon. Minister. I got your response in terms of ZIMRA and ZIMSTAT but could you advise us as a House where there is a sudden change that ZIMRA is not stated on its own and ZIMSTAT is not stated on its own in the Blue Book. I say this because in terms of accounting purposes, when we want to call ZIMRA or we want to call ZIMSTAT, we need to be asking them how they are performing vis-à-vis their budgets. We just want you to explain and tell us why you have now decided to just lump them under the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development?
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: Thank you Mr. Chairman, and thanks
for the request for clarification from the two Hon. Members. Starting with Hon. Gonese regarding the gender mainstreaming - I do not think this budget should be transferred to the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprises Development. This is a budget for gender mainstreaming within the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development. It is very important that it should be kept there because the Ministry needs it. It is not as if the Ministry has also unlimited resources; we need these resources ourselves to do our own work but also we are the custodian of whatever anyone needs because we collect the revenue but we also need these resources as a Ministry. I think if the Minister of Gender feels that perhaps they need a higher budget and so forth, we will always have resources under undistributed reserves which we can always call upon. But for now, we need this also as a Ministry for our own gender mainstreaming objectives.
On the ZIMRA and ZIMSTAT budgeting, obviously the Blue Book
is also a summary of the individual items project by project and division by division. In the background in the system, it is all very detailed. Having revealed these figures, I do not think that the Hon. Member will have trouble at all in asking or interrogating ZIMSTAT or ZIMRA to account on how they are using the budget and how they are progressing.
All this will be clear.
But, I also like the comments made by Hon. Madzimure regarding computerisation – moving away from a manual system. I agree with him that overtime we need to computerise but there is no issue about us trying to hide anything. We have told you what the figures are and these have been properly budgeted and can be followed up by Members as they call these two institutions to account on how they are using the budget. I thank you.
HON. T. MLISWA: Hon. Minister, how comfortable are you with continuously giving monies to ministries who are not accounting?
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: Order Hon. Mliswa, can
we stick to the budget.
HON. T. MLISWA: It is the same question. My question to the Minister is how we continuously give money to ministries yet they do not account and there are bad audit reports from the Auditor General’s office. How comfortable are you with that?
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: It is a fair question. In terms of budgeting in my previous job we used to cut back on budgets for departments that did not account in full on how they had used resources or badly used resources because we had a performance based budgeting process. But in a sense, this is what we have migrated to. It is a performance based budget and unfortunately, I do not think that we can do it immediately but over time we should be able to say on this specific programme, you underperformed or abused funds. Therefore, why should we give you additional resources but we should cut back. So it is my hope that this format of the Blue Book will help the Hon. Members to interrogate the departments more precisely about budget performance and about output impact. Not just input because revenue is input and this is now output and impact. We hope that this new approach will help us get there but we are not yet there unfortunately.
HON. MARKHAM: I would like the Minister to comment on the
policy – the figures as they may be. My first issue is on the administration - can the Minister confidently tell us that there will be no constraints on manpower? I say so because in a lot of the Auditor
General’s reports and certainly from the discussions within the PAC, one of the worst performing ministries on returns to both the Parliament and to the Committees is the Ministry of Finance and Economic
Development. I know they downstream to other ministries, so the job is huge. From the money that I see here, I do not believe that we will be able to convert to accrual in three years. It is of major concern to me and I would like assurance from the Minister that, that money is budgeted for.
Secondly, ZIMRA, if it is $1.3 billion, I believe that it is 2% of the budget and it should be enough to have a line of its own. So it is clear that 2% of the budget is contributed or attributed to ZIMRA and the large portions of money that we have in this budget must be identified because that is where the problems are. Finally on the loan issue which was covered very eloquently by Hon. Chikwinya, can we have a guarantee from the Minister that all loans, both those that are condoned and those that are not, those that are foreign and those that are domestic are all listed in this Blue Book so that we can start finding out where we stand with our issues.
My last question to the Minister is, I have an issue with the whole loan book. A lot of loans here have not been condoned by this
Parliament yet we are repaying those loans. No loan is valid until it has been approved by this Parliament. Why are we repaying loans that this House has not even seen before we pay back the IMF and the World Bank. We have had this problem since 1997 – why are we not repaying those loans back first which came through this Parliament? Thank you.
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: Thank you Mr. Chair and Thank you to Hon. Markham for those questions. He says he believes that perhaps we have not budgeted enough under the policy programme vis-à-vis the manpower requirements for migration towards IPSAS. This is a multiapproach. So for, this year we have budgeted enough and next year we will budget some more. It is a multi-project and over the next three years, we do quite a bit in terms of migration towards IPSAS. So I can assure him that we have budgeted adequately for this project.
On ZIMRA, he is requesting for a separate line. I have no difficulty in making sure that my officials do that because they have to print a final Blue Book if there are any changes and so forth as we go along. I have no issue with that being itemised separately but the figure is clear, it is about $0.3 billion for ZIMRA, there is no difficulty there.
Then on the issue of loans and so forth, I have actually produced a statement on the state of our loans because I am required to submit that report twice a year to Parliament. I have done that. It could be that
Members have not seen it but I wrote to Parliament, to the Clerk, to the Speaker that the report is out there. Again, I will talk to the Speaker and the Clerk to make sure that the report is circulated to the Members so that they know what type of loans we have out there, both domestic and foreign.
On the issue of condonations, going forward, I will make sure that any major loans that we contract we come before Parliament in terms of the Public Debt Management Act. I think what Hon. Markham is referring to are loans that were contracted well before my time. I will have to find out what has not been condoned, but I will make every effort to bring issues before Parliament for condonation so that we catch up and clean up and face the future with clean books from a legal point of view.
HON. NGULUVHE: I wanted some clarifications from the
Minister of Finance and Economic Development. I have looked at Vote 5, I do not have much problem, but my comment is that in terms of devolution, you do set aside some funds for the various provinces. If you look at places like Victoria Falls and Beitbridge in terms of revenue collection, they are giving you a lot of money, but if you look at them in return, there is nothing in terms of development. I think you should consider that at least 00.1% of your collections should go back as retention to Beitbridge and Victoria Falls, so that they can improve in terms of health care and everything. I know you are giving them money through the provinces but I think as border posts you should consider that. I thank you.
HON. NDUNA: Thank you Hon. Chair. I just want to give some options to Hon. Minister relating to places and departments that collect revenue in foreign currency. He has already appreciated the existence of those departments, for example the hotels and I ask that he also adds the local authorities that are in areas that deal with foreign currency. I ask that he makes his job easy by designating some of those areas into special economic zones so that their dealing in foreign currency does not affect other towns, cities and departments in so far as revenue collection and payments is concerned in foreign currency.
Hon. Chair, this also becomes like duty free oriented zones. It is allowed to collect not in Zimbabwe only but in other jurisdictions to collect payment for certain services and goods and services in foreign currency for example duty free shops. If the Minister can couch these areas of interest that have revenue generation in foreign currency related monies into some geographical location that speak to about special economic zones. In special economic zones, for argument sake- there is investment, domestic and foreign that is derived from there. The foreigner or the domestic investor can recoup his or her 100% investment capital and profit…..
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: Order, Hon. Nduna, I
am failing to understand you, where are you getting that in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development Vote? Please can you speak to the specific Vote, we do not want general statements.
HON. NDUNA: This is Vote No. 5. This is other revenue generating streams so that he can get that money to augment and complement the meager resources that he currently has. I have not gone to him with a cap in my hand, I am suggesting to him that here are revenue generating mechanisms so that he can finance other Government and quasi government departments. We do not want to continue to unnecessarily bark this old tree but to have suggestive mechanisms of revenue generating which can be foreign currency related, then we can change it at bank rate and then we can augment the meager supplies that he has for other departments.
Hon. Chair, let me give an example of gold sector, there other departments and mines that are allowed to pay for electricity using foreign currency. All the people in the gold sector should be allowed to pay for services using foreign currency because they are currently generating that locally. Victoria Falls should be allowed to have its foreign currency generated through service provision. I hope this meets with the Minister’s favour so that we do not continue to cry but we put our money where our mouth is. I thank you.
HON. PROF. NCUBE: Again I thank the two Members, Hon.
Nguluvhe and Hon. Nduna for their comments and suggestions about the alternative revenue sources…
Hon. Phuti having been seated at the back row.
HON. T. MLISWA: Hon. Phuti please come and sit in the front
row.
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: Order, order, I think
that row there is reserved for Deputy Minister. Hon. Minister please can you proceed.
Hon. Phuti had to be accompanied to the front row.
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: I welcome the two Members’
suggestions. We continue to explore these sources of revenues. Secondly, they are talking about Victoria Falls and Beitbridge on how they could benefit from the revenues that the industries produce in the form of revenues or traffic from South Africa in the case of Beitbridge and tourism in the case of Victoria Falls.
This is interesting because I met with Victoria Falls City Council during the Pre-Budget retreat. I had a conversation with them. They have written to us requesting that we should look into this issue to see how they could retain some of the revenue and receive some of the revenue in foreign currency. That issue is receiving attention right now from the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Local Government,
Public Works and Urban Development which is their parent Ministry – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] Certainly, there is merit in some of the arguments that they have put forward and we are looking into this.
Also, let me remind Hon. Members that Victoria Falls is already a special economic zone for the financial services sector. So, as we go ahead with the offshore financial centre, that could also be an opportunity to see how the Victoria Falls could benefit from the revenues, that it is generating as a tourism sector. Thank you.
Vote 5 – Finance and Economic Development - $3 987 047 000 put and agreed to.
On Vote 6 – Office of the Auditor General - $151 930 000; HON. MADZIMURE: Of late we have realised how important
the Auditor General’s office is. We want to implore the Minister not only to timeously release some funds to this important office, but also to increase the budget as well. If you look at the staff complement of the
Auditor General’s office against their responsibility, the office now audits all the local authorities, parastatals and Government institutions. If we look at the complement and try to match it with the responsibility it does not add up.
The biggest problem is also that the Auditor General’s Office has been doing quite well and because of that a lot of organisations now use it as a training ground. They are losing a lot of experienced auditors, as a result, we end up now giving contracts to other audit firms to do forensic audits on behalf of the Auditor General. If we look at how much we pay those companies as compared to if we could have used the skills that we have in the Auditor General’s Office, we could do a lot of saving. So it will be better for the Minister to consider seriously improving the working conditions of the Auditor General and the staff in that particular department so that we retain the skills and also save a lot of money. The commitment that they have to duty is so amazing. This must be taken into consideration by the Minister.
The Auditor General needs our support. In actual fact the Auditor General has indicated to us how much money we lose. If we can allow the Auditor General to retain some funds on the amounts they recover, that will help a lot. My submission is that the Auditor General’s Office must be capacitated, well funded and must have that compliment that can perform the duties expected of that office.
HON. MUSHORIWA: Hon. Madzimure stated that the Auditor
General’s Office is now responsible for Government accounts, parastatals and local authorities. In addition the Auditor General is supposed to do forensic reports, value for money audits and all those things require technical support and professional people. This is the reason why if you look into the book the majority of the members who are employed at the Auditor General’s Office are professional staff and very few that are non professional.
In most countries, the vote for the Auditor General is normally 1% of the budget. We want the Hon. Minister to explain why the Auditor
General in this country gets a meagre 0.03% of the budget. The Auditor General should get 1% and all what we are asking the Minister is 1% of the budget to go the Auditor General if we are to move as a nation.
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: May Hon Members
please stick to the vote, maybe it is because of cameras. There are some
Members who want to appear on television.
HON. MARKHAM: I would like to supplement the issue of manpower. Fixed contracts should be considered for people working for the Auditor General’s Office so that they cannot be headhunted. This is critical because the complement of the staff is only 60% of what is required.
The second issue which I would like to say is that the underfunding is not only that it is issues like vehicles to get to audits. Audits are not done from the office. The office that they are in is too small and it is ill equipped. Those are major issues. I agree with the 1% of the Budget allocation figure. The one issue I would like to mention with the Auditor General’s Office is that if the national ethos is to go towards transparency and accountability, this is the office which does it so why are we underfunding it- unless if we do not want to go the way of transparency and accountability? The number of institutes that have been audited are over 200. So, I urge the Minister to consider the issue because everything that this nation wants when it comes transparency and accountability comes from this office. I thank you.
HON. T. MLISWA: If you read the report they require 380 staff and they have got 305, a shortfall of 75 yet there is so much money spent in terms of sub contracting work to other companies. I would like the Minister to consider how much money is spent subcontracting companies vis-à-vis putting it into the office. It really does not make any sense for you to give the money to sub contract yet there are already people who are professional who are required. Let us calculate how much is spent a year to companies like Kudenga, Ernst and Young doing the work. They become more expensive and not only that you also want a situation where these reports are not compromised and the Auditor
General’s Office is there to make sure that the reports are not compromised.
I suggest that you stop funding those companies which are sub contracted and then give that money to the 75 who are outstanding. It is a simple matrix that does not need anybody to go to school, unless there is somebody again corruptly not funding the 75 so that they can make money from the sub contracting. There is that notion again. We are in a way aiding to the issue of corruption. It is important that the Minister makes a decision and does not fund those companies until it is fully staffed. If it has to grow, let it grow because it is the very same office that does the aspect of accountability on behalf of Government and their reports are serious.
The other issue in terms of the Auditor General’s Office is that they have submitted a lot of reports but in submitting a lot of reports there is compliance on the part of the Ministry. I brought this up earlier and it keeps coming because when a report like that comes through that gives you the power not to give that Ministry any money. I would like to see the Minister giving those directives that you will be giving the
Ministry of X so much money because they have not complied as per the
Auditor-General’s report because there are recommendations that come with that so that there is performance at the end of the day. Why do we continue giving money to Ministries when the Auditor-General’s report is negative and the recommendations have not been implemented? Let us have the recommendations implemented. We go back Hon. Chair to being a country that issues so many statements; that does not implement so many resolutions and issues of the Auditor-General’s office must be taken seriously because they give confidence to the people and investors coming in because we are seeing to be complying with an institution that is responsible for accounting. That would be my contribution. I think it needs no convincing Minister; it helps you. They have even done a good job in your own Ministry in terms of exposing your own Ministry. Finally, what are you doing about your Ministry being exposed by the Auditor-General’s office? Are you going to comply Hon. Minister? Thank you.
HON. MATEWU: T hank you Hon. Chair. I want to speak to
figures which have been appropriated to the Audit office. I think a lot has been said about forensic audits and so forth. The Ministry of Finance and Economic Development gave itself ZWL$199 million for economic planning and not the implementation part. The office of the Auditor-General has been given ZWL151 million for everything that happens in the audit office. More importantly, we all know the story of NSSA and some former Ministers being removed and so forth. We also know that this came via forensic audit reports and special audits. To my surprise, in this budget, special audits and forensic audits have only been given ZWL$2,4 million which translates to something around US$150 000. So, I urge the Minister and I know from the Public Accounts Committee that there are many special forensic audits that are in the pipeline.
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: Order, can you ask the
Minister to do what you want.
HON. MATEWU: That is what I am doing. There has to be context to what I am asking. Basically what I am saying is that we need more money in terms of our forensic audits and special audits to enable the audit office to look at every parastatal. We know there has been rampant corruption in almost all the parastatals, so we need the audit office to clearly look into every parastatal and conduct special audits into them. Can you please give more money to forensic auditing? Thank
you.
HON. NDUNA: Thank you Hon. Chair. I just want to add a little bit. The Auditor-General as you have specified here will make sure that there is no monies transferred to other programmes except with your approval Hon. Minister. This is applauded and also from one subhead to the other without your approval. What I also want to say is they have got a constitutional provision to also account for the money that you have given to them yourself that is close to ZWL$200 million. Having said that, it is my hope and clarion call that you augment and compliment the amounts that you have given to them so that they are currently at 2018 in terms of audit reports. So they are up to date in auditing parastatals, Government and quasi-government departments. This is applaudable, it is a first in the five years that I have been here in Parliament.
We have been debating for NRZ, 2013 reports in the Eighth Parliament but currently, the Auditor-General is on point. She has brought 2018 reports and we are currently debating those reports in the Public Accounts Committee. Therefore Hon. Minister, it is my proposal that 5% of revenue generated in all Government departments be allocated to the Auditor-General so that in carrying out the mandate that they currently have, they can use that 5% coming from those departments that are going to be audited as a vehicle, pedestal and platform for carrying out their mandate. Secondly Hon. Minister Sir, it is my hope that …
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: Can you please address
the Chair.
HON. NDUNA: Hon. Chair, I am not trying to demean your existence. I am very sorry. From now on, I am going to concentrate on you and I am going to address you. I ask that the Hon. Minister does standardise the services of the Auditor-General in terms of her carrying out a mandate. How would he do that? He can make sure that he removes the cap of employment so that the Auditor-General can be allowed to employ more manpower in order for her to carry out her mandate. As long as we are sub-contracting the services of the Auditor- General, we are leaving a lot to chance so there might be no standardisation. We are leaving a lot to chance so there might be no standardisation in her carrying out her mandate.
It is my hope that we have 92 local authorities Hon. Chair and it is my thinking that there should not be any of them that go under the radar at the time of auditing. As long as she is understaffed, they can go under the radar and she has no power to go after her in terms of her auditing processes. It is my thinking that every local authority gets to be dragged before the Auditor-General each year and every other five years there be a special audit carried out and a forensic audit carried out on all Government departments and quasi-government departments that she is mandated to carry out audits on. Every five years, forensic audit report, every year and Auditor-General’s report should be produced. It is my hope that we do not undo the good that she is currently doing that she is up to date in terms of her audit reports and that she is carrying out her mandate in terms of providing the general constitutional mandate that she has of the appropriation that is appropriated to her by Treasury. She should also be able to give her services in terms of making sure that she is policing those departments whose budgets have been presented by the Minister. I thank you Hon. Chair for giving me this opportunity to actually suggest mechanisms of financing the Auditor-General’s department and of also presenting the removal of the cap in terms of employment to complement the manpower that the Auditor-General currently has.
HON. CHIKWINYA: Thank you Hon. Chair. Just to put into perspective the importance of this office which has been allocated ZWL$159 million against the losses in 2018, one of the major achievements by the Auditor- General’s office is that they carried out a
NSSA forensic audit where they uncovered a loss of ZWL$400 million.
They carried out an audit on the Zimbabwe Manpower Development Fund where they uncovered a loss of more than ZWL$100 million. It is again the same office which uncovered the loss of more than ZWL$3 billion under the command agriculture amongst various other losses which have been unearthed by this office. I am speaking to these figures Hon. Chair so that at least you can see that capacitation of this office can assist us to plug these huge amounts of leakages that are happening in our parastatals. I would therefore favour to agree with the previous Speaker that a percentage, we may differ on the quantum of percentage but a percentage be levied to all parastatals on their gross revenue to support this office.
One of the key reasons why an organisation goes through an audit is to enhance their accounting systems and it was seen by the crafters of our Constitution that we need an Auditor-General’s Office for us to be able to enhance the accounting system of public funds. Therefore, if we fail to fund this office, we are going against the spirit of the Constitution. I was comparing $159 million to the Vote allocated to Vote Number 17 of the Women Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprises Development. Under the women empowerment gender mainstreaming and community development alone, $155 million was allocated which is about the same amount given to the Auditor-General’s Office.
I fully appreciate the issue of empowering women and gender mainstreaming but surely if we are going to look at the value performance of the Budget, what the Auditor-General is doing against these projects of teaching our women how to make soap or prepare tomatoes, I think we are going to be better off as a nation in capacitating our Auditor-General’s office ahead of Vote Number 17. With all due respect and all its importance, but I believe that if we are going to vice verse these two funds, give $503 million to the Auditor-General’s office and $159 million to the Small to Medium Enterprises and Development funds. I thank you.
*HON. CHIKWAMA: I would like to contribute to debate on
Vote Six that is about the Auditor-General’s Office. I appreciate the fact that you increased the Budget allocation to this Office as compared to other years. However I wish you had allocated much more money because the Auditor-General’s Office has lots of work to do and also needs a big staff complement so that they are able to audit from every province or even local authorities but they can only do that if they have money. What is happening at the moment is that those local authorities actually hire their own auditors that they pay and give them their own terms of reference. So, to me there is lack of transparency with such an arrangement but if the Auditor-General’s Office is allocated enough
resources and has adequate staff, they can carry out their job efficiently.
My request is that money allocated to the Auditor-General’s Office should be increased. Sometimes money allocated to certain ministries is not released on time and that compromises work. You discover that some of the ministries are not audited for years because of lack of funds whilst funds are allocated, it is also important that funds are released on time so that they may do their job. We went to Zambia and visited the
Auditor-General’s Office and we discovered that the Office was well staffed and they were doing their job efficiently even going to the lowest levels of society where you can also meet their staff in rural areas doing their job. Here in Zimbabwe, you discover that external firms are engaged, such as Ernest and Young. That does not augur well.
As a woman, I want that office led by a woman to work efficiently. So in order for us to carry out our job as women, we need adequate funding and empowerment so that it can help that woman’s work to go all the way to the grassroots. I think I have stressed my point adequately.
I thank you.
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: I want to thank the Hon. Members for their contributions regarding this very important office and I agree with them that the Office of the Auditor-General is a very important office. I think we are really getting value for money. Let me go to contribution by contribution but there is clear overlap, and two things are coming out, it is more of budget and I think that is very clear, and more manpower. Perhaps a percentage of the budget say 1% and someone said 5% but really it is about more budgets.
Let me preamble this by saying and I think this came from Hon. Markham in terms of filling the vacancies. The Auditor-General’s Office actually has no issues with its budget. There has been no challenge with its budget in 2019. We budgeted $20 million for the Auditor-General’s Office in 2019 and so far as of September, they had used $8 million but I am sure they have used more now. We are in the second week of December and they have probably used more. I can assure you that in terms of budget, they have not run out of budget. If they have run out of budget, then no one has briefed me about it. So we have been very diligent in making sure that they get their budget on time and stay within their budget. There is no issue around their budget.
What we have done this year is to increase their budget 7,5 times from $20 million to $151,9 million. That is what we have done – [AN HON. MEMBER: Those were US$] – Sorry Chair to respond. No, they were not. If you recall this budget was revised in July. We did that together at the supplementary stage where we used ZWL. So, this budget is actually in ZWL and so from $20 million to $151,9 million, that is about 7,5 times. You can see we have rocketed up the budget and we still have the same complement of staff but we want them to increase the staff complement.
Let me now talk about the staff complement of the Auditor-
General’s Office. You see, they have to compete just like we do in Treasury with the private sector in finding accountants and auditors. It is not ease and what they end up doing is then giving contracts to the private companies. They are already employing these well sought after individuals to provide the audit services. It is working because if you cannot attract them, what do you do but what we have done as
Government is we have created a staff retention and acquisition fund so that we can top up the salaries of those that we consider to be valuable where we are competing drastically with the private sector. The Auditor-
General’s Office has been included in that fund and that is outside their own budget.
So, really the inability to increase staff in their office has to do with this competition with the private sector and the way out has been the contracting of services to the private sector. It is kind of unavoidable. We are not yet at the same level with Zambia, whether they staff the office all the way down to the provinces as the Hon. Member mentioned but we will get there one day but for now, this is what we have. It is working and we are getting value for money.
We think that this budget of $151,9 million is a very good start. Should they run out of budget, we always have unbudgeted reserves. We work very closely with the Auditor-General’s Office and we will be able to add more. I just want to be sure that they are able to work with what they have for now and if it is run out as it was in 2019, they should be able to live within this budget without much difficulty. Specifically, Hon. Nduna always comes up with very interesting suggestions – 5% of the Government revenue should be set aside. That will be $3 billion. It is quite a bit and I appreciate the generosity but I think you agree with me that this is quite a bit. I do not think that is where we want to go.
Ideas about levying parastatals and I think this came from Hon. Chikwinya who will not be very popular when he suggests that we remove some $151,9 million from the Women’s Affairs Ministry to the
Auditor-General’s Office. I do not think he would be very popular with that suggestion – [HON. CHIKWINYA: Inaudible interjection.] – I doubt it. I think the spirit of this is that the Auditor-General’s (AG) Office should be given adequate funding and I accept that but I believe that what we have done so far, the $151.9m is a very good start. Let us see how that works. Should we need additional resources, we always stand ready to support them.
The last point I want to make Mr. Chairman, as you know, you approved this in the interim statement in July and he said this was a suggestion that came out of the AG’s Report saying Treasury established a strong and effective internal audit department which will help in the enforcement and implementation of some of the suggestions from the AG’s Office. This new departmental structure will work closely with the AG’s office and I am determined that during 2020 we will make progress in establishing this internal audit unit to work alongside with the AG’s office. I think broadly these are the comments and through this explanation, I have tried to cover ground in terms of satisfying the Hon. Members but I appreciate the comments indeed.
HON. MATEWU: Thank you Mr. Chairman. Every Monday we
sit in the Public Accounts with the Auditor General. What the Minister is saying about using less money than they are given, the Treasury has a habit of not giving ministries their money. The problem that the AG’s office was having was that the money they had requested for was coming very late. They ended up not doing all the audits that they wanted to do. The problem is within the Treasury, that of not dispensing money on time. The AG has been very clear about the amounts of special audits and forensic audits that they want to do. I implore the Minister to give them the money that they need and if we can agree on $300 million as a starting point today, that would be a good starting point. Just give them the money and let us see how they perform because they are the department that has been holding all the other ministries to account and they have done a splendid job in doing so. Let us give them the money so that they do far much more than they are doing now. I really implore the Minister, let us give them at least $300 million so that it gives them some starting point and we can start to see more forensic reports and of course, who knows more convictions and more catch release, whatever it is as those things go. I thank you.
HON. MARKHAM: Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask the
Minister to consider on a quid pro quo but also backing up what Hon. Matewu has just said. If the Minister could consider 0.5% which is above the figure he has as a starting point for this year in order to see how the Auditor General’s Office progresses with that amount of money. The issue is simply that things like vehicles are dire as is working space in the office and decent computers. The Minister of Finance and Economic Development has a point of debt recovery which is not happening anywhere in the budget. Anywhere in Government as and when people are caught, the State will be strict on the Ministry that has not accounted for money; their appropriation for the following year must be cut down slightly to help consolidate the funds for the AG’s Office. The funding for 2021 would be reduced for the Ministry that had an adverse audit report this year. That way we are now forcing ministries to take into account the AG’s reports correctly. Thank you Mr. Chairman.
HON. MADZIMURE: Thank you Mr. Chairman. When you
allocate money you have reasons why you do so. If you look at the performance of the Auditor General and their Vote, the arguments we are putting forward are so justified. If we look at the kind of work they have done in a number of institutions, I can give an example of what they did to ZIMRA. The amount of money that we have been losing through mismanagement at ZIMRA and the situation that now prevails at ZIMRA, things have changed. If you look at the local authorities, how they used to spend money willy nilly, no accountability at all, since the moving in of the Auditor General things have changed.
Here we are talking about value for money. Why do we want the
AG’s Office to be capacitated? The kind of reports they even produced for the Ministry of Finance, I think you are all now in a mood where you know there is someone who is doing some work. A number of permanent secretaries have come and confessed that if you Parliament had been doing this all along we could have not been doing things the wrong way we have been doing them. We are saying to the Minister, for this one department, if you can increase from the current allocation from the current allocation to $300 million, it will go a long way to capacitate the AG’s Office. That office cannot be compromised. That office is not expected to go and beg. The moment they go and beg, you are taking away the independence that the office must enjoy.
I do not think we are asking for too much. He is fully aware why that office must be independent. He is fully aware what work the office is doing. As far as we are concerned Mr. Chairman, for us to come out of this House without having influenced the Minister to change the budget, we will have done injustice to the people of Zimbabwe. Whatever we are allocating here; the appropriation which we are doing as Members of Parliament, for us then to account for those monies it is through the Auditor General. All what we are appropriating here, the only way we can account and expect the Executive to account is through the Auditor General’s Office. Until we capacitate the Auditor General’s Office, we have a problem. So we implore the Minister to at least consider moving the budget from where it is to even $300 million and we will get handsome returns from the Auditor General. That woman has been working hard. That woman has been exemplary. We look at a lot of women who head several organisations, but that one stands out as one of the best. Why can we not support her and make sure that she shines? She is already doing so and she can do better. That woman deserves our support.
HON. MUSHORIWA: Thank you Mr. Chairman. I want to
bring to the attention of the Hon. Minister; he is aware that he is supposed as the Minister of Finance and Economic Development to appoint the board to oversee the Auditor General. The funds that we are appealing for; I have moved that the budget should allocate at least 1% and this amount should be around $518 million if we are to capacitate this Ministry.
We work with the Auditor General in the Public Accounts Committee and in our engagements with the Auditor General, we have had several requests that you have sent to the Auditor General in terms of forensic audits, value for money audits and the Auditor General has come back to us saying she does not have the manpower. Secondly, if she does not have the manpower she has to outsource other professional auditors to undertake the work.
As far as I am concerned, we cannot leave this august House without a movement on the Vote allocation to the Auditor General. If the Hon. Minister cannot move to 1% which is around $518 million, at least he should move to beyond 300 million or even 300 million so that at least this office of the Auditor General can function properly. This issue cuts across and as a House this is one office that we should stand by and allow it to get money. We have had, only two days ago, 9th December was Anti-Corruption Day and now there is no office that has been so exemplary, that has exposed corruption. Even ZACC cannot compare with what the Auditor General’s office has done. We should reward good performance with more resources so that they can do the work. Those ministries and parastatals that are getting adverse reports, money should be subtracted from them and given to performers. To that extent, I want you to take 150 million from un- allocated reserves under the Ministry of Finance and put it to the Auditor General. To me, this is critical and crucial for Zimbabwe. I thank you.
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: I think Members agree with me that
the issue has been about the size of the budget. A real issue is what Hon. Matewu has raised which is that we need to disburse these monies timely and I agree with that. We will endevour to do that. So for me, it is not about the size of the budget as such; it is about the timely disbursements of these funds and we will make sure that this is done. So it really covers what Hon. Matewu, Hon. Markham, Hon. Mushoriwa and Hon. Madzimure mentioned.
Now, this is what I propose because again I have been consulting my staff and when looking at these budgets, I heard about the human resource element under Programme 1. So I propose that we increase that budget by another five million dollars for the human resource item under Policy and Administration Programme; this is sub Programme 2 under Policy Programme 1. This will then move that budget item from 23, 25 to 28, 25 million, that is the first proposal.
The second proposal is that, I listened carefully as well under the forensic audit issues and this is now Programme 2 under audit services since we are doing programme based budgeting under sub-programme 3 on forensic and other special audits. I propose that we add another 15 million to that item. At the moment, we had budgeted 2,414 million, I agree that let us top that up, let us add another 15 million which will take you to 17,414 million. So the total increase is an additional of 20 million for the Auditor General’s office to cover those two items but I thank the Members for their proposal and I think that will go a long way in beginning to address some of the budgetary requirements of the Auditors General’s office. I thank you.
Vote 6 – Office of the Auditor General - $151 930 000 put and agreed to.
On Vote 7 – Industry and Commerce- $368 013 000;
HON. MUSHORIWA: On the Vote of Industry and Commerce, I
want to start on hygienic issues. If you look at industry, it has three permanent secretaries, one woman and two men and if you look at the size of this Ministry, it is so small compared to the Ministry that the Hon. Minister has. The Ministry of Finance has got one permanent secretary but this one has three people who are occupying permanent secretary position level. I do not understand why this Ministry should have three officers who are sitting at the level of permanent secretary. We need the Minister to explain to us why it is so because I think that it is unnecessary and we need to cut so that there is only one. In our view, the person who signed this budget on behalf of the Ministry is one Mavis Sibanda who, in our view is the Accounting Officer of the Ministry of
Industry and Commerce and we want to understand where the other two Permanent Secretaries are coming from and in which departments they are sitting such that they warrant to be in the Ministry? Yesterday we were told that normally those people that are Permanent Secretaries and if they are moved from the Ministries, they are then thrown under the pool of the OPC where they actually retire at but here we do not understand when they are there.
Then secondly on the budget itself, Hon. Chair, there are several things and firstly I want to start by saying that the budget or the amount of money that has been allocated to the Industry and Commerce Ministry is so minute. We say this because if you look at the industrial capacity utilisation which is below 30%, we expected more money to be thrown into this Ministry.
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: Order Hon. Member.
Hon. Members, these three vehicles are blocking other: ADC 3258, ADI
9113 and ADC 3735. Can the owners please go and attend to their cars.
HON. MUSHORIWA: Hon. Chair, I was saying that the Ministry was allocated $368 million on the background of a depressed industrial production. Our industry utilisation capacity is below 30%. One of the things that I expected the Hon. Minister to do and it speaks to policy inconsistence within the Government, you recall when Hon. Ndlovu was still the Minister of Industry and Commerce; they came and lodged the Zimbabwe National Industrial Development Policy and local content strategy. If you read through that policy and what the Government committed to do, it is not backed by any link to this Blue Book. We expected huge chunks of money being given. We have however Hon.
Chair seen that the Minister has given money to IDC but again Hon. Chair, IDC, we have suggested in other quarters that we need a forensic audit in terms of how IDC has been operating because we believe that they have been asset stripping under IDC and the continuation of giving them a lot of money without proper accounting is actually problematic.
Then the other issue which I do not understand and which I am not even seeing in this budget relates to the statement by the Hon. Minister who said in his Budget Statement that they were allocating US$20 million for industrial capacity but do not see anything within the figures because US$20 million at the bank rate of around 15, we expect something like $320 million being factored under that US$20 million facility and I do not think that the Hon. Minister can tell us that the money is going to come outside the framework of this budget. That money, if the Government is serious, should actually come within the framework of this budget and this is the reason why if I look at the industrial policy that this Government launched and if I look at what the Hon. Minister said in his Budget Statement, the minimum amount of money that should have been allocated to the Industry and Commerce budget should have actually been $1.169 billion and not the amount of money that has been allocated to this Ministry.
If you look into the operations of this Ministry, there are certain departments that are supposed to be effective if we are to move this country forward. One of the major challenges that we are now facing is, as long as our industry is depressed, then the Hon. Minister will continue to crack his head because the revenue that we are supposed to be getting, we will not get it. We will continue to import even things that we are supposed to be manufacturing. One of the things that Ian Smith did during the sanctions era under the Rhodesian era was to make sure that he poured monies to the industry and he made sure that the industry under Rhodesia could actually supply all the needs of that country. The question that I have with the Hon. Minister is simple – why should we continue as a country to invest in importing finished products? Why do we not give a huge chunk of resources to the capacitation of our industry and commerce? If we do not do that Hon. Chair, then we are going nowhere as a country and this is why I do not understand why policies of the same Government cannot speak to each other.
Why should we have an industrial policy which is not backed by the budget that we are talking of? This budget Hon. Minister on
Industry and Commerce, it appears as if it is not coming from the same Cabinet that Hon. Simangaliso Ndlovu sits on because there should not be policy inconsistencies but they should be feeding one Ministry to the other if we are going to go for the development. Even the issues that the Minister talks about in his TSP document, it is not factored in because industry is supposed to carry this country. Right now our belief and given the erratic climate change that we have in this country, if we do not fix our industry, we will continue to suffer as a country and to that extent Hon. Minister, I request that monies be increased. If monies cannot be increased but at least can the Hon. Minister explain to us why there is that missing link. Explain to us why there is not that $320 million for that US$20 million facility that he said in his Budget Statement? I thank you.
HON. NDUNA: Thank you Hon. Chair. Government is supposed to create the right conducive environment for private business to thrive and it is my hope that the amount that has been allocated to industry which is just above $300 million can optimally be utilised – if it can be allocated and disbursed at the beginning of the year opposed to staggering it during the year.
It is my thinking that industry according to their strategic initiative which speaks to amongst other things dealing with reserved sectors of the economy for the empowerment of the formally marginalised black majority, they can make sure that structure that is page 100, you will find that in the quest, in dealing with their strategic initiative of embarking on this verification and registration of businesses operating in the reserved sector which amongst other businesses should be the local transport industry. I do not understand why an Indian operator should come and operate mushikashika public transport here in Zimbabwe. These are the other reserved areas and reserved sectors that the Ministry of Industry and Commerce seeks to structure and make sure that they are protected for the local industry or for the domestic investors. In conducting that modus operandi, they do not need any money. There is need for the monies that you have given to them to be released at the beginning of the year period. That is one issue and in so doing, I make a clarion call to this strategic initiative for the Ministry of Industry and Commerce to go further and say any investment that is below US$2 million, foreigners should come and partner locals for us to capacitate our local players otherwise if we get an investor that is only investing US$2 million into the local reserved areas, we are doing ourselves a lot of injustice.
Further to that, he requests to deal with strategic initiative. The Ministry of Industry and Commerce talks about streamlining the community share ownership trust initiatives. It has been hazy from inception. Where I come from there is a community share ownership Trust that is championed by ZIMPLATS. It puts a seed capital of
US $10 million but it is my view that the Ministry of Industry and Commerce in order to capacity both the local industry and themselves, they need to get the dividend from 2012 to date. It is nearly ten years now and these local community share ownership trusts have not disbursed any finances according to the dividend accumulated either yearly or up to now. They have only put in seed capital.
So, in their interrogation of the community share ownership trust, if you give them that money at inception they are going to make sure that money that has been accumulating whether it is 15% or 15% to the community or may be 10% to Government be given now in dividend form. If that money is ploughed into the community cumulatively from time of the community share ownership trust inception, that money is going to go a long way in revitalising industry in Zimbabwe.
I will give you an example of the platinum industry, that community share ownership trust, assuming that 15% that is due to the community was US$1 million annually which is the dividend. If we calculate the number of years from when it was established, we will get about US$8 million from the platinum metals that are being exported and refined in South Africa either at the Rand Refinery or elsewhere. So, that money can go a long way, it is my view Hon. Chair that the Minister can scrutinise the dividends accumulated out of the community share ownership trust through the Ministry of Industry and Commerce by allocating their monies immediately at the time that they want to use it at the beginning of the year.
As I end Hon. Chair, the issue of domestic investment using the platform of foreign investment for any amounts below US$2 million should be taken seriously so that we capacitate our domestic investors using the foreign investment. The issue of establishment of special economic zones should be taken seriously because there are a lot of initiatives. The establishment of special economic zones, that Bill when it came to Parliament, we took our time in terms of making sure that the laws that govern the special economic zones are done in a flawless manner so that we can have the easy of doing business. We can embrace foreign direct investment into this country and we can also promote domestic investment.
Hon. Chair I would also go further to say that as a suggestion, all the monies that are being exported and the jobs that are being exported using the community share ownership initiative for example the refining of our metals in South Africa - However, it is my hope and view that you can put in a statutory instrument that implore these people that are going to refine our metals outside, that are selling raw resources outside this country to bank that money locally. This will enable us to promote our local industry using what we have to get what we want. Hon. Chair, if all that money is banked domestically….
HON. MATEWU: On a point of order Hon. Chair. We are in Committee to debate the Budget, we are not here for a lecture, we are here to debate figures. So, can he stick to the figures please so that we progress?
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: Hon. Chair, please
wind up your debate.
HON. NDUNA: Thank you Hon. Chair kudzidza hakuperi. So this is my clarion call to the Hon. Minister so that we enhance the capacity of the Industry and Commerce. The Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education has also said he want to create the industry through the graduates that they are getting through the Committee chaired by Hon. Molekela. That is very key, there is no need to continue to give them any more than they have got but disburse and give them immediately when they want to utilise it. I thank you Hon. Chair and I think this will go a long way in enhancing the capacity of the industry and commerce.
HON. S. BANDA: I want to debate on the issue which the Minister is using as a basis for the 2020 Budget. The Minister is saying that capacity utilisation for 2020 is targeted at 50% yet like Hon.
Mushoriwa indicated a moment ago, it is way below 30%. Actually Zimbabwe is at its worst was never below 30% with regard to industrial capacity utilisation. So, this is a record low for capacity utilisation. It therefore, requires an alternate answer – a better assessment of the situation, a better alternative. So, if we continue to give this very important Ministry only 300 and something million then it does not make any sense.
Hon. Chair, you will recall that last year there was an undertaking that ZISCO Steel would be given USD$5 million – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] - Hon. Chair, ZISCO Steel was promised
USD$5 million but when you look at the current Budget, currently for
2020 it is budgeted that they will be given RTGS $240 million. If you divide that by 15.5 – it is around USD$16 million for the entire country, yett for the resuscitation of a small part of ZISCO Steel was set at $5 million. So USD$16 million that has been allocated here is insufficient for all the IDC companies.
It is my call therefore, Chair, like Hon. Mushoriwa stated that, ‘Let us spruce up this Budget’. A country can never develop without an industry and Zimbabwe currently does not have a working industry. So, if we allocate peanuts to industry then we are going to have peanuts at the end of the day. Here they are saying that the manufacturing sector growth rate was supposed to be 5% this year, it is estimated at 5% next year and it will be 5% in 2021. At the end of the day, it means that the Budget that we have is just stagnant – meaning if we maintain the Budget as proposed our growth rate for the next three to four years is going to be constant.
I, therefore, propose or add onto what Hon. Mushoriwa said when he proposed that the Budget should be at least a billion dollars because that way, we are going to really capacitate industry. Also the issue of research development and innovation is also supposed to come into play within the Ministry so that we start doing new things that we were never able to do before. I think that when the Hon. Minister, in his budget presentation, spoke of satellites which is the direction we want to take, that of innovation and industrialisation. So, we also want the satellites of this industry to be considered.
Therefore, there will now be a linkage between what is going to happen in the innovation hubs and what is going to be happening in industry. Hence we need more money to be put into the Ministry of Industry and Commerce – that is my call. I thank you.
HON. MUKUHLANI: Thank you Hon. Chair, industrialisation by nature is policy driven. Yes, a budget framework allows that process to take place. The Ministry of Industry and Commerce is there to superintend and develop that policy. So the budget that the Hon. Minister presented to us is not for the Ministry of Industry and Commerce to go out there and start industries – we need that clarification. We need to be clear that in this Budget, the figures that Hon. Minister presented are not for the Ministry of Industry and Commerce to go and start industries.
However, what we need to do as a way of suggestion Hon. Chair is that the industry in Zimbabwe is not affected by budget allocations. The industry in Zimbabwe is affected by policy and regulatory framework. Our regulatory frameworks are so stringent that it creates high entry barriers into industry. So we need to relook at our regulatory framework, we need to incentivise local businesses that are reviving businesses that had collapsed. For instance, in Bulawayo, the infrastructure is there. There are business people in Zimbabwe who are investing in Bulawayo.
What is the problem with these business people who are investing in Bulawayo? It is not the budgetary allocation. The problem that is in Bulawayo today is that when you go to revive an industry in Bulawayo – your visitors are NSSA, your second visitor is ZIMRA and your third visitor is ZESA. So before you start reviving an industry or business in
Bulawayo – which is supposed to be our industrial hub – you have entry barriers from within our own system. These need to be dealt with seriously that those companies that are going to invest in Bulawayo must be given tax holidays. They must be moratorium to pay NSSA for those arrears that existed before these industries were liquidated.
So our regulatory framework needs to be looked at. When we look at the pharmaceutical industry today, we import more than we manufacture in terms of pharmaceuticals. Our regulatory framework for registering of medicines and opening of pharmaceutical companies here is more stringent than it is in the United States of America, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and in Australia yet we are the poorest. So, we need to look at this framework and say, ‘Does it apply to us?’
Furthermore, the way we are operating – our regulatory framework and policies are not speaking to the fact that this country is under sanctions. Therefore, our regulatory framework must speak to that environment that we have got a regulatory framework that is meant for a normal functioning country but we are not operating in a normal environment. Therefore, we need to get back and say, ‘The
requirements that we put on our industries, for instance from EMA, are they for a country that is under sanctions or for a country that is not under sanctions?’
So we need to make that conscious decision to say, ‘what do we want?’ we have a regulatory framework that is meant for a first world country. We are a third world country that is not only a third world country but operating under sanctions. So, it does not matter how much the Hon. Minister allocates to this Ministry. Even if he were to allocate a billion dollars – industrialisation will not take place because the regulatory framework does not allow that to take place.
Hon. Minister, you can crack your head on whether to increase or decrease the amount that you allocate to this Ministry. For as long as these issues are not dealt with and dealt with in a holistic manner; we will still be here discussing that there is no industrialisation. So industrialisation is linked to the regulatory framework of a country of which our regulatory framework has higher specs than what we can afford. I thank you. – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] –
*HON. NYABANI: Thank you
*HON. NYABANI: Thank you Mr. Chairman, I would like to contribute to the debate on Industry and Commerce. What I would like to say is we cannot expect foreigners to come and sweep your house. What we should consider is that we should promote small businesses so that they grow. We are looking at small businesses like soap making, garments manufacturing, oil expressing et cetera. We should promote small companies whereby Government should allocate funds for that. They are a lot of companies that are operating but they do not have adequate funds. If you want to make sadza, you need mealie-meal and water but if you have mealie-meal and water without fire, you cannot make that sadza.
We may think that our local companies are not able to manufacture but all they need is support from Government. There is no progress that we can make when we import things like soap, clothes yet we grow cotton and soya beans in this very country. My wish is that the
Government should allocate funds to promote people to do those businesses. Things that you get as donations are not very efficient in terms of assisting you to progress. What is imported is funds should be allocated for the growth of those local industries. If you are to look at what is happening in the streets like Leopold Takawira in Harare, there is no foreigner operating in that road but all the buildings there charge in foreign currency. You discover that there are no locals operating there.
They charge US$10 to US$15 thousand, where will you get that money? You discover that some of the businesses that are being done there are supposed to be done by locals yet the locals are out because of such requirements. So, it is my wish that the Government should make relevant regulations that promote and audit what work every company is doing.
ZISCO Steel stopped functioning because of sanctions. If ZISCO
Steel were to be promoted and given adequate funds, it will help in turn for the development of other companies that deal in steel because they will be getting their steel from ZISCO Steel. I thank you very much Mr.
Chairman.
HON. MADZIMURE: Thank you Chair. If you go to the theme
of this budget it says ‘gearing for higher productivity, growth and job creation’. Mr. Chair, we have a perfect opportunity to meet this higher productivity, growth and job creation. What we simply have to do is to put our money where our mouth is. Mr. Chair, during the UDI when sanctions were declared on Rhodesia, the statement that was made by
Ian Smith was that “nothing will stop the people of Rhodesia to enjoy what other people in the world are enjoying”.
What he meant was that he was going to transform industry. He meant he was going to substitute those spare parts and those machines that we were importing by simply producing them locally; this he only did it through industrial development. If you look at the industry budget today, it does not speak to any growth, it does not speak to any job creation, and it does not speak to productivity. To make matters worse, we have been decimating industry, removing some key components of industry from industry and giving it to other departments. If you look at the amount allocated to Industry you then ask the question how are we going to industrialise under those circumstances. Are we going to industrialise? If you look at the growth rate of industry, the projected growth rate has remained constantly at 5%; and you ask the question are we moving?
In actually fact, this year we have not recorded any growth in manufacturing, we must have recorded a clear minus. So, the amount allocated for industry is too little, it does not reflect on our aspirations. It does not reflect on the intended objective of the Budget. The most important Minister right now is the Minister of Finance and we expect the Minister of Finance to help us because it appears that currently, it seems he is the only person conversant of what needs to be done and we expect him to do as he did when we debated the Auditor -General’s report where he took on board the concerns of the members. Industry needs to be capacitated, we need industry to grow, we need to substitute those things that we are importing and the only way we can do so is through the improvement of the budget – [HON. T.MLISWA: Unogara wakashatirwa asi hauna mukadzi here?] – so I will implore the Minister to closely look at this and make some improvements because it is the vote that will determine whether we are going to save on the foreign currency that we use in importing almost everything. We are importing toothpick, matches yet we have got enough wood in Nyanga that can be used for production of match sticks. We need our industry to be retooled; we need equipment that is efficient, equipment that can produce high quality goods at the lowest cost. So, I implore the Minister to relook at this budget, the Vote of Industry and make some improvements.
HON. T. MLISWA: Mr. Chair, appropriation means a sum of money allocated officially for a particular use. Now I remind Members of Parliament, we are at the stage of appropriation not debate; amount allocated, so talk about the amounts allocated and not debate, we have finished debating.
HON. KASHIRI: Thank you Hon. Chair. You should have given Hon. Mliswa the chance to say what he has said, maybe when we started the debate. Hon. Chair, in the interest of time and progress, I will not waste time repeating what Hon. Members have said. I think all has been said and done. All I want to draw the Hon. Minister’s attention to is the issue that we are moving into the fourth industrial revolution. When we talk about industrialisation, we are talking about innovation, artificial and creative intelligence.
How do we go forward into the fourth industrial revolution with such a small budget? We are talking of technology; technology is expensive Hon. Chair. My thinking would be, when the Minister looks at this budget for the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, it should also speak to the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education where our innovation, science and technology resides, so is the Ministry of Agriculture. These three figures should talk to each other and when he does his budget – please Hon. Minister Sir, look at that figure; it is too small for us to get into the fourth industrial revolution. I plead with you that let us not lag behind in the SADC region, Africa and with the European countries because we are going into robotics as soon as possible. I think that is my submission.
HON. M. NCUBE: Thank you Mr. Chairman. Once again I thank the Hon. Members for their contributions. Over the weekend, I did a tour of the Pepsi Cola factory, Varun Industries. I was very impressed by the machinery there, they are already at the fourth industrial revolution stage; robotics everywhere, producing 70 million bottles in terms of drink per day is very impressive. I have also done a tour of Surface Wilmar which produces cooking oil. I have done a tour of Treggers Industries in Bulawayo employing 3000 people; I have done a tour of Nestle and very soon I will be doing a tour of Dairibord. What is clear from my tours so far Mr. Chair and Hon. Members is that the issue for these industries, for them to retool to export and employ more people; they do not need an increased budget from the Government. That is not the issue, they are looking for better policies, consistent policies and better inter-bank market so that they can access foreign currency. So when Members are talking about an increased budget and so on, I think it is an assumption that it is the Government which invests, which is not correct. There are investors out there, they are doing their things and they know what to do. They require our support and that support is not financial.
Nevertheless, we have decided to give them financial support which is the $240 million which we have given to the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) to invest in new industries. That is quite a bit and they have not even begun to use the $100 million or so that we gave them in 2019. They are still working out systems, approaches and the opportunities. We have given them an additional $240 million. For start-ups of small industries which are coming out of people’s intellectual capital, we have the National Venture Fund of $500 million that also cuts across to the youth in terms of the ideas that they need to be capitalised and funded. So there are other activities out there in terms of the resources to support the whole notion of industrialisation but in the main, industry is not looking for capital from the Government to retool.
We have also done something else; we have put in place a guarantee scheme for those companies which are trying to access capital from banks but they are running out of collateral to pledge for those loans. That is accommodated in the unbudgeted reserves in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development because it is an exposure of Government that sits with Treasury. We are doing a lot for industry to support productivity. I am really looking forward to 2020 as a year when we will really support industry and see that industry moves to the next level.
If I were to highlight two key issues that are impacting industry Mr. Chairman, it is access to foreign currency and power. Those are the two key impediments and they are not budgetary issues. I think according to the exposition from Hon. Mukuhlani, if anyone was listening, just listen to what he said. As someone who operates in the pharmaceutical set up, he knows what he is talking about and he agrees with me. I am sorry I have to single him out because I think he was on point about the real issues impacting industry. That is not to down-play everything that Hon. Members said. They were very important issues and I thank them. This kind of budget is adequate. Thank you Mr.
Chair and thank you Hon. Members.
The Chairperson having put the question for the adoption of Vote
No. 7.
HON. S. BANDA: I object – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible
interjections.] –
Vote 7 – Industry and Commerce - $368 013 000 put and agreed
to.
HON. S. BANDA: I objected and you told me to sit down and I humbly sat down expecting that after you rule you can say Hon. Banda, please go ahead. That is what I was expecting. What I am saying is very important.
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: Order please…
HON. S. BANDA: What I am saying is very important. - [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections]- Hon. Chair, you heard me saying I object very strongly but there were other objections which were allowed previously, and now it is only my objections which are being refused.
When the war veterans issue was being discussed there were objections.
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: I am the Chair today
and that I did not hear. Today I did not hear any objections because it is the first one and this is why I am doing this.
HON. S. BANDA: Hon. Chair, if rules change day in and day out, it becomes a mickey-mouse.
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: Hon. Member, do not
tell me about how Parliament was run yesterday. I am the Chair today and I have ruled.
On Vote 8 - Lands, Agriculture, Water and Rural Resettlement $11 334 459 000:
HON. MATEWU: Thank you Chair. On this one I have one issue
but it is very serious. My issue is on the allocation to the Ministry under Policy and Administration and under Policy and Administration there is the Finance and Administration. I want to read to the Hon. Minister what it says: It says prepares budgets, executes, monitors, reports on financial resources and safeguards assets of the Ministry. This is almost in every other Ministry but in Agriculture, it has been given a whopping $7.5 billion and it is Finance and Administration alone, which puts almost 10 or 20 ministries together. I want to understand from the Minister, what is so special about preparing budgets, executing and monitoring that needs $7.5 billion?
I say this because we have an issue with agriculture that over the past three years they have spent over 100% of their allocated money and this money never came to the Ministry. This time we complained that any money that is used in agriculture must come from the ministries’ purse because previously Treasury was the one which was paying suppliers and everyone in agriculture and under Command Agriculture. I want to understand. This is fishy - why would we put in Finance and Administration $7.5 billion? Can the Minister please explain if preparing budgets costs $7.5 billion? Thank you.
HON. S. BANDA: Thank you very much Chair. The issue of
water is strong in our hearts. I want to discuss the issue of Kunzvi Dam. It was allocated RTGS$259 million and if I recall, I think three or four years ago, Hon. Muchinguri tried to have contractors start working on the dam for US$865 million. If I recall again, I think two years prior to that, there was also another contractor who was supposed to be given the same dam with reticulation, just the dam alone. It cost about US$400 million. This RTGS$259 million that is being proposed for 2020, I think it was also the same figure which was for feasibility studies but in US$ for 2019 and nothing has happened.
In 2020, we do not really want a feasibility study because the plans and the designs – this dam was supposed to be constructed in 1990.
What we want in 2020 is for actual construction to start. So I feel that RTGS$259 million is just but a drop. I am asking for the Minister to say if we are going to do the dam in two or three years, you can may be say let us divide US$500 by about three years and that way, whatever amount that comes from there can be the budgeted amount for Kunzvi Dam for 2020 so that actual construction will start. That is my plea Chair. Thank you.
HON. NGULUVHE: Thank you Chair. I wanted to direct my
comments to the Hon. Minster. The policy on agriculture says that for each district there shall be 200 hectares under irrigation per year. If you look at his budget allocation, there are some provinces or some districts where he does not take care of that issue in terms of dams for irrigation. I will give an example – the entire district of Beitbridge does not have any dam or any plan in terms of irrigation as far as Mukorsi.
We give you an example of an irrigation scheme in Beitbridge East - Chikwarakwara for an example. That irrigation has not been working for the past 15 years and my appeal to the Minister is, why can we not consider that irrigation? It is only 85 hectares but at least it will make a change. We are well aware that we are on Region 5 and we definitely need irrigation. So I am saying we already have a policy which says at least 200 hectares per year per district but if you check, there is nothing as far as Matabeleland South, particularly Beitbridge is concerned. I thank you.
HON. HAMAUSWA: I want to make my contribution with regard
to water. If you check on the allocation of resources to water and sanitation, you will also realise that the sanitation part of it is silent and that is number one issue which the Minister should address – that of water and sanitation but in the budget, the sanitation aspect is silent. Secondly, we know the Ministry of Agriculture is responsible for drilling boreholes. Here in Harare when we requested last year, we were told that they did not have diesel for them to drill boreholes in our constituencies. This is also a challenge.
We also need to consider mechanisation of boreholes. Therefore, I request the Minister of Finance to consider increasing the allocation meant for borehole drilling because when we target urban areas and we focus on drilling manual boreholes, I do not think we will be doing justice to urban dwellers because you will find that women and some who are old spend four hours queuing for water. If the boreholes are mechanised, it makes their life easier. So I am actually pleading with the Minister of Finance to say we need the Ministry of Agriculture to be equipped with technology that will enable borehole drilling to be mechanised, because you find that women will spend billions of hours doing unpaid work like fetching water and there are even some crisis that are arising from the issue of water.
I also want to conclude by adding my voice to the issue of Kunzvi Dam from another angle. I am just adding to say when Lake Chivero was built and the Harare Water Reticulation System was done, it was targeting about 200 000 people, but now we are talking about more than a million people in Harare. Harare is also now covering areas like Norton, Ruwa, Epworth and Chitungwiza. This means that the Minister of Finance should actually consider or push the construction of Kunzvi Dam to a level of a national project and we actually expect to hear a specific target of years from the Minister of Finance to say by this time Harare will be drawing water from Kunzvi Dam. Without such a guarantee, I do not think we will be doing justice to the people who are living in Norton, Chitungwiza, Epworth and other surrounding areas in Harare.
I think it is important that this Budget be pushed or the figures pushed further to a figure that would actually cover for these expected development because as we speak, we are actually lucky that we did not face many water borne diseases in Harare and other surrounding areas because there is an acute shortage of water. Those are my submissions Hon. Chair.
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON (HON. M.
KHUMALO): I am very impressed by the level of participation and how you listened to him. Can you continue like that – that was very wonderful. Can we please be attentive like we did now?
HON. MUKUHLANE: Agriculture is of paramount importance to the economy and the well being of our country but over the years, the production or tonnage of maize that has come from the peasant farmers in our country has gone down. This is primarily because GMB is not resources in and on time to pay the farmers as and when they deliver their grain to GMB. When they do pay them, they are paid a figure that is not commensurate with the market. The production of maize has gone down from our peasants and this contributes significantly to food security in our country.
The Budget that the Minister has presented to us is fair and proper, it is important that GMB is resourced well on time so that these farmers can continue to produce, which is not what is happening at the moment. As we speak, we are on the 11th of December and Command Agriculture farmers within the rural areas are still in the process of being contracted and then go to CBZ get vouchers. The likely time that they are going to get their inputs will be maybe 15th January and they will already be out of season.
In spite of a good figure in terms of budgetary allocation, it is also important that our processes are efficient in terms of making sure that the resources allocated to this Ministry get to the beneficiaries in and on time so that the intended outcome is achieved.
I identify with peasants because I am a son of a peasant. A long time ago, the agriculture finance company used to come to the rural areas to contract and finance farmers. It is important that probably we also gave more players from the financial sector to be involved in terms of financing agriculture so that we do not create bottlenecks that are being experienced by farmers today so that we retain value for the allocation that the Minister has made for the Ministry and also that the farmers are within season for them to have a good produce.
HON. S. SITHOLE: I have got only one appeal to the Minister. I have noticed that every irrigation in some other parts of the country or districts are getting a budget but Insiza South in Insiza District, Matabeleland South we are having irrigation at Silalatshani Irrigation – which is having 460 hectares. All canals are leaking but that 460 hectares in Matabeleland South, there is no irrigation that is more than that in Insiza South but there is no budget allocation.
Can the Minister also add the allocation for the boreholes into the
DDF – the Minister should also buy the riggers and not give them money and allocate riggers; either five per district because when you give them money, they can spend the money but when we buy those rigger and allocate them to districts, it will be the best move for our country.
HON. WATSON: If I could go back to the issue of dams, we have heard about the issue of Kunzvi Dam but my appeal to the Minister is that concerning Bulawayo; you have spoken about re-industrialisation and power but you did not speak about water security.
Bulawayo has not had a new dam or access to water. The GwaiShangani Dam has been budgeted for for many years. The Hon. Chair himself is aware of the volume of work that has actually been done there. My plea is that you ensure that the money budgeted for the GwaiShangani Dam is released timeously so that the work is actually done. The Minister of Lands, Agriculture and Water stood up in this House and promised that the dam would be finished now, December 2019. It is not anywhere near finished and it has been on the cards for many years.
The cofferdams have been washed away many times.
It is imperative that the dam is there and the size is sufficient to catch the water that it can possibly help Bulawayo because you spoke of power in terms of re-industrialisation – the Bulawayo power station or confide power station uses potable water. Bulawayo is extremely water insecure. It is not good for the city to be put in that predicament.
HON. MAMOMBE: I want to speak on the agricultural education that is mentioned in the 2020 Budget by the Ministry of Finance. When we look at the money that was allocated to agricultural education, it is RTGS58 million. The reason why I am raising this issue of agricultural education is from the background that when you look at the Higher and Tertiary education, these agricultural colleges are not included. This means that the agricultural colleges that we have in
Zimbabwe – Gwebi and Chibero are stand alone. They are under the Ministry of Lands. This is where the problem starts because when they are under the Ministry of Lands, already, there is compromise in terms of quality assurance because they are still Higher and Tertiary education institutions.
This is where my point is to the Hon. Minister to say that if you are allocating RTGS 58 million for agricultural education only, where other higher education institutions like for example Chinhoyi University of Technology where they just want to upgrade their laboratories. They need more than ZW$58m. This is where my concern is, to say we are talking about smart agriculture, agricultural engineering, crop and livestock research; is this going to be feasible with a mere ZW$58m that we are putting to these agricultural institutions?
I want to talk specifically on the infrastructure that we have at Gwebi and Chibhero. I have visited two colleges and the infrastructure there is deplorable. If we are just giving ZW$58m to these two institutions, are they going to fulfill the mandate of smart agriculture that we are talking about in the 2020 Budget? I want to implore the Minister to look into this figure that he has allocated to the agricultural institutions. I thank you.
*HON. P. ZHOU: I wish to debate on the issue on Agriculture
Mechanisation and Irrigation Department. Let me say that yes, we have received some rains but there is little farming that is taking place on the farms because the farmers do not have tractors and the draught power. I would like to urge the Minister to review upwards the figure that he has set aside for this department in order to enable women farmers to have access to farming activities. Again I would to propose that farmers are allocated resources in their clusters per province to enable them to buy farming machinery. A lot of farmers in the provinces do not have farming equipment and they are waiting to hire from DDF which is also constrained.
Secondly, I would like to contribute on the issue pertaining Lands Resettlement and Security of Tenure - $457m. When I look at the 2018 figures you will realise that 700 000ha were put under irrigation, and it is my plea that this amount is increased so that more farmers can utilise irrigation schemes. I also urge the Ministry of Agriculture to avail more 99 Year Leases to more farmers as well.
HON. MAYIHLOME: I have two very small contributions but
very vital for the constituency I represent. The issue of agricultural equipment for commercial farmers is very vital that the Ministry should consider a leasing company in place of DDF because a leasing company located in various provinces would be able to run tillage programmes more professionally than what is in place now. We consider that area very critical as commercial farmers.
The second point is the issue of livestock financing. Unlike other commodities livestock sector has suffered inadequate funding over the years and we urge the Ministry to consider funding livestock financing and associated programmes related to livestock productivity separately. In the past when we talked about livestock development, we only talked about foot and mouth disease control and research which is not visible on the ground but the livestock farmer expects to be able to get a loan to purchase stock and be able to sell stock. Cold Storage Company used to have that arm of livestock financing but it is now virtually not there. we request that it be resuscitated. I thank you.
*HON. P. MOYO: I would like to contribute on the issue of farming. We do not have implements and we have lost a lot of cattle especially this year. My contribution is that on the budget in terms of implements and the purchase of cattle, goats and sheep there should be additions to the budget because we have had a serious drought this year. In terms of irrigation, the majority of irrigation schemes do not have adequate equipment. They are lying idle and may the Minister add more funding so as to enable the irrigation schemes to work and be productive. We do not have equipment to work with although we have the water. I thank you.
HON. MURADZIKWA: I would like to add my voice pertaining
to the issue of water as has been alluded to by my fellow colleagues before me. You made a commitment in the budget that you would want to ensure there is mainstreaming of climate change in WASH programming hence rehabilitation and upgrading of priority water supply and waste water. However, in your commitment there is nowhere you have budgeted for the construction of boreholes in the urban councils or even the reconstruction of dams.
In the budget there was an allocation of ZW$59.5m which was set aside for eight rural provinces but as I speak there is nowhere you budgeted for the drilling of boreholes in the urban areas. I urge and plead with you to consider putting aside a budget for the drilling of boreholes in urban councils. I thank you.
HON. MARKHAM: Before I start, the appropriations are what
they are. I just have issues again with policy which I would like the Minister to bear with me. Over the past three years the Ministry of Agriculture is 22-24% of the National Budget. It is a very important ministry which should be taken and dealt with care. From 2015 to 2018 we have had major issues both from the Auditor General and from the PAC regarding the accountability of the money. I have to say this, I believe that there is double issuance when it comes to the RBZ paying people directly and the Ministry of Finance trying to reconcile at the end of the year. Can the Minister reassure us that all this money which is 20% of the total budget, that this hole has been covered because it is for three years now where the Ministry of Agriculture has over spent tremendously and most of it has been unaccounted for? Can the Minister guarantee that the issue of accountability, parallel systems between the
RBZ and the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development and the
Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement. I also have a major problem with command agriculture being budgeted under the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development but practically on the ground is run by the Office of the President and Cabinet. This is a major issue when it comes to accountability and it would make our jobs so much easier if every appropriated account was dealt with by the line Ministry. That well said and done, I would like to go down with this Budget; the maximum and the major part of this Budget is the capital grant. The capital grant is some seven of the 11 billion. I do not believe that 8% to the national budget should be listed in the Blue Book in one line. I think the capital grant must be broken down into what it represents and what it pays for. I acknowledge and applaud the Minister for actually putting it in there and differentiating it from the 2019 Budget. For that, I appreciate but it must be broken down further for us to be able to consider what is going on.
The issue of command agriculture is a major issue to me. One may choose imports which are unaccountable and Minister, the second thing is the results are not there. This has to be looked at critically because if we look at the money that the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development put into command last year, it would have bought enough maize for us. Yes, we had a drought but that is not the only answer because our small scale production which is brought up by the Hon. Member there is the last in the region. Our yield per hectare is the lowest in the sub-region and yet we are supposed to be one of the leading agricultural proponents. I have a major issue on that.
Hon. Minister, I also appeal to you to review very carefully the issue of grain subsidies. The grain subsidies have been lifted by 30%. I acknowledge and accept that however I think the timing is particularly poor when we are very short of reserves. I do not see why we should remove the grain subsidy when we are subsidising urban transport by
85%. If we cap the subsidy down on urban transport, surely that would issue some relief on the urban populace and the rural populace I am sure have to buy maize grain and one product in particular roller meal.
I also have an issue with the budget on irrigation. My only issue with the Budget on irrigation is that it is a big capital expenditure. Yes it guarantees a crop but the crop is not guaranteed because ZESA is not guaranteed. The winter crop this year is less than a quarter of what it was budgeted for. We will be lucky to get 50 000 tonnes and a 20 hectare irrigation pivot Hon. Minister with the current load shedding, we can handle five to six hectares of wheat. That is a practical thing on the ground that is really worrying me about the Agricultural Budget and the mechanics. I have no problem with the allocation of the money; my problem is the mechanics of distributing the money because this has been a problem for four years and we have not solved it yet.
I would like to just go on to one issue which has been totally ignored. We pay lip service to it and unfortunately is the back bone to many livelihoods. In the rural areas, it is their wealth. Some parts of the country rely totally on the cattle. We have a dilapidated, broken down, ill-funded dipping programme. It was there; it was fantastic and contained all the tick borne diseases for us. It has fallen apart. The money allocated Hon. Minister, I assure you will not suffice for what is required to rebuild that livelihood. Do not forget we have just been through a massive drought where a lot of people have lost cattle, have lost condition and therefore lost the value. I appeal to the Minister, when we look at agriculture, do not just look at the grain crops. Please look at the cattle. The cattle budget is by far the biggest problem I see lying here with the Agricultural Budget.
My final thing is I would like to back up the issue on education. Education in agriculture was probably the priority and the prime driver in our agriculture sector in the last 30 years. We are neglecting the sector and that is the back bone for what we require.
My last issue I will get back to the Grain Marketing Board (GMB). GMB is on its knees, it cannot pay farmers and it is ill-funded. I implore the Minister to look at a PPP with us in the GMB, with some of our donors. Right now we have a major issue with the donors. There is $300 million request to assist us with aid. They are struggling to fill it up and here we stand and we talk of sanctions. We have got to be sensible about these issues. This is a life and death issue – [HON.
MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] – We do not know how much maize we have in the GMB. Not one person in this House can tell you how much is in the GMB. There is a forensic audit going on right now.
HON. KASHIRI: Hon. Chair, the learned Hon. Member is now
debating. Let us zero into figures for progress sake. Let us stop debating.
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much.
Your point of order is noted.
HON. MARKHAM: I thank Hon. Kashiri. I take his point but I had to do that background and the Minister knows exactly where I am coming from. The issue is very simple. Grain is our life, we need the money and we need $300 million. The complication is we run from one agricultural year which starts in September and by December, we are running two batches but I am imploring the Minister to break down the capital budget so we know we will stand with the fee that he will require for the next 12 months. Thank you.
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: Order Hon. Members.
Order please. Can I also advise Members that when you use that Blue Book, particularly on the infrastructure side, can you use the infrastructure booklet. It has all the dams and all the targeted irrigation schemes. Please can you use both.
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE): Thank you Hon.
Chair. Let me begin by thanking the Hon. Members for their comments and for their questions. I think Hon. Mushoriwa wanted to know the back up of the ZWL$7,6billion under finance and administration under the Ministry – [HON. NZUMA: Inaudible interjection.] –
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: Hon. Nzuma, please
can you listen to the Minister.
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: So, the split of the ZWL$7,6 billion under the Ministry of Agriculture vote, under the item or programme on finance administration, how is that being split and what is it. Basically, under this one we have two major items which is the GMB; that is ZWL$5,2 billion and number two is Presidential input scheme at ZWL$1,1 billion. I think if you want us to be very explicit when we print the final book, we will do that for you but that is the split.
On Kunzvi Dam, this project was initially awarded to Sino Hydro under an EPC contract. So, we were going to end up with a foreign currency loan and that is what was going to be executed. This year we just said there is no movement, let us start somewhere, even with a smaller amount of money and get going. So, this is in a sense to say we are getting impatient about the dam; we need to make progress while we could receive these funds to eventually get the contract but we had to start. So we are not in a way saying look, we want to allocate adequate funding for the dam. We just want to start well knowing that let us not over commit ourselves, eventually we will get to the EPC contract and I am hopeful that in 2020 we will get to that EPC contract arrangement.
From Hon. Nguluvhe, he talked about irrigation in Matebeleland South in the Beitbridge area that he is not seeing enough activity in that regard as it is a dry part of the country, which I agree but what is happening is that there is the Zhoye Irrigation Scheme that is going to start in 2020. This has received funding of US$20 million from the Kuwait Fund and US$15 million from the Government, totalling US$35 million. So there is some movement at least on one project and I hope that it will go a long way in meeting the needs of that district or Zhoye region.
On boreholes, several Members highlighted this issue which is an important issue that we need capacity and resources, and I dealt with this issue yesterday that we have got a Budget of $233 million for DDF, part of which will cover borehole drilling and we also have got another $59 million covering ZINWA again for drilling boreholes. So, there is a budget for that purpose. We expect them to use this budget.
I recall someone saying we need to make sure that there is timely disbursements of resources especially by GMB. We are doing everything we can to make sure that there is timely disbursements for the purchase of grain from farmers. So movement from us to the GMB account, and every Monday, I actually check at the end of the day how much will have been transferred by Treasury to GMB. I think the Acting Accountant General now knows and everyday at 1730 hours, she just knocks on my door to come and give me a briefing on payments to GMB because I really watch that like a hawk. It is actually that and the grain importation progress.
Then something from Hon. Sithole about the Insiza-Silalatshane Irrigation Scheme. Certainly, I will take a look and he is right it is a very important irrigation scheme in that region 460 hectares is a lot of hectares to cover the region and we will take a look at that as a Ministry and see whether we can allocate resources within that.
He also mentioned the issue about borehole drilling by DDF. Here, colleagues, I must thank our Chinese colleagues for helping us with the drilling programme. They have been drilling and I was particularly hands on, on the drilling programme in Matabeleland South personally making sure that boreholes are drilled because I am aware when I visited that villagers were up at 0300 hours to go and look for water. They would queue for three to four hours easily and that pattern is repeated right across the country. That is just one example and this is just one area where I spent a lot of time working with the Chinese contractors to drill boreholes and appreciate everything they have done to support and supplement what DDF has been doing.
Then on Bulawayo Hon. Member, I agree with you that Gwayi – Shangani needs to be completed. We will try our best to disburse funds timely. It is long awaited and the city needs water urgently.
There is the comment on agriculture education. It is as if you have listened to some of our Cabinets debate. We have debated this issue around what should happen to some of these agricultural projects. Should they not be under our education in the first place? There is a debate going on and I can say that. It is not as if we are not focusing on the issue, we are but what has happened in the interim is that these colleges are collaborating with other universities. For instance, I know that Chinhoyi University of Technology is collaborating with these colleges already. So, in a sense the burden of education is being shared. Then we worry about whether we should give them a lot of budget given that the burden is being shared but perhaps in future, I can see some thinking emerging that perhaps they ought to be merged with the higher institutions.
By the way, this is not policy it is now me thinking together with you and thinking aloud in a way. Maybe that is the way forward but also it is good for maintaining standards to make sure that these colleges are rightly resourced as said by Hon. Mamombe; we are all thinking together and aloud in a way. It is important to maintain and improve standards to make sure they also fall under our national qualifications framework, the NQF which has been developed by the Ministry of Higher Education. Yes, the budget maybe slow but the burden is shared but we will see an evolution I think in these institutions going forward.
This is Chibero and Gwebi College.
On irrigation again, I recall an Hon. Member who mentioned about the need for mechanisation. Tractors especially were mentioned and I am happy to say we are making progress. Right now, we just have some tractors that we have just ordered at a cost of US$20 million which are sitting in Durban awaiting movement to Zimbabwe. These tractors were acquired through a company called John Deere and of course, because of the shortage of foreign currency, we have been a bit slow but we are dealing with it and we will receive these tractors as part of that mechanisation programme. So we are alive to this.
On the issue of 99-year leases, you know one of the reasons why I pushed hard for some kind of guarantee scheme for banks; CBZ, Agribank and others under Command Agriculture is because I could see that there was a problem in banks easily accepting 99-years leases. Although I believe we have made progress, so by offering a guarantee to borrowers or farmers we are partly dealing with the challenge of security of tenure as there is still some discomfort around the 99-year leases.
That is not to substitute for the 99-year leases but it is to overcome a challenge that will enable the farmers to access credit from the private sector.
From Hon. Mayihlome, he mentioned that perhaps we should use a leasing approach to accessing equipment and DDF programmes. This is an interesting idea. Certainly I will engage my colleagues in the Ministry of Lands and Agriculture to look into this. It is a very good idea indeed. Then livestock finance and so forth and I think also Hon. Markham raised this. Cattle and this is a big issue, I think it is fair to say that our agriculture programme has focused quite a bit on crops and so forth and less on animals. Perhaps, even up scaling what we have been calling command livestock is very important. We have been trying to do that.
So Agribank currently is giving out loans to support command livestock and they have covered all the provinces. I am aware that Manicaland Province has not been adequately covered. We are alive to this as a Government and we want to make sure that they spread resources to that region as well but I agree with you that this is an issue and we need some kind of asset replacement programme for whether it is heifers or whatever to replenish the livestock that has been lost. It is not just cattle, it is other livestock as well – sheep, goats and so forth. All these animals have been impacted by disease, drought and absence of food. We need vaccinations and dipping chemicals.
Our challenge Hon. Markham has really been foreign currency.
We have been struggling to find foreign currency to pay to the Botswana Vaccination Institute from which we import vaccines but also we have not been able to source dipping chemicals easily because of the same problems, which is foreign currency. I am informed that going forward, we may be able to develop capacity internally as a country for dipping chemicals. That is what the experts are telling me. So I am hopeful that one day we will not have to import dipping chemicals so that we can resuscitate our dipping programme as well as articulated by the Hon.
Member.
I want to come back to irrigation, when I was visiting the United Kingdom two weeks ago, one of the issues I was chasing was investors in the irrigation sectors to see if we can get these done on a public private partnership basis where some private sector investors could invest in our agriculture but target exportable horticulture projects specifically. We are alive to this and we have been pushing these days one investor who is showing interest. I hope they will eventually show up. We can only push. I think there is a scope to fast track the irrigation programme targeting exportables so that we can escrow the proceeds in US dollars and service the loans which are also in US dollars.
Hon. Markham, this is the accountability process, trust me.
Everything now is on the table; the Vote is going through the august
House. I will be able to follow it up, whether it is the Auditor General’s Office but I think partnering with banks as another layer of course and accountability, and even access because of the branch network but accountability in the sense that these banks also have to report to their shareholders how they are managing the programme. Those reports are public. Some of the banks are listed on the Stock Exchange. So they have no choice but to put the information out there. Certainly, their shareholders would be asking. We have a few layers for probing on the issue of accountability and transparency and I think we have the better architecture for the programme this year than before. Capital grant of $7 billion needs to be broken down, I think this is okay. We will do that when we do the final Blue Book. It is a fair request.
On the grain subsidy, you know what we have done with the grain subsidy. It was our view and I think this House also agrees that our previous approach where we had the omnibus approach where you end up subsidising some of the business people in the system be they millers or whatever, we are removing that targeting the beneficiaries. We think that this is a better way; a targeted, transparent and well budgeted for subsidy programme is way to go. It could include other commodities as we go forward. I think the President has already mentioned this. There is already some thinking about increasing the list but we will do so within our envelope of the 2020 Budget.
The proposal that maybe we should consider the Grain Marketing
Board, a PPP and so forth; for a start this year we have unbundled it.
We have done enough for now. Let us make Silo Foods work; let us make GMB work and remove the inefficiency in GMB. Of course, these are all ideas. Who knows what we could do in 2020, 2021; maybe they could have a partner. I do not know but these are ideas and we welcome all ideas. I think we have done a bit through the splitting up in the first place. Let us make that work well for now.
On the audit at GMB, yes there is some audit going on especially around what is in the silos. We need to know how much is there, so there is continuous audit to make sure that we have the grain levels that we claim we have. Mr. Chairman, this is obviously a lot of comments. We have covered a lot of ground and I hope that Members feel that my responses have gone somewhere in allaying their fears or making them understand the situation better. I thank you.
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: Can you remain there
Hon. Minister. I noted two issues about targeted irrigation as if they are not there, the 200 ha per district. Can you clarify that because I heard it from Insiza as if there is no irrigation going on when there are those 200 ha per district.
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: This was set out a while ago that we should have at least 200ha per district. We have made progress in some districts and less progress in others. I would need to go back and check very carefully in the PSIP programme and give a report to Parliament. I am happy to do that and let you know which ones we have progressed on, which ones are still outstanding and the reasons why. I want progress and no one wants to be impacted by climate change where we have been impacted this year. We need irrigation as planned, 200ha per district. I am happy to give that report and to go back and check that for the Member.
HON. HAMAUSWA: Mr. Chairman, I would want to refer the Hon. Minister to the Budget Statement on page 43, paragraph 119. We raised the issue of water and we said even in urban areas, now the issue of borehole is being used as an alternative to tap water. The challenge we are having in urban areas is that there is no adequate funding and in the Budget Statement paragraph 119, page 43 says, the budget allocated of $59 million will also target the rehabilitation of 993 non-functional boreholes within the eight rural provinces of the country to be implemented through DDF and ZINWA. There is no mentioning of urban areas. Mr. Chairman, I want you to know that our Constituency Development Fund now is going for boreholes and we do not feel that we are making an impact. We would love to do high impact projects but we are now diverting that amount to boreholes and it is not enough. Somehow you just drill one borehole. We also requested that the boreholes being drilled in urban areas be mechanised because in rural areas the concentration on one borehole is less than the concentration of pollution for one borehole – the ratio is different when you compare with urban areas.
I also highlighted that this year 2019, we were promised that in
Harare we were going to have boreholes drilled by the Ministry of Agriculture and Water but only one constituency got boreholes. This constituency is Glenview South. I do not know whether it was a coincident or what because they were drilled during the by-elections –
[HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: Order Hon. Members.
Do not care, can you proceed?
HON. HAMAUSWA: Mr. Chairman, I think the issue of water is important for everyone because when we come here sometimes we see posters on our toilets written ‘no water’– [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: Do not care, can you
proceed?
HON. HAMAUSWA: Thank you Mr. Chairman. I was saying, on page 43 of the Budget Statement, paragraph 119, there is an allocation given to rehabilitation of boreholes in eight rural areas. This excludes Bulawayo and Harare. This totally excludes urban areas because it is specific that it is targeting rural areas. We are not worried about targeting rural areas, it is okay but we are also saying the urban areas equally need allocation for the rehabilitation of boreholes and for drilling more boreholes. We are saying Mr. Chairman, we also need the boreholes in urban areas to be mechanised because the population in urban areas is higher than in terms of the concentration. Again if you check on paragraph 120, China Aid is going to complement Government efforts but you will realise that this is also going to cover Matabeleland South, Masvingo and Manicaland and again no urban areas are being covered. When you also approach the donor community, they say we focus on rural areas but then our own Government is not targeting urban areas. So this is where we have problems.
Therefore, it is my plea that maybe you can clarify how you are going to assist urban areas by way of making it specific as you did on this paragraph targeting rural areas.
I will conclude by highlighting that on Kunzvi Dam, the issue is that yes we are appreciate that they are starting something but we are facing an acute shortage of water in Harare. The water from Morton Jeffrey is now covering Norton, Chitungwiza, Epworth and Ruwa. So you will now realise that between 2020 and that time when the water project from Kunzvi Dam is going to be commissioned, there is going to be a problem, hence we need an alternative. We need something that
will cover that gap between the initiation of the project and the time when the project is going to be commissioned. When we talk of the construction of the dam, we need to understand that there is need to construct the pipes that will bring the water to Harare. So we are pleading with you Hon. Minister, to really consider alternative funding for Kunzvi Dam because this is a crisis. We were even requesting the Minister responsible for water to declare water in Harare a matter of emergency. I thank you.
HON. MADZIMURE: I want the Minister to take note of the Grain Marketing Board. Year in year out money is made available to buy grain and that grain at GMB is not given for free during our term. However, if you look at the GMB books they do not balance. We know that there is a subsidy that goes in there and must be recorded as such.
Secondly, the management of grain at GMB; you now have more
than 30% being lost but it is not always true that it is being lost, good grain is simply written-off. I also have got experience because I once worked for the GMB and I know the systems because I also designed some of them. So there is that problem where grain sometimes is written-off because people would have connived to write it off. So for the Government to continuously pump money to the GMB without us making sure that they are accountable for all what happens in the management of the GMB is not good.
The other issue regards the unbundling of GMB; when we went for ESAP, it was instructed to commercialise. There is a difference between commercialising and unbundling. Commercialising, you will simply be making the entity more profitable or being run in a commercial manner. Again that is precisely what builds up to a budget. Budget is all about how you give money and you look after the money. So that issue of unbundling; we have to be very careful because we are going to create other companies that are also expensive to run.
The projects that we have in agriculture, I always raise this issue of Tokwe Mkosi Dam. Why not allocate specific amounts to such big projects so that we start monitoring and evaluating the progress as we go on. It is obvious that when you allocate a specific amount for Tokwe Mkorsi’s irrigation you obviously select the competent people to do business and it is run in a business manner. So it is important that, that is done because if we put together the monies in the same basket it becomes very difficult to track especially as Members of Parliament. Whenever we allocate and we have got items that are identifiable, we will then be able to follow programme by programme. It becomes easy also for us and for accountability purposes and it helps the Ministry.
Finally, the issue of us funding agriculture requires us to be able to make people pay. Minister, if we look at what we are going to import this year and how much we funded agriculture, it does not balance. However, it is not a crime that sometimes we go through hard times in terms of rainfall and other weather patterns. We also have got those people who would have done well; money must be paid back. After all, the money that we give to agriculture is not money that falls from trees; but it is money from the people’s taxes. So it is also important that we make those people who would have funded account for what they would have gotten. We cannot continuously year in year out fund agriculture; fund the same people. We must make sure that whoever borrows or gets money from Government pays back that money because it is not
Government’s money but people’s money. The 2% that even my grandmother pays also goes to fund such projects. Why do we allow other people to grow fat using other people’s money? I think we must all be responsible and make sure that agriculture becomes a business.
+HON. MABOYI: Thank you very much. I would like to make some additions to this budget regarding agriculture. We know that Zimbabwe is an agro-based economic country. Therefore, agriculture is a business and we should treat it as a supermarket. When operating a supermarket we look forward to getting some profit. When you are budgeting funds for the agriculture there should be some monitoring and evaluation in this programme. In most cases, we have heard of monies being put into some of these programmes but because there is no monitoring and evaluation, the money goes to waste. A business is an investment and we should have profit on investment in agriculture.
I am now introducing a new idea. We are talking about cattle and we heard a lot of herd of cattle which have since died including donkeys that have also died. In my constituency, we do not have tractors but for draught power in Matabeleland South, we use cattle an donkeys and I am kindly asking you Minister that may you please budget some money for a pilot project so that we will have some small plots or areas where we can grow stock feed so that the farmers able to go and buy some cattle feeds Lucerne or tambora or even bannergrass to feed our livestock. We need to develop our people in order to grow these types of grasses in order to alleviate the severe loss of livestock. It is known that in Matabeleland South, we face drought which is very severe. We notice that there are no contingency plans for farmers to stand the drought like in some countries they grow fodder. We do not have Lucerne or tabora or even banagrass. So my request is, why do we not invest on starting a project on cattle feed so that we are able to stand the drought. It is my humble suggestion that we grow bannergrass for cattle feed. Year in, year out, we talk of a lot of cattle dying, what kind of people are we who do not learn from the past experience. We have said Zimbabwe is an agro-based country and we should be benefitting from agriculture and that is why Minister I will repeat that, let us invest on cattle feed. We have had situations whereby you have said there is going to be some distribution of livestock, for example cattle and this has been done under clandestine. In areas like Matabeleland North, Matabeleland South and Midlands, we have lost a lot of herd of cattle. We have had some individuals who have lost up to 70 and 80 cattle and this is something which I have come across and we know hence, I am saying increase money on this budget so that farmers will be given heifers because as we speak, people have lost lots of herd of cattle and they are now poor.
I have said agriculture is a business because some people were allocated farms but we have had some land which is derelict. In Matabeleland South, we have had some of our dams which have silted and again, we are asking for equipment for the de-siltation of these dams. This may help us reduce a lot of expenses under agriculture.
I will talk again and say, we should concentrate on monitoring and evaluation of agriculture, when people have been given land even in these agricultural areas, we should have supervisors so that we need to know who are the people who are really fully utilising the land given to them otherwise if you do not do that we will simply be wasting money. At the moment, the District Development Fund (DDF) is talking about the digging of boreholes. We have had plans which have been shelved because they end up being thrown away. We want to dig boreholes in various areas but at the end of it all, no boreholes are dug and that is why I am calling for monitoring and evaluation. Still talking on cattle and agriculture, we have talked of the resuscitation of the Cold Storage Company, which I believe could assist in purchasing and buying the livestock.
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: Order, order. May you
please debate on the specific vote allocations? We have already finished on the general debate of the whole budget.
+HON. MABOYI: When you have been given a chance to debate,
you want to touch on as many angles as possible. I am asking the Minister to put more money for agricultural colleges. We need to have more farmers to go and train in colleges such as the one called Esikhovheni. We should invest money on these so that farmers can go for reorientation and teaching on the agricultural best methods. I thank you.
HON. O. SIBANDA: I would like to thank the Minister of Finance and Economic Development for what he has done and I think your budget proposal is excellent. And, what is really needed is the implementation and quick implementation because of inflation, once you delay in releasing these funds, we will fail to achieve what we are targeting.
Hon. Minister, I come from a constituency, Vungu where it has never been in the Blue Book for the past maybe 30 years and I am almost in tears because again we have missed out in the Blue Book. There is nothing concerning Vungu. Vungu and in particular Lower Gweru was the breadbasket of horticulture supplying Gweru in the Midlands
Province but as we speak, four irrigation schemes are not working. Mr. Chairman, through the allocation which I am seeing, that means another year of failing to get irrigation started in Vungu. So Hon. Minister, the irrigations which are affected were providing money to various families and they were taking their kids to school. As I speak, nothing is happening. There is a boy at one irrigation scheme who has a similar name as yours. He is Mthuli Ncube and he is 17. Newspapers were writing about him saying Mthuli is in Lower Gweru but, yet nothing is happening in his own constituency. So, if you look at such things happening Hon. Minister, it means that we are failing to achieve what we want.
I am saying this because the dams’ issue, I think we should do what is called target approach, especially on small dams around the rural areas. When we are trying to harness water, as I speak, none of those small dams have a dam wall. The dam is silted and you cannot even see that there was a dam in any part of our lives. So, there is need for us to make sure Hon. Minister that scooping is done in these dams and a target approach is applied when de-silting these dams.
Then, quite a number of people have been settled in the wetlands and also in the catchment areas of these small streams or rivers. So, through the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement, I think that some funds should be put to make sure that people are relocated and leave the wetlands and leave also the catchment areas.
There is the issue of boreholes Hon. Minister. Yes, there is money which you have allocated to DDF and to ZINWA but I think that there is duplication of functions there. If you look at what ZINWA is doing and what DDF is doing, they are doing a similar job and as such I call it duplication and in some cases you will realise that ZINWA may think that DDF has put boreholes yet we do not have boreholes. I feel that some monies which are allocated to ZINWA for small boreholes should be reallocated to DDF so that they do not bulk water but small water like the small boreholes. In these boreholes we should also include in the budget allocated the small ponds at every borehole which will serve animals or livestock to drink water from. For example, we are faced with a drought and a lot of animals and cattle have died. They cannot even use the boreholes for supplying water to animals. As a result, a lot of cattle have died.
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: Order, order Hon.
Member. Like what I said to the previous speaker as well, we have programmes that are in the Blue Book, we need to debate on the programes and the allocations. Let us be specific to that so that we can move on.
HON. O. SIBANDA: My request to the Hon. Minister was to take money from ZINWA and allocate to DDF and it will solve what I am talking about because the allocation is already there in the Blue Book.
DDF is going to do something with this money better than ZINWA. ZINWA is concentrating on bulk water but DDF is concentrating on small boreholes and small dams.
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: Hon. Member I had to
say that because you were talking of small ponds and boreholes, on the issue of ZINWA and DDF that was fine.
HON. S. SIBANDA: As I conclude, I do not have much to say. I just want to remind the Minister to remember a Constituency called Vungu and once we are done, we will come and thank you Hon. Minister. As the Hon. Chair is saying, we are not in the Blue Book so my hands become tied, if it was in the Blue Book I was going to say much.
HON. T. MLISWA: Thank you very much Madam Chair.
Veterinary Services was allocated 10 million dollars, how can you give this amount to Veterinary Services when there has been an outbreak of disease. There are no dip tanks, no medication for the cattle and so forth. You know Zimbabwe used to be known for exporting beef and you can only export beef when you have met the veterinary requirements. Why would you give 10 million dollars only, what is our total herd? The dip tanks are not there at all and I think what is important is to put more money and 10 million is nothing at all in terms of veterinary services for the entire country.
Hon. Chair, we need to improve on that so that we can then be able to market our cattle. On Livestock Advisory Extension you allocated $6.2 million, how then do they move around to be able to supervise and so forth. I think because of the climatic change which is happening, let us move to the aspect of livestock. It becomes a better way. You do not have to do crops, livestock on its own, well managed especially in the Matebeleland area, with proper feed there is no point in us talkign about bringing in a new herd. There is no feed and the dip tanks and various things that go with that are quite critical.
Zimbabwean beef market is known to be sweet. It is already marketed but we now need to invest in this. So, $6.2 million is nothing at the end of the day. I think we need to start moving to the aspect of cattle ranching livestock more than cropping. Cropping is becoming difficult because even the money that is apportioned to irrigation is not enough to be able to do that. I think the Chair did ask you that in terms of the 200 hectares which was planned per district, how far have we gone with that? Why should we plan for 200 hectares of irrigation when we know very well that there are farms with water, all we need to do is to rehabilitate not to reinvent the wheel.
Madam Chair, the system that the farmers had was a good system. Let us see how much it costs for us to rehabilitate and so forth. Again I do not see in the Blue Book where white farmers will be compensated. Hon. Minister, why are we rushing to compensate the white farmers when this Government will never have enough money to compensate the white farmers? The war veterans themselves do not have enough, we are rushing to compensate the white farmers, who are we trying to please?
It is something that we have decided to take on which we cannot afford. We want to please the western world because it is Zimbabwean way of doing business. We cannot do that, what is critical at the end of the day is that compensation money must go towards us being productive, being able to resuscitate the very same things which are needed. When we then produce like the theme is then we are able to pay anybody. Why do we want to pay people money that we do not have at the expense of our agriculture? So, $50 million was given for white farmers to be compensated – I have nothing against white farmers being compensated, it is okay but this is not the right time. The Land Reform is not yet even complete. There is land audit which we need to embark on and so forth. So, until the land audit is complete we can then say let us compensate them. I do not know why we are rushing to compensate the white farmers when we cannot even resource our own black farmers.
In terms of infrastructure which is on the farms, make it optional to the farmer. Whoever wants to compensate will get title deeds but I suggest that there be a Government fund for the war veterans. The war veterans do not have to pay compensation because they went to war for this land so they must be separated from the ordinary person. I never went to war, I am a businessman, I am doing farming on the business point of view, why can I not pay for the infrastructure, agree with
Government and then I get title deeds? Government does not need to burden itself with paying when people can produce and pay. There must be a deliberate policy for government to look after the war veterans. Give them title because that is why they went to war for, to be economically emancipated.
I do not know how much you have put aside for the compensation of the white farmers and so forth. The Lancaster Agreement was very clear that it would compensate them. Why are we being nice today, I do not understand taking on a bill that we will never afford. We are now leaving debt for generations to come. So, I would like to know in terms of compensation the policies and how much money have you allocated. I tried to go through the Blue Book, I could only see compensation for A1 farm land acquisition amount but there was no specific heading of compensation for the white farmers but the Government is still compensating the white farmers. Where is that coming from? Thank you.
HON. NDUNA: Thank you Madam Speaker. The first issue is
that we are debating about land and agriculture but I want to ask the Minister to seek a change of policy in terms of making sure that the
Land Act of 2000 has got the same power as the Mines and Minerals
Act. What is currently happening is that he is financing the Ministry of Lands, Climate and Water but people on the land are getting to be dispossessed of their land by just mere licences from the mines office. So, whilst we are giving with the right hand, we are taking with the left hand because soon there will not be nobody left on the land because of the policy that make sure the Mines and Minerals Act supersedes any other Act including the Land Act.
Madam Chair, what has happened is that in the erstwhile colonisers, they are armed with the mining licences whereas our formerly marginalised black majority are armed with the Agrarian
Reform Land, lease agreements and the offer letters and so forth for the A1 and A2. They are being forced to march out of that land by people who are just using the licences from the mines by the former owners of that land. They were conducting mineral extraction. This is where they were making a lot of money, but now they are force marching our formerly marginalised black majority using that paper work.
The first issue that the Minister needs to do as the gold finger and the pace holder of this nation is to change policy using the power of his office in terms of harmonising these Acts so that there is no Act which is higher in terms of power than the other.
The second issue – DDF, you have given them $233 000 000 for borehole drilling and other activities. The example that I seek to give, Hon. Minister in terms of batter trade, DDF seeks to also have land for their officials and houses. In the local authorities where I come from, we have copious amounts of this land and it is my fervent view and hope that you can see light in the batter trading of the services by DDF in exchange for the land that they require for their operations so that you have no need to have any money exchanging hands or allocating any more money to DDF than you have already allocated.
We drilled 43 boreholes and we gave them land in exchange for those boreholes. They were mono pumped but we seek to now make sure that those boreholes are motorised. We seek to go through the same route because we have the land that we have been apportioned according to the master plan. We have been given that land by the Ministry Lands, Agriculture, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement. We need to exchange that land or the services. So this is a suggestion of how you can use what you have to get what you want. It is a positive suggestion, Hon. Chair, to the Minister. So I hope that can take root in some of his proposals that he is putting across.
In terms of dam construction, to augment and complement the waters that we have we need to have empirical evidence of how or if any of the water has been utilised in the year prior to the year that we are allocating more resources to dam utilisation and dam construction. We need to make sure that we have scientific and empirical evidence championed by e-governance in terms of water utilisation.
I want to say, as you allocate money for dam construction, as a contractor myself, you need to allocate 4% of that money towards project planning, project design because as long as we do not allocate this money at inception, we are going to see an end product that does not speak to quality and optimum planning and utilisation of that resource which you have planted a lot of money. If you miss the 4%, it looks very minute and very unwarranted as we speak, but it is very key to the end part of the dam utilisation and the corpus amount of water that you are now going to have in that dam.
Madam Chair, it is my proposal to the Minister of Finance and Economic Development that Chinhoyi University of Technology in two months is producing straws of semen, enough to impregnate all the heifers and cows that we have nationally. We have cows and heifers numbering 1.5 million nationally.
What is my suggestion? My suggestion therefore is the semen is there, the producers are there and the heifers are there. You can use only but a little bit of money to have a PPP with Chinhoyi University of Technology in order to enhance the visibility and the growth of the beef industry by making sure all the heifers and the cows, 1.5 million of them are serviced by what we have locally. Where there is PPP there is no Government capital outlay. Let us use what we have there to get what we want and you will have a scenario where we have this project all encompassing and embracing the capitalisation of Chinhoyi University of Technology.
I am going to speak about, Hon. Mutomba. I bought an abattoir from him. I am a producer of beef second to none, third largest abattoir in the whole of Mashonaland West. You would want to capacitate the domestic beef industry first. We are the ones that stood shoulders high above the rest during the time when CSC went underground. It is time now therefore to recognise us, capacitate us because we have gone down because of the beef industry, the demise of the cattle industry. Capacitate us now so that you can recognise the time that we actually capacitated the country at a time when CSC went down. We were the small time producers but we now want to use that time as a pedestal, a platform for enhancing our capability going forward.
I see there is the Kuwait fund and everyone else, but show commitment to us the small time players. I see there is now going to be investment in CSC. Do not ignore us. Just give the right environment, buy from us first as Government and then we can export later.
Hon. Chair I want to thank you for giving me this opportunity to enhance the Budget of the Lands, Agriculture, Water and Rural Resettlement Ministry. I thank you.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Order, order Hon. Members. I
have an announcement. Dinner is served but we have to go in batches. We cannot leave the House empty so we go outside in batches and then we have dinner.
We still insist that may we please stick to the specific vote allocation. I think it is quite important so that we can move. From yesterday we only have done three votes so far. So, I think we really need to move so that at least we can be able to accomplish our task. So let us stick to the specific votes. I am sure when the Minister came in with the motion of the Finance Bill, we were given an opportunity to debate generally. I am sorry if ever I am going to be tough or if I am ever going to be strict; we need to debate the specific votes. So if you are going to stand and if I recognise you, please let us stick to the specific votes and the allocations. Thank you very much – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.]- I am going to be strict – we need to debate the specific Votes. So, if you are going to stand and if I recognise you – please let us stick to the specific Votes and allocations. I thank you. Hon. Kashiri – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] - Hon. Mushoriwa, first it was Hon. Mliswa, then Hon. Nduna then it is Hon. Kashiri. You are going to be given an opportunity after that.
HON. KASHIRI: Madam Chair, thank you so much for giving
me this opportunity to make a contribution.
Madam Chair, agriculture is a very important industry. It is one industry that we can actually use to fight the so called or actually to fight the sanctions that we talk about everyday – I believe so. Hon. Minister,
I would like to draw your attention to the allocation on Page 116 to
Policy and Administration – I see ZWL$7.6million into Policy and Administration. Then I look at Lands Survey and Mapping – you have got ZWL$63million.
Now Hon. Minister, I am thinking, we are moving into technology – if we adopt technology and buy drones to use in land survey, our budget here will not suffice. We could cut a lot of expenses from Administration and Policy, take a chunk out of there and invest that money into Land Survey and Mapping. I think it will go a long way and be even faster because innovation is the way to go. Let us invest more money into land and survey – that was one thing that I picked up.
The other thing that I wanted to draw your attention to is the issue of ARDA Estates Hon. Minister. I thought I would see some monies allocated to ARDA Estates to resuscitate them and then go into PPP with foreign investors. We have a lot of land sitting with ARDA that is under-utilised and we have equipment that is lying idle within ARDA Estates. We resuscitate that industry and move in with PPP – I think that it will go a long way.
Hon. Minister, if we can look at that and make a separate budget for ARDA and manage it separately – I think that it will give us a yard towards the direction that we need. I thank you.
HON. MUSHORIWA: Thank you Madam Chair. Hon. Minister,
mine is very specific – Hon. Chair, with your indulgence. In looking into the figures, the $11.3 billion allocated to the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement. The Hon. Minister in his Budget Statement bemoaned that the current financial mode of our agriculture was pressing an unfair share or burden to the Government.
In his solution, he then stated that he was going to replace that with Government providing guarantees to banks.
What it means Hon. Minister is that, we need you to clarify to us and I ask this primarily because as you are aware, we have a
Condonation Bill before Parliament that are we not therefore providing extra monies that will end up having this budget of $11.3 billion possibly going beyond $20 billion. We want the Hon. Minister to explain to us – what is the criterion of the Government guarantee? Is it going to be open ended to every Tom and Jerry in terms of whoever wants to farm? My reason Hon. Minister is that we have certain farmers in this country who one, were given equipment such as tractors during the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and remember the debt was then taken over by the fiscus. The same farmers were then given monies by the banks and they failed to repay the monies.
Then the Government through the RBZ created ZAMCO, they then
took the bad debts that were tying the banks. After that Hon. Minister, those same people went to Command Agriculture – if you check, they were not even repaying the money that they were collecting from Command Agriculture. Are we not going again, Hon. Minister, for the fifth time going to continue giving money to those farmers who are not supposed to be given money? I would be happier if the Hon. Minister could just clarify to us – what is it that you mean by Government guarantees?
HON. MAMOMBE: Thank you Madam Chair for the
opportunity. I would also want to commend the Hon. Minister for his response in my first presentation pertaining to the Vote 8 – particularly on the issue of education in terms of agriculture. So, I want to recommend that if the debate is going on in Cabinet, surely schools of agriculture should be put to the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation, Science and Technology Development so that we do not compromise quality as you have mentioned.
Let me move on to the issue of water particularly in urban areas. Hon. Madam Chair, personally I am really aggrieved because when I look at the Ministry, I feel that the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture,
Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement as presented by the Minister of
Finance and Economic Development. It is a Ministry of Rural
Development – why do I say that Madam Speaker? Because when you look at all the projects in the Ministry, I feel that the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement there is no one project that focuses on urban areas - all the projects.
Look at water, they have talked about drilling boreholes – [HON.
MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – Chisimukaika mutaure!
HON. CHAIRPERSON: Order, order, please address the Chair Hon. Mamombe.
HON. MAMOMBE: Madam Speaker Ma’am, the point that I am
trying to raise is to say that when the Hon. Minister spoke about drilling boreholes – he talked about DDF and this focuses on rural areas. No mention of any plan in terms of urban areas. Let me go to the one project that he mentioned – the Kunzvi Dam. The Kunzvi Dam, Hon.
Chair, he has allocated ZWL$259 million. Just as the previous speaker,
Hon. Mushoriwa mentioned, the allocation of money to the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement – the totality is 22% of the total of the national budget.
So when you look at $259 million – this is just 4% of the whole allocation which is $11 billion. So Madam Speaker, just like what Hon. Nduna said, 4% is needed for project design and the surveys. So to me it does not make sense to give an infrastructure project just 4%. Let me give an example of one of the infrastructure projects that he mentioned.
Let us talk about the Harare-Beitbridge Road where he is allocating $1.2 billion.
Madam Speaker, water is a serious human right issue, so if you are allocating $1.2 billion to an infrastructure project of road construction; why are we not also allocating $1.2 billion to the construction of Kunzvi Dam? – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] - Why am I saying that
Madam Speaker? Madam Speaker, let me reiterate Section 77 of the Constitution – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] - It is not my making. This is the Constitution of Zimbabwe – the Constitution of Zimbabwe talks about Section 77 where it talks about the right to food and water and it is very clear that water is a right. So, if we are saying that water is a right, why are we not prioritising Kunzvi Dam? Why are we not allocating the same $1.2 billion?
Secondly, if we are saying, we are going to wait at $259 million then let us focus on the boreholes. The same way that boreholes are being drilled in rural areas is the same way that we need boreholes because water is also a crisis in urban areas. So Madam Speaker, we want the Hon. Minister to address this fundamental issue of water challenges in urban areas.
Madam Speaker Ma’am, when you look at the infrastructure projects. Hon. Nduna spoke about the 4% as a Project Development Allocation but if you want to do an infrastructural project, at least a 20% is needed. So when you talk about 20% of the totality to construct Kunzvi Dam, it will be $1.2 billion. So Madam Speaker, we want to implore the Minister to say we are kindly asking that you allocate at least 20% of the total amount that is needed for Kunzvi to construct the dam, so it will be ZWL$1.2 billion Hon. Chair. We want to kindly ask the Minister to consider this allocation; ZWL$259 million is nothing at the end of the day. This is where you hear about corruption. This money will be spent on mere salaries and accommodation for the workers because already people have been displaced around the Kunzvi Dam. If you are going to remain with this ZWL$259 million, it will only focus on the workers and it will not make a difference in terms of the construction of the Kunzvi Dam. Hon. Chair, we are actually
demanding because this is a human right. It is a human right and I repeat it is stated in Section 77 - no compromise to it. We want at least 20 percent of the total budget Madam Speaker.
*HON. CHIKWAMA: Thank you Madam Speaker, I will talk
about agriculture especially on irrigation. You said you want to irrigate 12 500 hectares which is a very good target. The amount you allocated for this programme is very little. May you please add some more funds onto this budget because we have got an unpredictable rain season and we do not have to rely on rain fed agriculture but we need to rely on irrigation. We can only afford to do this when we add more money onto irrigation. We will be following a worldwide trend of irrigation.
Turning to land tenure, you are talking of 99 year leases and as of now, we have had 20 leases issued. If only you could support this 99 year lease, this is going to improve the lives of the people because they will have confidence in being on their land and be able to do agriculture. We are very glad for the amount you have allocated to this programme.
You have talked of permits for A1 Minister, I am sure you are aware that A1 farmers are the most hard working farmers and you have said your target is 1 500 but as to how it has been allocated we are in the dark.
I am begging you Minister, please put more money on A1 because A1 farmers are the most reliable farmers and they grow a lot of maize which is the staple food in the country. When we desilt dams, we empower women like what you promised in Waterfalls. When these women have access to water they can do more projects and there will be progress in Zimbabwe.
State management will be a very good investment and it will also bring money with regards to agriculture. If we get the tenure, people will feel that they are permanent on those farms and they will also use these documents as collateral even from foreign donors.
+HON. MATHE: Thank you Madam Chair. I am very grateful
for what the Minister of Finance has done in the allocations. He has crafted a well planned document which shows experties and the intelligence of the Minister. Minister, please through the Chair, allow me to add some more points so that this can help you in the crafting of this beautifully crafted budget. You talked about agriculture education, my apologies, I left my spectacles and I am using somebody’s glasses. You allocated agriculture education 38 million. I am suggesting that more funds be added because agriculture is failing in this country because of lack of education. We need to be told about the soil testing, usage and this can only happen if more money is put into this programme. In rural areas, people need to receive education on the nature of soils and the types of agriculture which is needed on a particular land type.
If people are educated they will do proper farming because we may know that in certain areas these soils differ and each different soil needs particular fertilisers, particular chemicals and particular crops. I am begging you please, you have put 38 million into this programme; please add another 38 million and Zimbabwe will be back to its bread basket status. I have said my fellow Members of Parliament, I do not have my reading glasses, can somebody please read for me.
Mrs. Maraire of the Serjeant-at-Arms department gave Hon.
Mathe reading glasses.
*HON. MATHE: Thank you mhamha this happens to be the best.
In the department of crop and livestock you put 230 million. Like I stated, you did well by this allocation but I am asking you to please add some more funds. I am saying this because we have heard about climate change which has caused the death of a lot of our livestock especially when rains are delayed. We know that when people are starving we have this programme where we feed the citizens of Zimbabwe so that nobody dies of hunger and the same should be transferred to cattle.
We urge the Minister to put more money on livestock feeding so that this programme can be implemented. We need an allocation so that we grow more food which we are going to consume in the country. I am calling Government to enact a law which should make it mandatory for a farmer to have a quota system of growing the local staple food. People must be taught farming and when they would have harvested, the food should be taken to the Grain Marketing Board. There is idle land at the moment. I have made my own research and noticed that there is more idle land than land which is farmed. When traveling from Harare to Bulawayo and in my constituency Nkayi South, I have made an observation that the most fertile land is derelict; nobody is carrying out farming activities. As a result, we have enemies of the State who ask for that land so that they do farming activities. However, since they are enemies of the State, they just take the land for speculative purposes. Some of them are with us in this House. I am proposing that the land which is lying derelict should be repossessed by the State and allocated to people who can fully utilise it.
I do not want to be repetitive or try to show off, I am now going to touch on my last point. I am not going to waste of time but I will go to straight to the point. I will talk of water; you have allocated 1.549 billion – I am saying this is very little for such a project because we need to have dams in the country. Unfortunately, we have had siltation of these dams and the only way of resuscitating these dams is through desiltation. We need to buy equipment for desiltation of the dams. I have not seen this indicated in the budget but if we have put some money for de-siltation machines, it is fine. I am proposing that each
Constituency should have a dam scooper for de-siltation programmes.
The Chief Whip having been speaking to the Hon. Minister of
Finance and Economic Development (Hon. M. Ncube).
+HON. MATHE: Chief Whip, I am begging you; give me the time to address the Minister through the Chair. When we do not have scoopers in constituencies there will be a lot of siltation. You find that after very little rainfall, the dams look full but there will only be sand under and little water up the dam. Therefore, there is need for desiltation. My fellow Members of Parliament have called for the desiltation of dams, so we need to add funds into our budget. Like I stated,
I will repeat - we need each constituency to have a de-siltation machine.
I am making a call for the removal of allowances for the Members of Parliament so that they are directed to the acquisition of de-siltation machines because when we earn so much money we forget about what to do. If these allowances are removed, each Member of Parliament is going to acquire a de-siltation machine for his constituency. God has given us rainfall and if our dams are de-silted, we will have a lot of water for our farming programmes. Hon. Minister, may you add funds on Agriculture; we need to buy more of these de-siltation machines. I thank you.
HON. P. MOYO: Thank youHon. Chair. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Minister of Finance and Economic Development for allocating the little resources. He allocated funds towards the construction of dams in Zimbabwe; that is wisdom on its own and I would like to thank him. However, the allocation of those funds is too little to construct dams. We are facing a litany of problems in our country. It is a shame in other countries to continuously have problems of water-borne diseases, it is totally unacceptable.
Our Finance Minister should allocate at least $2 billion towards the construction of dams in our country. We are talking of irrigation on our farms right now, you cannot even irrigate when you do not have those dams. So we need to have the dams constructed like the Moda, Kunzvi and other dams. When we have these problems in local authorities – in other countries they are laughing at us saying we do not think yet we can think. We can mobilise the local resources that we have. For example, the $15 billion which we heard from the grapevine that it was stolen from Chiadzwa, if we had taken that money and constructed our dams, we could have been somewhere. I do not want to take much of your time; I think you have listened to what I have said. We need $2 billion to construct our dams to alleviate the problems of water borne disease that we are facing in our country. In other countries, the Minister resigns if there are water-borne diseases. We are not saying he should resign because he is new and is trying his level best to correct some of the past problems that we were having. I want to thank you Minister.
*HON. SEREMWE: Thank you Hon. Chair. I will talk about the funding of dams. My contribution is that we are building a lot of dams in one year. What we need to do is to construct only two instead of so many dams per year. If we say we allocate money for dam construction and we build just one dam, that will be enough because we would have put more money, build a very big dam and have all the aspects and facilities needed for that instead of building many small dams which we cannot sustain.
HON. MARKHAM: Hon. Minister, I am going back to the same issue of the capital grant; you gave us two figures there, can I ask where inputs are budgeted for or are they under the same thing when you are talking about Command Agriculture which I believe is now called Smart Agriculture.
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: Thank you very much Madam Chair. I thank the Hon. Members for those questions, comments and requests for clarification. Let me start with Hon. Mamombe but she is not the only one who mentioned this issue of urban water and boreholes. Urban areas in the main are supplied by the City Councils; there is piped water infrastructure. In my view, that should really be the target of our water supply strategy, targeting Morton Jeffrey Water Works repair, supplying chemicals, making the forex available and investing in the metering system so that we can collect user charges to support the supply of
water; that should be the strategy. The strategy should not be drilling boreholes all over Harare or Bulawayo as the core strategy, that is only an emergency. Yes it is being done, we are doing it and supporting it but it cannot be the core strategy for our water reticulation problem in our urban areas. It is an issue but I must also say that in terms of water provision, we have a budget of $213 million under the local authorities water improvement projects already allocated.
We have another $113.2 million focusing on just water supply around growth points. We have also got the $2.9 billion under the devolution 5% budget - part of which will go towards urban areas as well and may well target water. You should recall that when we intervened for the City of Harare, Bulawayo and other towns, we were using some of the devolution resources. We mentioned when we were in Victoria Falls that we did use some of the devolution resources to deal with water issue in urban areas. So to me that should be the way to go- and not boreholes as the core strategy. That is just an emergency. That is my response to the urban boreholes issue.
There was an issue mentioned around livestock support. I just want to highlight that there is some resources for research which is $230 million, livestock production $281 million and for animal production $568 million. That is a lot of budget around livestock that is already allocated in the budget. So, we are doing something about it and members should be rest assured that we are focusing on it and it is not being ignored at all.
There was also another issue of putting through the water drilling DDF budgets through the CDF, that is not a good idea. I think that let us allow these institutions whose job it is to drill boreholes to do it. DDF and ZINWA are there. Let us capacitate them and as Members of Parliament, you are free to work with these institutions. You are already doing that and we are aware of that. There is no need for you to take over that budget if that is what you meant to manage it, it would not be a good idea all.
On Kunzvi Dam, maybe I was not well understood. The approach is to seek external resources because it is an extensive project. The fund being targeted is of the order of US$600 million. It is a lot of money and we want to do it on an EPC contract basis. That is the proposal we have from Sino-Hydro and that is what we are pursuing. Of course, there have been delays and the reason why Government is allocating something is just to deal with those delays so that we do not lose time. The core is not Government resources, it is external resources under this EPC contract arrangement.
Under GMB, I think this is from Hon. Madzimure. He has the benefit of having worked there. I appreciate that and he says that 30% of grain is lost and so forth and that things are not run well. We are currently undertaking an audit of GMB to make sure that the amount of grain that is supposed to be there is available. We will know in the next month or two what those figures are.
On the unbundling of GMB into silo and GMB as a grain stabilisation fund – yes, we will continue to focus on this but also capacitate silo foods. Tokwe-Mukorsi irrigation that we should focus on that - let me say something else about irrigation – The Ministry of Lands, Agriculture has put out a request for proposals and RFP for the provision of irrigation infrastructure. It went out a few months ago and I will wait to see any progress in terms of expressions of interest, but their wish was to proceed using a PPP approach. As Treasury, we have been seeking other funders to fund this project. So, we will be targeted and Tokwe/Mukorsi is a critical piece of infrastructure.
Funding for agriculture, the question was, are people paying back? We are aware of this and part of the reason of partnering with the bank is to improve the payment or the repayment processes because banks are usually good at collecting what they are owed. They are natural and this management entity is the way they are designed. So, I am confident that our collection repayment levels will go up as a result of the partnership.
Another one is that we should shift our budget from ZINWA to DDF. My understanding has been that ZINWA is actually better a drilling deeper borehole because of the equipment that they use while DDF is shallower boreholes. If we did this shifting of resources we may really prejudice in ZINWA, it is playing an important role in drilling deeper boreholes and we need to support them to repair their equipment. They have requested some resources to repair their equipment and we have just processed those resources from the 2019 budget. So, I will not favour shifting resources away from ZINWA. On the contrary I think they need additional resources.
I have also noted from Hon. Sibanda that Vungu Constituency is missing and he has implored me to look into an irrigation facility in his constituency. We will do so because it has been ignored for years. I think that this kind of heads up from constituencies is very useful. The veterinary services budget from Hon. Mliswa of $10 million is too low and advisory services is also too low and so forth. I think the budget of $11.3 billion for the Ministry is a lot of budget. It is the largest budget we have and all we can do is not to increase this budget but rather move items around. I am happy for my team to look into that and we will move things around a bit, but let us not increase a budget that is already so large - $11.3 billion is a lot of budget.
On the issue of farmer compensation – the figure that we have allocated in this budget is $380 million and Hon. Mliswa wanted to know. Hon. Nduna had said as usual very interesting ideas about how we do a swap for services arrangement with DDF that we give them land in return for services. All those are ideas and I think some of these are really operational issues which will reduce the demand on the budget, but there are operational issues that we will convey to the Ministry to sort out.
The issue for example of Chinhoyi University doing what they do is really welcome. Our institutions are very productive and have come up with this incredible way of capacitating our industry – in this case livestock. We should support them and the budget that we have given to the Minister of Higher Education, Science Innovation and Technology speaks to that desire to support research and development. Hon. Kashiri talked about a budget of $7.63 million for processing administration and land survey. You said that this is low but at the same time you said that if we use drones, it will be more expensive. Using this technology makes things cheaper. I think that at $63 million it is a good budget. I do not think we need to increase it up too quickly. Let us see how they use it. As I said already $11.3 billion is a lot of budget. May be we could move things around within the Ministry if we think the $63 million is rather low.
On ARDA Estates, some of this is demand driven. When we
receive budget proposals, the Ministries also tell us what is of priority and what is not priority. I will again look into this and interrogate it with the Minister and see if we can again move the budget around to deal with the issue of kick-starting some of those moribund ARDA Estates which have great potential to resuscitate our agriculture.
Hon. Mushoriwa on the issue regarding the model for guarantees that I should explain what it is. It is very simple. The new model of financing agriculture through you Chair is to give guarantees as the first order of business, to banks to then lend to farmers. What those guarantees cover is losses in terms of loans that are not paid back but these banks are also meeting us half way. They have skill in the game in the sense that they are taking additional insurance above our insurance in terms of the guarantee so that those are two pieces of insurance at play and we are confident that this will help the recovery process. At least the insurance provisions will help. Beyond the guarantee is then liquid support for those banks where we feel they are doing a good job – we give them additional liquidity support for them to continue on lending to the farmers. So it is guaranteed in the main followed by liquidity support.
Criteria for guarantee – well, the banks have to sign an MOU with us. We analyse these banks and see if they have got good balance sheets and so forth, they are strong or worth partners with Government. We look at the size of the balance sheet, non performing loans as well as checking whether the bank is sound or not. The soundness reports exist and they are public information from the central bank. We use those to target the banks we want to partner with.
Hon. Mamombe spoke about urban water and I think we dealt with this. We also spoke about irrigation. We also dealt with the issue of education. She might have been out when we were debating it that there is a sharing of responsibility between the two agricultural colleges with some of the universities. We should be careful about not over budgeting, because the responsibility is being shared to provide this kind of education.
I hope a few things that I have tackled have helped clarify this Budget which is the largest in our whole budgetary process. For some of these you have to move the budget around within the $11.3 billion.
Let me stop here for now. Let us try to make progress.
Vote 8 put and agreed to.
On Vote 9 – Mines and Mining Development - US$353 725 000:
HON. CHIKWINYA: Thank you Hon. Chair. I hope the Minister of Mines will be able to catch up as he reads the Hansard. I rise to give my input on the Vote on Mines and Mineral Development, largely premised on item (4) which is major achievements during 2019. You will see that the Mines and Mineral Development generated $2.07 billion which translates to 66% of the country’s export earnings and
receipts of $3.116 billion.
First and foremost, I would have appreciated that the Minister demonstrates to this House how the receipts are benefiting the Budget itself. Our aim in supporting the mines and mineral development sector, is that it is then supposed to support the public finance sector. I would have wanted the Hon. Minister to demonstrate by way of figures that this particular amount was supported from the mining development sector the same way he did from donor funded funds.
The second issue is that under the same item (4), you will see that there is resumption of granting of Exclusive Prospective Orders (EPOs) and Special Grants for exploration. You would recall that in the 2019 Budget, a company is created which has to deal with exploration and it is resident under ZMDC. US$3 million was given to this company for it to purchase equipment and begin exploration. The thrust being that Zimbabwe does not have enough mineral resource knowledge to the extent that any attempt to lure investors without enough mineral
resource information will be dipping into the dark and we risk being abused by the very same investors or we cannot negotiate meaningful contracts which benefit the country.
Now that the Minister says as one of his achievements, there is resumption of EPOs and Special Grants for exploration. I would want to know if these EPOs and Special Grants are being explored by this Government Company which we gave US$3 million or these are private explorers. If they are private explorers, I would have wanted to know the timeframe, because at the end of the timeframe, we can then link a particular dollar to say we would have used this much for the benefit of this much.
Under item (V), there is item (i) Acquisition, Development and operationalisation of computerised mining and cadastral system. This is scheduled to run between 2020 to 2022. Hon. Chair, you will realise that in the 2019 Budget and 2018 Budget, the establishment of a computerised mining cadastral information system was a priority for the Ministry of Mines. However, this project has not kicked off despite it being given budgetary support since 2018 through to 2019 and again in 2020.
We are faced with a situation whereby as a country we have to answer this question. Are we having low production from the mining sector or we are having high leakages because that question is informed by the fact that at Reserve Bank or Fidelity, there is a reduction in figures resident or reduction in deposits of gold resident with our authorised gold dealer which is Fidelity. The question is, are we having low production at production level or are we having leakages? This issue of mining cadastral system answers that question partly. The fact that we are having continuous disputes and by way of procedure, if I am operating at a particular mine and another investor, say Hon. Markham comes and also claims that the block under which I am operating also belongs to him and there is a dispute, both of us cease to operate.
What it means is that it affects production. The computerised mining cadastral system quickly resolves these disputes because we would have managed to locate our coordinates and link them to the rightful owner of that particular claim. The cadastral system answers part of that. There is so much unproductivity that is happening because there are too many disputes.
I will rush to page 151 and I would have appreciated if the Minister was going to be there. Our budgeting presentation system has a certain formula. If you look at all the votes, they have a certain format. Now no page 151 and speaking to the issue of mining title management, there is a page which is unpopulated, but it attempts to speak to why we are actually here as representative of the people.
Under mining and title management, the drafters of this template very clever enough to be able to demand these answers. What is the percentage number of mining titles issued in 2018 (actual and not populated), targets not populated. We now do not know as a Parliament how many titles are we issuing to people or how many titles do we intend to issue to people. This again affects the issue of productivity.
The template speaks to the percentage reduction of backlogs, not populated again. So the absence of this information makes this
Parliament blind and is expected to pass a Budget without information.
I implore the Minister of Finance and Economic Development to
liaise with the Minister of Finance to populate this page. It is critical in that we have given money to the mining cadastre system for us to resolve item 2 under outputs, disputes resolved. Percentage of disputes resolved in 2018 – not populated. Target 2019 – not populated. We have given money to the cadastre system with an intention of solving these disputes. I would have wanted this page to be populated as it informs some of the figures which have been thrown into the Budget.
I will move over to the issue of the launch of the ZW$12bn mining sector road map. His Excellency, the President launched the mining sector roadmap and we attended the breakfast meeting where the business community and mining stakeholders interrogated this roadmap. On paper, it is a brilliant roadmap, but from a parliamentary perspective, the ZW$12bn roadmap if we do not actualise it through a budgetary mechanism, to me it remains a pie in the sky. Of the ZW$12bn roadmap, ZW$4bn are supposed to come from the gold sector between 2020 and 2023. I would have wanted a statement in this particular Budget that speaks to the actualisation of realising that ZW$4bn. About ZW$3bn is going to come from platinum and I would have wanted to see how much are we then able to harness in the 2020 in this particular Budget. If you have been listening to the Minister in the majority of his responses, he continuously says and I want to challenge if he may not repeat the same today. He continuously says we have it at the back of our minds. The unfortunate thing about that statement is that it then limits our capacity in terms of question and answer when it comes to the
Minister’s Question and Answer on Wednesdays where we begin to interrogate with our Ministers on a policy perspective. We must be able to run with this document throughout the whole year referring back to it to say in our Budget Statement, this is what we said, where are we with it. That is what I believe is our role.
I also want to believe that it is our role as Committees of
Parliament and I sit in the Committee on Mines and Mining Development – in the absence of this information, our Committee is rendered useless. We have unpopulated pages, statements that do not link to policy of Government. I believe that policies of Government like the ZW12bn roadmap is a policy which they are supposed to have been actualised by a vehicle called the Budget.
I would also implore the Minister if you may be able to direct him to the questions that I have forwarded to you in his absence that if he may be able to respond to them. I hope his staff is here so that in his response, he may be able to speak to them. I thank you.
HON. NDUNA: I will be swift and precise, straight to the point.
The issues that speak to and about the strategic policy direction of the Ministry speak to how this as an industry can contribute meaningfully to the economic benefit of this country. The issue of recognising title through e-governance or the cadastre system has been spoken about for a long time. I have often said the computer was generated and established in 1934 and we cannot continue to be manually oriented, to be rudimental, archaic, moribund and antiquated. We need to embrace technology in order to enhance our economic benefit using our mineral resources. Most of the time we are adjudicating on issues that are talking about conflict between one claim and the other and not embarking on extracting the resources. The issue of the cadastre system as mentioned in point No. 4 of the Mines and Mineral Vote should be taken seriously and should take root immediately.
The issue on policy priorities up to 2022 on point No. 5, the issue of establishment of beneficiation and value addition chain should be as a policy and a starting point come 2020 going forward for any investor who is going to come into the mineral rich sector. In Mashonaland West, we have got the widest band of the great dyke which has got more than 20 minerals in it. In that area we have got about two biggest platinum mines.
It is my thinking that Caro Resources which have been given some concessions out of the 26 000 ha that has been recouped by Government of the hectarage that was once under Zimplats should be the first to benefit from the policy that is skewed towards value addition and beneficiation. Mind you, that company is going to be the biggest in terms of platinum extraction. Much more than the three obtaining companies - Mimosa, Zimplats and Unki Platinum. We should use that as a launching pad to say all new investment should have a defined way of beneficiation and value addition of our mineral sector and resources. Aware that just a little ball of uranium can turn around our fortunes in terms of energy supply and power development in this country. We should not shy away from beneficiation and value addition. This point comes at a very critical and key time but it is rather late but we need to embrace value addition and beneficiation.
I stood here one day and said Belgium, Antwerp and Denmark have no resources to talk about but they are beneficiating the diamonds from DRC and we need to have a simple policy that is very deliberate in terms of beneficiation. I want to say what the Ministry of Mines needs is just good policies and not money. The money that they have been given is too much for a place that is endowed with a lot of gold mines. ZMDC has got more than 25 gold mines. They should use what they have to get what they want. They need to extract and also finance the sectors of Government in terms of their budgetary requirements. We should not be going unnecessarily to request from the Minister of Finance when we have got the resources. They should embark on triple PPP The last I checked they had an investor who was going to sign an agreement end of November with ZMDC in order to optimally and efficiently extract the resources from their gold mines. One such gold mine is Elvington Mine.
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON (HON. MAVETERA):
Hon Nduna can you please be specific to the vote allocation.
HON NDUNA: Exactly I am talking of priority that is priority pint No.5 Priorities 2020 to 2022. I am proposing other mechanism of income generation and not to go with a cap in our hand to Treasury all the time to ask for benevolence. We are not a charity organisation in terms of the mineral sector. The Ministry of Mines and Mining Development should completely desist from wanting to get any monies from central revenue except that which would have been accounted for and then goes back to them in order to deal with their Budgetary requirements and capital requirements just for accountability but they should not be going to request for any monies coming from agriculture.
Otherwise, they should generate their own income using PPPs and Joint
Venture Act of 2016.
Madam Chair, the issue of the Mines and Minerals Act that has been mentioned here, we have spoken about it ad infinitum. Gold Act, Section 3 which has a mandatory jail sentence of nothing less than five years should come here and be repealed expeditiously. I do not know why it has not come here. We need to repeal the law so that the formerly marginalised black majority is empowered. This act was deliberately crafted in 1951 by the whites and the erstwhile colonizers so that the black man can never go near gold. Gold is sold at flea markets in DRC. Why should we be incarcerated and interrogated for possession of gold because we have found it on our farms and because we are black? Our only crime should not be that we are black.
As I round up, we need to repeal that Act and we need to repeal it expeditiously. The small scale miners and artisanal miners have contributed a lot to fiscus. We need to complement and support their efforts so that we ward off illicit outflows and revenue leakages. The 2017 report of the World Bank states that we have lost US$8 billion and we can use our laws to curtail such happenings. It is a report that was presented and is globally acclaimed. Here is an opportunity to redeem ourselves. Here is an opportunity to have economic benefit for ourselves.
Madam Chair, the previous speaker spoke about the EPOs, so I will not labour you with the issue of EPOs. It should be a thing of the past. They are called Exclusive Prospecting Orders. Instead of establishing and signing them into law, we should hold on because they are about to repeal the Agrarian Reform Act of 2000 and bring in the Mines certificates that supersede the Agrarian Reform Act because it supersedes all other laws. I implore you Madam Chair that in the major achievements during 2019 and in their priority areas of 2020 and 2022, they should not have the issue of EPOs. If at all, they should put a screeching hold to signing in of EPOs for those that have been waiting
His Excellency, the President’s assent. They should be stopped in their tracks. We need to put our money where our mouth is.
As soon as an artisanal miner or a small scale miner goes and delivers gold to Fidelity, at that point, we need to register him on the claims that are held for speculated purposes. These claims are registered on the London and Australian Stock Exchange whose value is premised on our God given natural resources and they are benefitting the erstwhile colonizers and the former colonizers that used to put an albatross of colonisation around our neck. We need now to benefit from our God given natural resources using this Budget. The Bible says ‘the year King Hosea died, I saw heaven’. The year that this Budget was passed, we got rejuvenated, rehabilitated, robust and resilient Budget. Let us learn from this Budget and let us take the bull by the horns and have our economic benefit coming from this Budget today. I thank you.
On Vote 10 – Environment, Climate Change, Tourism and
Hospitality Industry - $615376000
HON. MARKHAM: Thank you Hon. Chair. I just want to bring
to the attention of the House that the total Budget is a little bit over 1% of the total Budget. When you consider the first three things in the policy priorities which include basically evaluating the environment and natural resources, cutting it down in US dollar turns to less than a million dollars per province. If you go on to the other issues which include environment, climate change, tourism and hospitality, we have a series of problems if we are to put this amount of money in the Budget.
If I would just tackle environment for one second on the priorities, we have a major issue with the environment on “makorokoza”, agriculture, urban areas and the surrounding areas because of tree cutting. Finally, EMA cannot afford or keep up with the amount of work they have got, particularly on the legal issues. I would urge the Minister to reconsider the portion of the Budget he is proportioning to this vote. I thank you.
Vote 10 put and agreed to.
On Vote 11 – Transport and Infrastructural Development -
$3,209,178,000.
HON. J. SITHOLE: Thank you Hon. Chair. I just wanted to say one thing that on infrastructure in terms of roads where there is $2 billion, I strongly feel it is highly inadequate considering that we have a lot of roads that have to be made. We need to have such good roads such as the Beitbridge – Harare Roads. All these need a lot of money. However, we also have very serious problems in the rural areas where some roads have not even been graveled for the past ten to 20 years.
Such roads are impassAble now, yet we were in Bulawayo for the 2018 – 2019 Budget, we said the road is the economy. In such areas, where farmers have to transport their produce, they cannot transport that produce; where they will have to transport their cattle to people who will need beef, you find they cannot even get there because the roads are not in good condition.
Just now that the rains have come, we all celebrate that we have rains coming but there are places where people are now in dire need of communication because their roads are in bad state. Some of the Ministry roads that we have in the rural areas are such that they are never looked after. You find there is only one road engineer for two or three districts who has got to mann those roads but each time you go there, you want to ask for assistance so that the roads can be graded, you are told there is no fuel. At times MPs have to offer their own transport to have an engineer to go and have a survey of the roads. At the end of the day, nothing is being done and this is a serious thorn in the flesh of people who are in the rural areas.
Also, there is hardly any supervision that is going on in terms of people who should have these roads done because you always find that some people are just there in the almost dilapidated camps where there is no sign of any activity at all right through the year. I do not know whether they will give reports that they are doing something or what. So I strongly feel we need more money towards this infrastructure development and we also have to look into the rural areas where in the largest part of our survival is the base of the economy of this country and we want to say the road is the economy. I thank you.
HON. S. SITHOLE: Mine is short, only one issue. Minister, I want to put through to you and remind you, I am appealing also that you can add the budget for infrastructure of the road. In Insiza South, there is a road from West Nicholson to Mberengwa. Last year it was allocated $11 million and you gave that road $5 million and then you took $6 million and you allocated it from Mberengwa towards West Nicholson.
Minister, I am appealing to you to put that road in the budget. It is only 45 km from West Nicholson to Mberengwa. I thank you.
HON. DINAR: I will just concentrate on one page and one page alone which is page 181 where we are discussing rail and aviation infrastructure. My eyes are mainly on Air Zimbabwe. At the moment Madam Chair, we cannot even say we have got an airline neither can we say we have got a railway line. If the Minister provides only $294 million as capital grants for NRZ and Air Zimbabwe, honestly we are not going to do anything. For Air Zimbabwe to have investment or allow investors to come and partake in it, there was a legacy debt in 2018 which was US$385 million. There is no investor who is going to come and invest in Air Zimbabwe unless that US$385 million is taken over by Government.
My appeal is, Government should indeed take over the debt of Air Zimbabwe to allow investors to come in and invest. If we do not do that we will remain with one airline. Beginning of the year, we had around nine hundred employees. Now may be of course we have around seven hundred employees but we cannot have seven hundred and something employees manning just one aeroplane. So my small or big appeal is to say, can we have that debt taken over by Government as a matter of urgency. Thank you.
+HON. MATHE: Like I stated before, this was a clearly and intelligently crafted budget. On number 11, the Minister put infrastructure and transportation and he put about $2,8. The road infrastructure in the country should be separated and given different budgets. For instance, when we talk of provincial roads we put a particular allocation or certain amount because we know that each province has a road or two which have to be repaired or constructed because if we do that we will have a proper programme of monitoring and evaluation.
What I have noticed is that the amount you have allocated to these roads may not be able to pull through all the required roads. One
Member talked about the monies and we are saying roads are a very important infrastructure in a country. The economy and people’s lives depend on the condition of the roads. Many people have died without falling sick and this is caused by the bad state of the roads where we have accidents.
As a result, when we are talking of these budgets we are saying Minister, please add more money on to the road infrastructure especially when we look at the inter-metropolitan roads. They need to be looked at. I can also look at roads like Nkayi to Bulawayo road. These intermetropolitan cities and some of these roads are 33 years old and I wish the Minister would put more money on the road infrastructure so that he can repair and construct new roads in the provinces including the Nkayi to Bulawayo road.
HON. MADZIMURE: Madam Chair, I think the development of
any country is underpinned by the infrastructure that it has and the road infrastructure is very important. If you look at the road from Beitbridge to Harare, it has become a hazard to people who use the road internally but we also use it to import and also those vehicles that import goods to Zambia or to Malawi. We are in a danger of losing a lot of income as far as transport is concerned because very soon the construction of the Kazungula Bridge will be through and a lot of traffic to Zambia will opt for that road. That will seriously affect the amount of money that we will collect on that particular road.
Not only that Madam Chair, we have got other roads that need serious upgrading. If you do not have good road infrastructure you do not attract investment and this is a fact. I implore the Minister to increase the budget by another billion dollars. If he can increase by another billion dollars, what it means is that the work that is being done right now along the Beitbridge to Harare Road will then be speeded up.
When you speed up the road construction you are creating employment. There will be a hive of activity along that particular road. It is very clear, it is labour intensive and that little money that will trickle into our people’s pockets will stimulate growth in our economy. Such kinds of investment mean a lot in job creation. The moment you create more jobs obviously economic growth is also realised. I think and ask the Minister to seriously consider improving the budget under transport.
Lastly Madam Chair, the issue of Air Zimbabwe costs us a fortune to maintain the staff that we have at Air Zimbabwe manning only one plane. It does not make any sense. Look at how Victoria Falls is now being marketed. Air Rwanda is now flying direct to Victoria Falls. South Africa markets Victoria Falls as their own destination. Why - because they can make available efficient transport, even internal travelling. Kariba, we used to have Air Zimbabwe flying to Kariba and people had got used to using that. At the other time, we also had another plane that would take people from Kariba to Victoria Falls and it was a joy for the tourists. As far as Air Zimbabwe is concerned Minister, it is either we improve on the fleet or we cut down on the complement that we have at Air Zimbabwe. It does not make sense for us to maintain the level of the general manager, chief engineer and all other posts. We are simply milking the fiscus whilst we are providing nothing. Minister, if we can do that for Air Zimbabwe and do the same for the roads so that we create employment.
+HON. M. MPOFU: Thank you very much. I would like the Minister to put more funds onto the road infrastructure. I will talk about particular roads such as the road from Kwekwe-Nkayi to Lupane. This is a very important highway. If that road is repaired and maintained, the country may save a lot of money. It can be the short-cut to Victoria
Falls and save about 2000 km if that road is maintained and repaired. We have many businesses which can be conducted using that road. We have timber products, methane gas and we will also have tourists who will be going to Victoria Falls. They will be greatly assisted by the short-cut that would have been created, hence I am asking you to add more money for such highways.
We also have another road from Bulawayo-Nyathi and Nkayi up to Gokwe. This one is the most important highways in the country. As you know, Gokwe is an agricultural hub. If the road from Gokwe to Bulawayo is tarred, there will be many businesses generated through such an exercise.
Minister, the monies which have been budgeted for these places should be released on time. The funds are released late and sometimes some of the jobs are half done and abandoned. When they are abandoned they face the vagaries of the weather, the rains and sun and all that is washed away. Hence I am saying Minister, please add more funds so that these roads can be repaired and maintained for the progress and development of Zimbabwe.
+HON. M. NKOMO: Thank you Madam Chair for giving me
this opportunity to add my voice onto what has already been said. I will also put my voice onto the maintenance and construction of the road infrastructure. I am calling upon the repair of these roads to be done on time instead of doing them when the rains have set in. At times we have known of some mechanisms such as pulling tyres over the surface of these roads which is not good enough. We have some important roads such as the inter city roads, the inter metropolitan artillery roads, the highways. Some of them have never been serviced for some time.
These include roads such as Bulawayo-Nkayi-Gokwe. For some time this road has had some stop-start maintenance procedures and this has been happening for the last three years.
We also noticed that we have tollgates in some of these areas. In some of the tollgates, the number of cars passing through can be counted and the amount collected through that. On some tollgates, there are simply roadblocks that are set up and ZINARA officers manning road blocks will be conducting business in the open. They are exposed to the vagaries of the weather and accommodation is tense. In some areas, some tollgates are up to world class standards and even officers will be working in comfortable and air conditioned offices. That is why I am saying let us treat all these tollgates equally because tollgates are there to help in the collection of funds and enhancement to the fiscus.
Let me now turn to transport both for goods and passengers. We are grateful for what the Government has done. To date, there has been some subsidy of buses under the banner of ZUPCO and we are grateful for that. People are paying fewer fares than they do on commuter taxes. This should be a short term measure. The task of transporting passengers and goods should be given to councillors or local authorities so that the Government is only left to concentrate on huge things.
*HON. SHIRICHENA: I want the Minister to add more money onto the road infrastructure especially regarding the road from Zvishavane to Rutenga. This road is very important in both production and economy of the country. It can be used by exporters and importers. The other important road is from Zvishavane to West Nickolson. We are very grateful because we have seen that this road is under repair. What is of great concern is that only a few kilometres are worked on this road...
*THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: It has been mentioned
already that there are roads that need repair and maintenance. Hon.
Member, we now need new contributions on new issues.
*HON. SHIRICHENA: I conclude my contribution by talking of roads in the Midlands such as in the Gokwe District. We know Gokwe is an agricultural hub of Zimbabwe. There are many economic programmes undertaken in Gokwe, hence we need to repair the roads so that transportation of products to and from Gokwe brings prosperity to Zimbabwe. I thank you.
HON. NDUNA: Thank you Madam Chair. I have eight items – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – Saka muri kuda kuti ndisataure? What are you saying? You do not want me to debate? Chimbonyararai. The first issue that I want to propose to the Minister is the issue of the money that has been reserved in the maintenance reserve account. If you can force the extraction of this money and utilise it for road construction and carriageway markings in the roads department to augment on the $2 billion budget that you currently have? So it is called the Maintenance Reserve Account that was supposed to be for PlumtreeMutare Highway, 821 km. The last time I checked, it was USD50 million, you can take this augment and complement the efforts of your carriageway marking in the road sector.
Secondly, in the roads sector, if you can have a modus operand that speaks to output based road construction methods as opposed to dealing with hourly based road construction methodologies. Hon. Magumise spoke about the labour based road construction method, these talks about getting paid for what you have done, you do not get paid for the hours you have spent at work but you get paid for the amount of work that you have produced in terms of linear kilometers.
Hon. Minister, this is going to reduce the monies that you are requested to allocate for the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure Development because you are cutting down on the hours that are being spent on issues to do with standing time. There is actually a provision in roads manuals that caters for equipment that is idle, broken and that is not being used - that should be a thing of the past. Let us go back to the basics and pay for output; this is going to save you a lot of money.
In terms of Air Zimbabwe, already Hon. Banda has spoken about the taking over of Air Zimbabwe debt. The two hundred million that you have…
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: Hon. Nduna that has
already been dealt with, let us speak of something else.
HON. NDUNA: The debt that is on Air Zimbabwe is about a billion United States Dollars. It is my clarion call that cleaning out the balance sheet, it is currently under…
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: Hon. Nduna, may you
please leave the issue of Air Zimbabwe?
HON. NDUNA: No, you are out of line. It is under the administrator as we speak…
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: Hon. Nduna, I think we
are not agreeing.
HON. NDUNA: You do not want me to talk about Air Zimbabwe?
Okay I will not talk about the 200 million; I will talk about enhancing Air Zimbabwe. Hon. Minister, an ERJ is an aircraft that takes 50 people and on the Zimbabwe Airways we have got an ERJ in the country. A second hand ERJ costs USD1, 5 million, in its five years of life; it can recoup that investment second to none. It can be used for domestic traversing of the airspace and it is the quickest plane that you can employ in order to make sure you revitalise and revamp the Air Zimbabwe industry here in Zimbabwe.
It is my view therefore; we have 26 pilots out of the 15 million population that we have in the country and the lowest pilot who is a captain globally is paid USD12 000. They are all trying to man two aircrafts, 737 and 767, if you expeditiously; just employ 1, 5 million, you will have two ERJ’s in the country and they will optimally- the current crop of the fourth generation of pilots before we use them.
Secondly, we have got hangers that speak to and about servicing of Boeing Aircrafts. Those hangers, we cannot wish them away, they were a regional hub for servicing Boeing Aircraft. We can revitalize them by going into a joint venture or PPP with Boeing Aircraft. Ethiopian Airways did it and we can also do it; we can maybe get 1% from all undertaking or from all the usage of Boeing Aircraft. Servicing them here but belonging to Boeing and making sure that we have got a joint partnership and PPP with Boeing. We do not need any monies but we needa policy shift. In 2014 of the Cabinet decisions, it was stated that we need all Ministers and Government officials to buy Air Zimbabwe tickets. We cannot buy Air Zimbabwe tickets if it only goes as far as South Africa or Johannesburg but you can now get Air Zimbabwe tickets if Air Zimbabwe rejoins IATA. So, the amount of money that is required…
*HON. CHINOTIMBA: On a point of order! Hon. Nduna was the
Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Transport and Infrastructure Development. He should have said that during that era when he was chairing the Committee. As of now, Hon. Nduna is out of tune, he is simply wasting our time. I was talking to the Minister of Finance and he said we need to investigate what was done by that company called G5 which was responsible for construction projects in this country. The G5 had informed the nation that they had dualised our highway. Therefore, Hon. Nduna cannot teach the Minister now when he was supposed to have told G5 to follow proper channels of communication since the company operated during his time.
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON: Hon. Nduna, may I
guide you that this time is for analysing the figures that are in the Blue Book, not to debate. We want constructive analysis of the figures, whether you want the figures to go up or to go down. This time is not for debating.
HON. NDUNA: Thank you Hon. Chair for your protection. The re-engagement of IATA is very key; monies should be…
THE TEMPORARY CHAIR: No, we are not debating IATA; we
want you to lead the Minister in connection with the figures that are in the blue book.
HON. NDUNA: Yes, it is there in the Blue Book.
THE TEMPORARY CHAIR: Do we have IATA in that blue book?
HON. NDUNA: Is it not there Hon. Minister? I do not why everyone is angry with me. Take a step back, take a deep breath and at least allow me to proffer solutions. Can somebody give me the blue book? Anyway I will leave the IATA issue.
The issue in your budget that you have put in 100 buses at zero duty, I ask that you increase the number of buses for the bus operators to 500 because each of the transporters is bringing in more than 100 buses each and there are more 25 bus operators. In this you will grow the economy and you have no need to allocate any further resources than $2 billion to the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural Development if you increase the number of buses at zero duty that you are allowing into the country to about 500.
Lastly, the issue of computerisation of the toll plazas is going to give you much more than you have currently. You are currently having about RTGS $200 million coming from there annually. You can double that figure by computerisation of all the toll plazas as has been alluded to. So, it is my humble request to you to just foster E-governance so that you plug revenue leakages and enhance revenue generation and you can get a lot out of the monies generated there to cover the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural Development in its modus operandi and in its budgetary requirements. Hon. Chair, I request that the bar be closed.
HON. MARKHAM: I just like to point out on the budget pertaining to ZINARA that the audit report from the Auditor General shows that the cost of collection on various things which include Number Plates, licence fees, the Limpopo bridge and so on – all these collection fees being run by ZINARA in a JV and by a partner. The cost of collection is between 16% and 18% plus VAT to the JV partner plus
ZINARA paying all the costs. The cost of collection across the board is 38% and that is 38 cents in every single dollar that we collect is going to these people and that was an unsolicitated bid. That alone will push up the income by a third if we sort out that mess which as far as I am concerned is illegal.
Just as a matter of fact, the regional average for toll collection is between 3% and 4%. I thank you.
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE): Thank you Mr.
Chairman. Again I thank the Hon. Members. It is certainly true that a road is an economy and certainly investment in the road infrastructure is critical and equally we need Air Zimbabwe to fly and that is in support of the tourism sector which is a low hanging fruit.
On the debt assumption for Air Zimbabwe, that is currently under consideration. The Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural
Development has written to us with the support of the company and we are debating it to see how best to do it. Again on Air Zimbabwe, we are expecting basically four aircraft. We have the two from Malaysia that we have paid for. The Ministry of Transport and infrastructural Development has indicated that they are likely to be in the country by the end of the year. Then, we have the one that is already here internally, the big one. Then the fourth one is the Umbrae that was brought into the country a few months ago. So, four aircraft in total and
I told that there is maybe another one that we could lease from a neighbouring country which is somewhere in Africa. So five aircraft is quite a bit to really kick start Air Zimbabwe. One sense is that the strategy really is to get the equipment in place – that is the four or five planes in place in the country and begin to then re-launch Air Zimbabwe from there.
I think in terms of commercialisation, of course the intention is to make sure that the operation is commercial enough so that there is business to do in terms of moving people and tourists around. So, I am hopeful that Air Zimbabwe will take off in earnest in 2020.
Then on various roads, we have West Nicholson, Mberengwa road, Kwekwe-Nkayi, then Nkayi-Bulawayo and we have noted these and we are going to get the PSIP in an infrastructure plan to see how we can move things around but all within the budget. We do not want to increase the budget but we think that it is adequate.
Then on the Beitbridge-Harare road, again there was a request for having a more budget and so forth. But we have now secured the budget in the first place. So 5% of the fuel levy has been ring fenced to support this project and there is a good project from the six contractors who are on the ground basically widening the road to twelve and half metres across and basically doubling its width before we move on to the dualisation procession in future. So there is good progress and revenues are well ring fenced and I think that the current budget levels are at the right levels for the completion of this exercise.
Other Members have said that we need some policy shifts in the air transportation sector. We have noted this but these are not budgetary issues as such but they are policy issue ideas. The computerisation of toll plazas, again this is noted.
Then on the increase in the number of zero duty rated buses from 100 to 500, but also let us be careful about protecting the potential domestic industry for manufacturing buses. Yes, we should open up, we have done it and we are doing it but also, let us allow for the domestic industry to also be resuscitated and make some of these buses locally.
Then on the issue of ZINARA, I was not privy to the details of some of these contracts that were mentioned by Hon. Markham, but these are things to continually look at and see whether indeed Government has a fair deal or not. However, I do not know the full details and I am hearing this for the first time, but really we have noted all the comments. We know that a road is an economy and there is need to also refocus on rural roads. I agree with that especially the feeder roads – that is what the inclusive part of road construction when we have a tarred road with enough feeder roads to make sure that the local community is part of that road economy. This is noted and again, I promise that we will disburse this budget on time to the Ministry so that they can get on and provide the infrastructure that we need. I thank you Mr. Chairman.
I did not mention the roads that are missing from my list, let me add Insiza South road because I read all the others which have been included. Also, there is another project which I know about and it is a bridge connecting Mashonaland East and Manicaland. I cannot remember the bridge now but I have asked my staff to include it. These are some of the key projects that I think we ought to prioritise and we will certainly do that.
HON. MATHE: On a point of order Mr. Chairman. May we kindly have a second round of water to all of us here? We are all thirsty and we see water going in corners and corridors. Thank you.
Vote 11 – Transport and Infrastructure Development - $3 209 178
000 put and agreed to.
Vote 12 – Foreign Affairs and International Trade - $1 385 435
000 put and agreed to.
Vote 13 – Local Government and Public Works - $1 779 784 000
(a) put and agreed to.
Vote 14 – Health and Child Care - $6 567 317 000 put and agreed
Vote 15 – Primary and Secondary Education - $8 526 233 000 put and agreed to.
Vote 16 – Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology
Development - $2 890 889 000 put and agreed to.
Vote 17 – Women Affairs, Community, Small and Medium
Enterprises Development - $503 976 000 put and agreed to.
Vote 18 – Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage – 2 818 169 000 put and agreed to.
Vote 19 – Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs – $825 513 000 put and agreed to.
Vote 20 – Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services – $409
799 000 put and agreed to.
Vote 21 – Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation – $330 187 000 put and agreed to.
On Vote 22 – Energy and Power Development – $525 604 000;
HON. MARKHAM: I would just like to point out to the House and I have pointed out to the Minister and we pointed out at the PreBudget Workshop, one issue that is overlooked in power and energy which is a quick fix; it is the waste to the energy programme which could fix most of our urban areas. This has been ignored throughout the whole budget. Please can some attention be paid to waste energy? We have a major issue with our waste disposal; I think they can supply us with a lot of energy.
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE): It is noted Hon.
Chair.
HON. SANSOLE: We spend a lot of money on energy imports. I think the Minister needs to consider the cost of bringing on line our thermal power stations like Harare, Bulawayo, Munyathi which are not operating at full capacity, I think we need to spend money on those. It will save us a lot in terms of imports of electricity.
Vote 22 – Energy and Power Development - $525 604 000 put and agreed to.
Vote 23 – Information Communication Technology, Postal and
Courier Services – $114 560 000 put and agreed to.
Vote 24 – National Housing and Social Amenities $227 853 00 put and agreed to.
Vote 25 – Judicial Service Commission - $328 070 000 put and agreed to.
Vote 26 - Public Service Commission - $1 500 000 000 put and agreed to.
Vote 27 – Council of Chiefs - $27 200 00 put and agreed to.
Vote 28 – Human Rights - $26 680 000 put and agreed to.
Vote 29 – National Peace and Reconciliation Commission - $31
200 000 put and agreed to.
Vote 30 – National Prosecuting Authority - $72 000 000 put and agreed to.
Vote 31 – Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission - $71 550 000 put and agreed to.
Vote 32 – Zimbabwe Electoral Commission – $91 200 000 put and agreed to.
Vote 33 – Zimbabwe Gender Commission – 25 000 000 put and agreed to.
Vote 34 – Zimbabwe Land Commission $163 100 00 put and agreed to.
Vote 35 – Zimbabwe Media Commission $13 000 000 put and
agreed to.
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE): Mr. Chairperson,
there is an issue under Vote 5 that needs to be properly recorded. If you recall, I agreed that we increase the budget for the Auditor General’s Office by $20 000 000. That 20 000 000 will come from the unallocated reserves of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development. Let us make that adjustment accordingly for the two Votes. - [HON.
MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.]-
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Order please Hon. Members.
Order please, order! Chief Whip order please - [HON. MEMBERS:
Inaudible interjections.]- Hon. Members please.
House resumed.
Main Estimates of Expenditure reported with amendments.
Report adopted.
Bill ordered to be brought in by the Minister of Finance and Economic Development in accordance with the Main Estimates of Expenditure adopted by the House.
FIRST READING
APPROPRIATION (2020) Bill [H. B. 22, 2019]
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE) presented the
Appropriation (2020) Bill [H. B. 22, 2019].
Bill read the first time.
Bill referred to the Parliamentary Legal Committee.
MOTION
NON-ADVERSE REPORT RECEIVED FROM THE PARLIAMENTARY LEGAL COMMITTEE.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: I have received a non-adverse
report on the Finance No 3 Bill [H. B. 21, 2019] from the Parliamentary
Legal Committee. - [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.]-
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: order Hon. Members. May I
ask the Minister to present the summary of the Bill.
SECOND READING
FINANCE (NO. 3) BILL [H. B. 21, 2019]
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE): Mr. Speaker Sir, I
thank you very much. I now present the Finance (No. 3) Bill [H. B. 21, 2019]. Mr. Speaker Sir the Bill seeks to give effect to the fiscal measures that I announced to the 2020 National Budget Statement delivered on 14th November, 2019- [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible
interjections.]-
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Hon. Members please order!
May the Hon. Minister give a summary of the Bill and then he reads it for the second time.
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: Mr. Speaker Sir, the Bill seeks to give effect to the fiscal measures that I announced through the 2020 National Budget Statement delivered on 14th November 2019, and in particular avail relief to tax payers through adjustment of tax rates as well as to enhance revenue generation capacity, taking into account the recent economic developments.
The opportunity is also taken to amend other Acts having fiscal, financial or investment implications. In summary the Bill provides for the following; a youth employment tax in order to support job creation and youth employment. The Bill seeks to introduce a tax credit for corporate that employ additional employees of less than 30 years of age in any year of assessment. On a personal income tax in order to provide relief to tax payers and stimulate aggregate demand, the Bill provides for new bands according to which rates of personal income tax will be calculated. The Bill thus proposes to review the tax free threshold from the current $700 to $2 000 and further widen the tax bands to a maximum of $50 000 above which income is taxed at a marginal rate of 40%.
On the balance tax threshold the Bill also seeks to review the bonus tax free threshold from $1 000 to $5 000 on your severance packages in order to safeguard the value of retrenchment packages. The Bill seeks to review the money taxable portion of retrenchment packages from $10 000 to $50 000 or a third of the package to a maximum of $80 000.
On deed motoring benefits, Mr. Speaker Sir, in line with review to personal income thresholds the Bill also seeks to review the value of deed motoring benefits in respect of employment in order to reflect the real value of the benefit accruing to employees.
On the intermediated money transfer tax Mr. Speaker Sir, the intermediated money transfer tax provides for a maximum cap beyond which the transaction value is a flat rate in terms of the tax rate. This
Bill seeks to review the flat intermediated money transfer tax from $15
000.00 to $25 000.00 for transactions with value exceeding $1 250 000.00. This Bill also proposed to exempt from the tax certain transactions involving social transfer payments made to vulnerable members of the society by development partners accredited in terms of the Privileges and Immunities Act.
On appointment of representative taxpayers, in order to enhance compliance in the administration of tax by non-resident persons that trade goods and services through electronic commerce, this Bill seeks to compel such taxpayers to appoint a person domiciled in Zimbabwe to act as its representative taxpayers.
On allowable interest deductions on foreign currency denominated debt, the Bill is proposing the following Mr. Speaker Sir, that interest is a business expense which is tax deductable. This Bill, however, seeks to disallow interest expenses incurred on foreign denominated debt due to the use of an exchange rate which is above the interbank rate.
On withholding tax on contracts Mr. Speaker Sir, in order to promote tax compliance, a taxpayer without a valid tax clearance certificate is subject to a 10% withholding tax on sales. This Bills seeks to exempt grain delivered to GMB and gold delivered to Fidelity Printers and refineries.
On venture capital funds Mr. Speaker Sir, Venture Capital Funds are increasingly becoming a source of development finance. Venture capital financing is thus already exempt from tax. This Bill seeks to include additional features or conditions to the exemption status in order to minimise opportunities for abuse.
On value added tax Mr. Speaker Sir, this Bill seeks to reduce the VAT standard rate from 15% to 14.5% - this is by half a percent in order to stimulate aggregate domestic demand. Furthermore, the Bill seeks to amend the definition of Input Tax to include imported services.
On capital gains tax Mr. Speaker Sir, the Bill seeks to compel tax payers who would have transacted in foreign currency to settle tax obligations for capital gains tax in the currency of transaction.
On royalty as for the diamond sector Mr. Speaker Sir, the Bill seeks to review the royalty on diamond from a rate of 15% down to 10% of gross revenue in order to promote investment, exploration and extraction in the diamond sector.
On customs and excise duty Mr. Speaker Sir, goods and services imported into the country are usually quoted or priced in foreign currency. This Bill seeks to ensure that duty shall be assessed on the value converted to local currency at the selling rate for that foreign currency as designated by the Commissioner in consultation with the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.
On the reward for information Mr. Speaker Sir, the current legislation provides for a monetary reward for information that results in recovery of revenue. This Bill seeks to exclude penalties and interest from the definition of revenue which are charged at the discretion of the Commissioner.
Finally, on amendments to the Reserve Bank Act Mr. Speaker Sir, this Bill provides for the establishment of a Monetary Policy Committee and specifies the functions of the Committee in relation to monetary policy management – that is really putting the legal rules in place through an insertion in the Bill. Furthermore, the Bill seeks to amend the Exchange Control regulations to enforce the use of the Zimbabwe dollar for domestic transactions. Mr. Speaker Sir, I now move that the Bill be now read a second time. Let me move that the debate do now adjourn.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Thursday, 12th December, 2019.
On the motion of THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE), the
House adjourned at Twelve Minutes past Nine o’clock p.m.
PARLIAMENT OF ZIMBABWE
Tuesday, 10th December, 2019
The National Assembly met at a Quarter-past Two O’clock p.m.
PRAYERS
(THE HON. SPEAKER in the Chair)
ANNOUNCEMENTS BY THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER
NON-ADVERSE REPORT RECEIVED FROM THE
PARLIAMENTARY LEGAL CCOMMITTEE
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: I have to inform the House
that I have received a Non-Adverse Report for the Parliamentary Legal Committee on the Zimbabwe Media Commission Bill [H. B. 8, 2019].
MEMORIAL SERVICE FOR THE LATE HON. VIMBAYI JAVA
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: I also want to inform the House that all Hon. Members are invited to the memorial service for the late Hon. Vimbayi Java to be held on Saturday 14th December 2019 at Number 2 Lyndurst Lane, Strathaven, Harare starting at 0900 hours.
HON. NDEBELE: Good afternoon Madam Speaker. I wish to join the Minister of Health and Child Care in commemorating World AIDS Day. I also wish to join the people of Magwegwe that held a vigil in commemorating this day at St. Adolf Catholic Church in Magwegwe.
I however wish to invite the Minister of Health and Child Care to bring a statement to this House because I feel it is important in fighting the question of stigma against those that are living with HIV. Madam Speaker, may I pray for your protection, it is noisy.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order Hon. Members. You
may go ahead Hon. Ndebele.
HON. NDEBELE: I was just requesting, if the Minister of Health and Child Care could bring a ministerial statement to this House on the question of the treatment regimen that our people in Zimbabwe are getting. I have noticed something that is worrisome. Our people who are on HIV treatment suffer from poor fat distribution. The medication that they take unfairly gives female folk masculine like features. I wanted to ask ….
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order Hon. Members.
HON. NDEBELE: I wanted to invite the Minister of Health and Child Care to bring a statement to this House elaborating when he considers changing that particular treatment regimen.
Secondly, I have a number of ministerial statements that I have requested and I am inviting you Madam Speaker to ensure that the desk sends these requests to appropriate Ministries so that we get responses in this House. There are about three, I will quickly remind you. At the tail end of the previous session on the 26th of September, 2019, I requested that the Minister of ICT gives us a statement on question of expensive internet data bundles in this country. This particular one is easy to motivate because the United Nations says access to the internet is a basic human right. Data bundles in this country are just too expensive. I have been reading a survey that underlines that Zimbabwe is the most expensive country in terms of data costs in the whole world. You will agree with me that if the internet is the corner stone to the prosperity of trade, industry, finance and investment, then data is our new oil. I am inviting the Minister of ICT to give us a ministerial statement on what he is doing to ensure that the poor have access to the internet. What is the Minister doing to facilitate effective competition because it has been proven that when you introduce several players in the provision of data, then pieces will go down; thereby winning the best for clients. One other thing that I want the Minister to address in his statement is, are we getting legitimate revenue from these internet service providers since data is so expensive? Are we able to track them down to pay required revenues to the Government?
On the 26th of September 2019 again, I also noted with concern that one of ZESA’s problems is the question of vandalism. ZESA equipment is vandalised for copper. I had then asked why the Ministry of Home Affairs is still giving our copper licences when we are not a copper producing country. It is a fact Madam Speaker that those that vandalise ZESA power lines sell the same copper lines to those companies with copper licences. I am inviting a joint statement from the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Minister of Energy on why they are still giving companies in the country copper trading licences when it is a known fact we are a none copper producing country.
Third and lastly, on the same day on 26 September 2019, I had invited the Minister of Sport to explain to this House as well as the nation the whereabouts of sporting equipment that was removed from Barbourfields, Luveve and White City stadiums after the 4th African
Youth Games. We want to know where that equipment went and if the Minister cannot account for that equipment, then I so move that she institutes a forensic audit because when these stadia were renovated the people of Matabeleland were promised that the equipment will remain on site but surreptitiously and at times in the middle of the night such equipment was removed from stadiums in Bulawayo. The people of Bulawayo want to know what happened to that equipment.
In her statement, the Minister may state when that equipment will be returned to Bulawayo because the people that we represent want that equipment returned as soon as yesterday.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: I have taken note of
everything you have said and I am going to ensure that the responsible Ministers will come with Ministerial Statements.
HON. B. DUBE: I rise on a point of privilege to notify this House that this day, 10 December 2019 is the World Human Rights Day, a day which we must as a nation respect, commemorate and celebrate as well as introspect on how far as a nation we have gone in terms of promoting, fulfilling and enforcing human rights in the country. As I stand here, it is with a bleeding heart that provisions of Section 210 have not yet been fulfilled. What I ask on this particular day is that the Minister of Justice must also explain to us the reasons why provisions of Section 210 have not been put into effect, more particularly making sure that an Act is made in Parliament that enables members of the public to make complaints through a complaint mechanism against any abuses of human rights by the security sector.
On a day like this, it is very important that this House must be able to look into various other human rights issues and make a stock and also make sure that we are in line and in the direction where we respect, promote and fulfill human rights.
Without talking much, I will conclude by indicating that on this day which is the World Human Rights Day, it is with a sad heart that as I was walking here I met one of the civilians along Angwa street who still has a plaster. He indicated to me that he was beaten by the police and their case is going to court tomorrow for purposes of the magistrate making a follow up on what the police had done in terms of investigating the violations that were done. He had a broken hand and he also indicated that one of his colleagues who he was beaten together with died in police custody. As I sit down, I am just saying it is imperative that this House gets assistance from the Minister of Justice, pertaining to fulfillments of the requirements of the Constitution, particularly Section 210 of the Constitution.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you for reminding us
that today is the World Human Rights Day. Minister of Justice, may you help us on the provisions of Section 210 which he was asking about.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON ZIYAMBI). It is work in
progress. We are going to comply with provisions of Section 210 and set up the independent complaints mechanisms.
HON. GONESE: It is important Madam Speaker and I beg your
indulgence. In terms of the response from the Minister of Justice, I was expecting a bit more. The Minister of Justice is very conversant with the issues and if he had been paying attention to Hon. Dube, there are so many critical issues which were raised, in particular Section 210. I was expecting the Minister to give more flesh instead of simply telling us that they are going to comply. It is something which has been outstanding since 2010.
THE HON DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Minister’s response was
that it is work in progress.
HON. GONESE: I know but I am saying apart from the issue of Section 210 which refers to the establishment of an independent complaints mechanism there are also other issues in terms of compliance with the international instruments and I believe that on this very important day, the Hon Minister should have taken that opportunity to also outline what Government is doing in terms of the promotion. When Hon. Dube raised his point of privilege, he actually talked about the issue of respect and promotion of human rights. I believe that these are issues at the finger tips of the Minister of Justice if he is not sleeping on the job. He should be able to assist the nation at large by giving a more elaborate response.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: You may ask that on question
time tomorrow.
HON ZIYAMBI: On the occasion of the commemoration of the
international human rights, I just want the House to take note that we fought for the recognition of the rights of the majority of Zimbabweans. Before independence, the rights of our people were trampled upon and we brought one-man one-vote principle. We had an opportunity of coming from the bush into the office but we decided that we uphold the democratic principles of holding elections and we accepted that let us go to elections. We came up with a new Constitution that has got a Chapter 4 that speaks to fundamental human rights that have to be protected and that Constitution was a product of negotiations. We had a COPAC committee comprising of the parties represented in Parliament and we believe we have a progressive Constitution that has rights that are enforceable as alluded to by Hon Dube. We applaud that process of democratizing our country. As we celebrate this day, we believe we should continuously remind ourselves that we have to do that and respect the rights of our citizens. I thank you.
*HON. KARIMAZONDO: Thank you Madam Speaker. I stand
on a point of privilege. My point of privilege is on funding for climate change. Madam Speaker, last year Zimbabwe had a problem of Cyclone
Idai where a lot of people were lost as well destruction infrastructure. This year at the onset of the rain season, we have realised that many places in this country, schools have been demolished, lives and infrastructure have been lost. We have the departments of Social Welfare and Civil Protection that help people in times of disasters, but we have realised that Civil Protection and Red Cross only provides tents.
Although we appreciate very much the help that they give when a
disaster strikes, I would suggest that the Government should set aside a fund to cater for such disasters. Thank you Madam Speaker.
HON. KASHIRI: Thank you Madam Speaker. In view of the
high cost of seed and fertiliser inputs, the President has rolled out the
Presidential input scheme which has been received in most rural areas.
We would really like to applaud him for that. We however call upon the
President to again increase the amount and quantities of these Presidential inputs to the rural communities. I thank you.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you Hon. Kashiri. I
am sure the Leader of the House will take the message to the Hon.
President of the country.
HON. MAMOMBE: Thank you Madam Speaker. I am rising on
a point of privilege on the international anti-corruption day that is celebrated on 9th December every year since 2013. I would like to reiterate that corruption in a country deepens inequality and also poverty. All the challenges that are being mentioned here; the challenges of climate change, the education sector, energy sector, health sector and all the sectors of this country have been affected by the deep corruption in this country.
Madam Speaker, in light of this international day of anticorruption, we would like the responsible Ministry to come with a Ministerial Statement in terms of the ways that they are dealing with corruption. Let us talk about innovative ways of dealing with corruption in this country. Let us move to digitalisation and new creative ways of dealing with corruption. Arrests only are not enough when we are talking about corruption.
Madam Speaker, in respect of the international anti-corruption day, we are praying that we need to shift our perspective to transparency, accountability and integrity. Therefore, the respective Ministry should issue a Ministerial statement to the issues of anti-corruption. Thank you Madam Speaker.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you. We are all in
agreement that corruption must be eradicated. So we will invite the
Minister to come and give a Ministerial Statement.
HON. MADZIMURE: Thank you Madam Speaker. Soon after
17th November, 2017, we saw roadblocks disappearing on our streets. Six months from that time, we did not have any roadblocks but there was so much order on the roads and traffic was flowing very well. Madam Speaker, we have started seeing the mushrooming of more roadblocks and at those roadblocks there is clear evidence that corruption by the Police is starting again.
Madam Speaker, we would want to invite the Hon. Minister of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage to come and explain the mushrooming of roadblocks, especially those roadblocks that are not marked. A lot of accidents have happened due to a number of drivers trying to avoid the Police, not because they do not want the Police to do their work but due to the fact that there is rampant corruption at the roadblocks. If the Minister would come and issue a Ministerial Statement and explain why it is now necessary to have so many roadblocks.
Secondly, the Police now have a tendency of using so much force in dealing with any perceived disturbance. We have seen a lot of women being tackled by the Police and this has sent a wrong signal to the international community and the people of Zimbabwe that our Police do not arrest but they use dangerous tackles that cannot be used by soccer players, especially on women. Women have suffered the brunt of violence by the Police and we have seen this happening in Harare. Can the Minister come and explain that. Is it because the Police cannot arrest that they use button sticks and their feet to tackle women?
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you Hon. Madzimure.
I think the issue of roadblocks is technical, I cannot give a ruling on that.
HON. S. BANDA: Thank you Madam Speaker. Today marks the 16th day of gender based violence commemorations. We need to mark that day and we need to say thank you to our women whom we beat day in and day out. We want to say we are sorry – [HON. MEMBERS:
Inaudible interjections.] – We want to say we are very sorry. Maybe a good number of these guys, except me – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible
interjections.] -
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, Hon. Members. Please may you go ahead?
HON. S. BANDA: Thank you Madam Speaker. Today is a very great day. We are saying let us stop gender based violence. We are saying let us stop raping the girl-child. We are saying let us have safe migration whereby if our women want to go outside the country, they should go to safe destinations, not where they are going to be made prostitutes or become anything else other than what they are meant to go and do. So today we want to stand with women and make sure that even the girl-child that is there is given the sanitary pads that were promised by the Hon. Minister of Finance here.
Madam Speaker, we want to make sure that those who marry children who are below 16, actually 18, that should stop entirely. That is just my– [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections] – Lastly Madam
Speaker, there are girls particularly in Matebeleland who were affected by Gukurahundi who up to today still do not have birth certificates. We are calling upon this House to ensure that those girls have got birth certificates so that they become Zimbabweans. Thank you Madam
Speaker.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you Hon. Member for
those remarks.
MOTION
REPORT OF THE PRIVILEGES COMMITTEE ON ALLEGATIONS OF CORRUPTION RAISED AGAINST HON. T. MLISWA, HON.
CHIKOMBA, HON. NDEBELE AND HON. P.D. SIBANDA
First Order read: Adjourned debate on motion on the Report of the
Privileges Committee on allegations of soliciting for a bribe against Hon. Mliswa and other three Members.
Question again proposed.
HON. NDEBELE: Madam Speaker, on a point of order, I wish to
state that we are aware that the Chief brought into the House a report.
So, what we will do is we are seeking condonation so that we respond next week and we give due precedence to matters of finance.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you
Madam Speaker. I move that the debate do now adjourn.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Tuesday, 21st January, 2020.
MOTION
FINANCE BILL: BUDGET DEBATE
Second Order read: Adjourned debate on motion that leave be granted to bring in a Finance Bill.
Question again proposed.
HON. MUSHORIWA: Madam Speaker, I just want to raise my
own observations in this august House. Let me start from a hygienic perspective. There are three issues that have arisen that have cast the credibility of the budget by the Minister. First, we have had challenges where the United States of America and the People’s Republic of China have cast aspersions in terms of the quantum or amounts that were given to Zimbabwe. The Republic of China disputes the US3,6 million that was recorded by the Hon. Minister when he made his presentation and they have argued that it is actually US$136 million. The same thing has actually happened with the USA that has disputed the US$272 million to US$330 million.
Now Madam Speaker, if we have got such queries, one wonders whether the figures that are contained therein are actually correct. If we then look even into the Blue Book and do the proper addition, most of the times the figures do not balance, implying that the Hon. Minister when he presented that Blue Book, there was no proofreading. You also then have areas where the Hon. Minister would say, for instance the
External Debt, he would tell us in his Budget Statement that the External
Debt is around $8 billion. When you go through the Blue Book, the
External Debt is $91 billion and you just wonder whether they have converted into Z$ and if it has been converted, using which rate because if you want to use the current interbank rate, it does not match.
If you also then check, the three books that the Hon. Minister presented do not speak to each other. This Budget Statement, the Blue Book and the Infrastructure Book do not correlate. I will give you a good example; on infrastructure for dams, the Hon. Minister in his Budget Statement said he would put aside $1,4 billion and he had actually mentioned and indicated the number of dams. Dams like Kunzvi, Causeway and other dams but if you then read and want to go to the details in the infrastructure, you will realise that the Hon. Minister might not have been sincere because the reading in that Infrastructure Book then says he is giving priority to only two dams out of all the dams that he mentions. Then you just ask a question to simply say did the Minister or the Hon. Minister and the Ministry of Finance officials really looked into these three and tried to make sure that they are proper so that they can pre presented to this august House. Madam Speaker, having said this, I want to go to the statement by the Hon. Minister. This House and the nation will recall, last year we sat in this august House. The Hon. Minister made predictions. He told us the focus in terms of GDP growth. He gave us his inflation targets. He also gave us the exchange rate under the banner austerity for posterity. What has happened Madam
Speaker is that a year down the line, the Hon. Minister’s projections on key fundamental issues have all gone haywire. The GDP focus of a positive 3% is now a minus 6.5% according to his estimate and some of us think that the decline is around minus 10%. Not only that Madam Speaker, the inflation targets, what he said last year and what prevailed are two different things. Go to the exchange rate – the same story. What it means Madam Speaker is that the Hon. Minister, if he was being marked for what he did, the result would be a fail. It would not require him to re-sit but it will be complete fail requiring to repeat or even to be withdrawn.
This is the reason why Madam Speaker, when the Hon. Minister comes to this august House. If you look at his projection, the Hon.
Minister came to this House and said, he projects that the economy will grow by around 3%. Madam Speaker, I want to tell you that the projection by the Hon. Minister, just like last year is totally out of touch with reality. I will explain to you Madam Speaker why it is out of sync with reality. The Hon. Minister then claims in this august House and he says, first quarter of 2020, inflation will be back to single digits. He then said by December 2020, it will be around 2%. The funny part of it
Madam Speaker, the next day, inflation was recorded at 40%. What the Hon. Minister was saying in this Budget Statement is totally out of sync with reality and he knows it because the Hon. Minister is not an ordinary man. He is a professor who is supposed to be a learned person in terms of these issues. I want to put to you Madam Speaker that it is a deliberate misleading of this House and misleading the nation.
The other aspect Madam Speaker, if you want to check, it is the Hon. Minister who stood in this august House and pronounced a policy on subsidies. Before we even debated this Budget, there was a reversal of the subsidies. What does that tell you Madam Speaker? His principal said that he was not aware, he was not informed about the cutting of subsidy on maize. It begs to ask, do we have a Cabinet and does Cabinet look into this Budget before it is presented here? I want to assure you Madam Speaker, if it was from this side of the House, if our President and the Cabinet of our Party was presenting a Budget, it would come here well scrutinised. Madam Speaker, let us look at the figures, figures do not lie. By the time ...
HON. TOGAREPI: On a point of order Madam Speaker.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: What is your point of order
Honourable?
*HON. TOGAREPI: Madam Speaker, we have an Hon. Member of Parliament here who is busy insulting other Members of Parliament that they are dull. I was just wondering if that is parliamentary language and I hereby request that he withdraws the statement.
*THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Mushoriwa, please withdraw your statement that others are dull – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – Please may you withdraw – Hon. Member sitting next to you?
HON. MOLOKELA: With all due respect Madam Speaker, this
is hear say.
HON. MUSHORIWA: Madam, Speaker, I wanted ...
*THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Mushoriwa, please may you take your seat? Hon. Togarepi, which Hon. Member did you say referred to other Hon. Members as dull? – [HON. MEMBERS:
Inaudible interjections.] –
HON. MOLOKELA: I withdraw whatever it is – [HON.
MAMOMBE: Inaudible interjections.] –
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Mamombe, order.
HON. MUSHORIWA: Madam Speaker, figures do not lie and if you look into the figures that are contained in the Blue Book, the Hon. Minister told us that as at September this year, the revenue that they had generated was less than $10 billion. He then projected that by the end of the year, the revenue that they are going to generate will be around $21 billion. This is all because of inflation, not because of any other thing, it is because of inflation; what is tells Madam Speaker is that the amount of revenue that they have collected from October, November up to December is more that the amount of money that they had collected for the past nine months. It does not end there Madam Speaker, the Hon. Minister now projects that by the end of December 2020, revenue projection is around $58 billion. If the Hon. Minister is sincere, if his inflation targets are correct, if his exchange rate projections are correct, the question that comes is how does this economy generate $58 billion? What the Hon. Minister has simply done is budgeting for inflation and I can assure you Madam Speaker that by the time we reach December, month on month inflation would be around 75% judging from the calculations that the Hon. Minister has put.
What the Hon. Minister has done Madam Speaker is that the Hon. Minister has simply failed to do one thing. He simply failed to just come to this august House and said, “Hon. Members, I came to this House last year and I told you that this is austerity for prosperity. I have failed and beg for an apology”. For the Hon. Minister to then come in this august House with a brave face and bring a budget which is totally out of sync with reality, I think it does not make the people of this country happy.
Madam Speaker, let me just tell you the other issues that are very critical which the Hon. Minister missed. At the moment, our doctors are not at work. The amount of money that was put in the health sector is very little; it falls below the Abuja Declaration. The amount of money falls short. For some of us who live with the people, we are witnessing people that are supposed to live dying. People are succumbing to high blood pressure, diabetes; ailments that could be corrected and treated.
The Hon. Minister in his budget; because that was supposed to be key to make sure that the health system and health delivery system is well funded, however, does nothing. Now, if you look into the figures pertaining to the salaries, our civil servants - when I talk of all the civil servants and public servants. I come from Dzivarasekwa; I have got teachers, soldiers, police officers and I can tell you Madam Speaker, when I talk to them, when I see them, you can actually see that these are dedicated people who are prepared to work for this country but are getting peanuts.
Madam Speaker, you will recall last year when we discussed the
Finance Bill. The Hon. Minister increased Government’s fees four times; what he has failed to do. This is what I thought the Hon. Minister was going to do this time given that he said austerity is gone, his short lived austerity. He was going to come to this august House and say we are going to make sure that the bank rate; our civil servants should get salaries that are equated to the bond notes. We were going to applaud the Minister and tell him how to raise the money to cover that because there are certain Government services which were charging so little. If we are to increase the salaries of our civil servants, they will perform but the current set up, as long as you pretend to be paying people money, they will also pretend to be working. When they do that, the end result is that they are just coming to the office to make side deals and get involved in corruption which takes this country backwards.
So accordingly, it is my view that this Budget Statement needs to be taken back and allow the Hon. Minister to restart and bring something which is credible for this country. I thank you.
HON. RAIDZA: Thank you very much Hon. Speaker for giving
me this opportunity to add my voice to our 2020 budget. I want to thank the Hon. Minister for presenting the 2020 budget. From the budget, we see that the Minister did what he could under the existing circumstances. He has shown us some competences that some of our Members here are trying to discredit by not using any reliable source documents or anything but just passing comments which does not hold water.
The first issue is on the performance of our 2019 budget. It is expected especially on any projection, if there could be unforeseen circumstances that happen in the economy obviously the projections will not come as was already projected. So that is what happened in our 2019 budget. We had unfortunate incidents of Cyclone Idai, drought and all these kinds of things. So we could not expect our 2019 budget just to perform positively as what could be expected by a number of our Hon.
Members here.
Madam Speaker, with these variances, obviously we are bound not to perform to our expectations as a country but in this 2020 budget, our prayer is that all should go well. In every projection, there are a number of circumstances or a number of variables that will be happening which I believe that our Minister has taken into consideration in the projections for 2020.
We applaud our Minister for the amount that he has allocated to agriculture which is the Vote that received the biggest allocation. We believe that agriculture is the economic driver in this country. If our agriculture is well supported, we know that we will be able to deal with the issues of drought and all these other things that affect our people.
If I look at the issue of domestic debt; in 2019, we realised that the Minister through the TSP tried to stabilise the issues of our domestic debt. It did not increase as what the prophets of doom have prophesied that it was going to go over the ceiling.
The other issue that I just want to look at is on the issue of statutory funds and retention funds. The Minister proposed that these funds should come through the Consolidated Revenue Fund so that they can be managed transparently. I think that is one of the good initiatives that the Minister is bringing to support our 2020 budget. We have realised that through the Auditor General’s reports, that there was no proper management for some of these funds and that is where much of corruption was happening on those funds.
On the issue of the mass public transport system, for every economy to perform very well, we need to we encourage our Minister to continue pumping more money into the mass public transport system. Currently, with the issue of ZUPCO, for example in my constituency; I was one of the fortunate Members of Parliament who received the ZUPCO buses. Where they used to pay $35 now they are paying $10 a trip. So we are grateful and we encourage the Minister to do more in terms of doing more on the mass public transport system.
The issue of hygienic issues around the fine tuning system will be dealt with as work in progress. However, what is critical is that our Government has taken cognisance that it is one of the key drivers of our economy and they are doing everything that is within their power to make sure that at least we have efficient mass public transport system for our people.
Increasing salaries will not help our people but working on the systems that stabilise our economy is what is very critical. On the issue of National Venture Capital Fund, I think it is one of the good initiatives that Minister you are doing to make sure that at least our SMEs are going to have access to funding as most of our businesses currently, as we know our economy is highly informalised; they need some sources of funding so that at least they can do their businesses, and they can contribute meaningfully to our economy. So, we need the Fund to be enlarged, so that it will benefit all our people – those in the rural areas and in the urban setup. Businesses cannot contribute much to our economy because of lack of funding. So, we are grateful for that.
Then the other issue is on parastatals. The current situation in the country for our parastatals, I think that it needs you our Minister of Finance and Economic Development to help them to make sure that at least they bring something to the State coffers rather than what is currently happening where almost all our parastatals are not declaring any dividends to the State. What we expect is that all the parastatals need to be profitable because for instance if you look at ZUPCO, if an individual owner starts with one bus today, after five years that person can end up having five buses. But with how our parastatals are running their businesses, you will realise that they will end up with nothing even if we give them 100 buses. So we need the approach of our parastatals’ boards and their CEOs to change so that the country can also benefit from their operations. Their services are very critical to this nation – so the parastatals, Minister you need to look very seriously into that and all the other deals that we are hearing the parastatals are venturing into. We need deals to be concluded to the benefit of the nation. Thank you very much Madam Speaker Ma’am.
*HON. NYABANI: Madam Speaker Ma’am, I would also like to
contribute to the debate on the budget. I realise that this budget has a very sound footing but for someone who does not know good things, they will just criticise it but this budget is very good Minister. I would like to praise the Hon. Minister concerning his budget on health. He is trying by all means to ensure that all the medicines that we use are manufactured in this country instead of importing from other countries. That is a very good thing because the Minister wants to promote the manufacturing of medicines here so that people can get affordable medicines. I would like to applaud the Minister for that.
Secondly, I would like to applaud the Minister for saying clinics and hospitals should be built because a lot of people are travelling long distances to get access to health facilities.
Pertaining to agriculture, agriculture is the backbone of this country. I realise that the country is facing hunger, so the Minister concentrated much on agriculture thereby ensuring that we move from fighting starvation in this country to self sustenance. I also would like to point out that the Minister is trying to promote irrigation. I hereby propose that this irrigation be promoted, especially in the rural areas, particularly for small grains because they provide a lot of food security. I also would like to urge the Minister to increase his budgetary allocation for small grains so that they contribute on food security to vulnerable communities in the rural areas.
I would like to support the Minister’s budget proposals. A lot of people are importing agricultural produce from other countries, especially in relation to horticulture. I would like to say, may the Minister only allow such imports to be allowed over a short time or period but for most of the times, those should be banned in order to promote local production, especially things like vegetables, tomatoes, beans, cowpeas or BLPs.
Madam Speaker Ma’am, I would like to refer to the manufacturing of water treatment chemicals. The proposal to promote local production of such chemicals is a very good move. I would like to applaud the
Minister for proposing that chemicals for water treatment be produced locally. I would also like to applaud the Minister for his proposal on promoting energy production. There should be an incentive for such people who manufacture or use solar equipment for energy.
Madam Speaker Ma’am, in reference to companies, I have realised that sometimes people manufacture goods here and export them. If only such people who exploit goods first of all supply goods locally without exporting because sometimes the local market will not be satisfied but people run on to exporting goods whereas local products become expensive whilst imports become cheaper. What it means is that things that are exported into this country are sold at a cheaper price but when we buy them locally they will be expensive hence if we were to import them they become cheaper.
With reference to mining, my opinion is that for millers especially gold millers, Fidelity Printers should put workers in charge there and also cameras should be installed in such places where there are gold mills because most of the time when gold is milled there, it is smuggled out of the country whilst we lose potential revenue.
With regards to transport, I applaud you for supporting mass public transport especially promoting rail but there are some routes like Norton, Marondera and Chinhoyi where commuter trains can also ply for people to get affordable transport. I urge the Minister to promote rail transportation in the budget for towns that are close to Harare such as Marondera, Bindura, Chinhoi et cetera so that people can use commuter
trains.
With regards to education, there are a lot of rural schools that are lagging behind in terms of education facilities. My suggestion is that more funds should be allocated to the development of such schools because we realise that most of the school children that failed Grade 7 travel long distances to go to school. Hence there is need for better facilities to improve these children’s education. The other issue is that there are few teachers. May the Hon. Minister allocate more funds for the benefit of the pupils especially those in the rural areas?
On civil servants, it is our wish that every worker should get enough salary but my opinion is that there should be a rule that says civil servants and parastatals should be awarded according to production. Their remuneration should be proportional to production high production should translate to good remuneration. On information and publicity, we are aware that bees make honey; some people do not like honey because they do not know how sweet honey is. I would like to applaud the Minister for trying to address the issue of promoting information and publicity with regards to information base stations especially on Smart Agriculture Programme. I thank you.
HON. MUSHAYI: Thank you Madam Speaker. I am going to
ask your indulgence Madam Speaker so that I look at this debate from my living reality as a woman from Kuwadzana. Madam Speaker, if you and I were to walk out of this august House and just crossover to Third
Street and ask a taxi to take us to Crowne Plaza, it would charge us in US dollars. If we were to walk out of this august House go to a pharmacy and present a prescription, they would charge us in US dollars. If we were to walk into a shop and want to buy clothes, we will be quoted in US dollars. What the service provider will tell us is that they are going to ask us to pay on the prevailing rate for the day.
Madam Speaker, the question that I ask the Hon. Minister of Finance and Economic Development is why we are sitting here debating a budget that is pegged in RTGs when the economy has dollarised. We need to look at reality Madam Speaker Ma’am….
HON. KASHIRI: On a point of order Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, in as much as we are debating the Budget, it would be prudent for Hon. Members to debate from a point of clarity and a point of vision. Where the Hon. Member has said customers are quoting in US dollars, it is a known fact that there is always an equivalent of the local currency and at the moment, the US dollar is not an official currency….
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, order, Hon. Kashiri,
the Minister will be given time to respond to all these debates.
HON. MUSHAYI: I am standing here because I represent the people of Kuwadzana. Kuwadzana has an area called Kuwadzana
Extension. Residents there are building houses because it is a new area.
What happens when a resident goes to a supplier for building material is that they are given a quotation which is valid for only one day. What this means is that prices are increasing on a daily basis. Also passports have been increased from $253 to $1 000. The question that I present to the Hon. Minister of Finance so that when he is responding he will also convince me as a woman from Kuwadzana representing cross-border traders from Kuwadzana is the inflation rate that he has projected for the first quarter of 2020 and at the end of 2020 of 3%. How is he able to achieve that low inflation rate which is single digit when I am getting a quotation to buy building material just valid for one day?
Madam Speaker, this is not convincing for me as a woman who is living the reality of prices increasing everyday and then I am told here by the Hon. Minister that the inflation rate is going to be 3.5% in 2020.
It is unrealistic, unbelievable and this is untrue. Madam Speaker Ma’am we visited survivors of Cyclone Idai as a Committee on local Government. The trend that went on amongst the survivors was their lack of a sense of belonging. The worrying thing about the survivors of Cyclone Idai is that they need to be moved from the camps that they are staying in now to actual homes. I am worried by the allocation for us to be able as Government to provide accommodation for the survivors of Cyclone Idai. When the disaster had just struck, we were furnished with statistics around how much have been given in terms of humanitarian aid. Now, that the cameras are off, we are not getting any details around what is happening to them yet the rain season is here, these people need to prepare, they need houses and I do not see the allocation being enough to be able to meet these demands.
Madam Speaker, as I sit down, there has been a projection that they are going to over 8 million people who will suffer food deficit. We need to import maize and wheat, yet the budget is in RTGS. My plea to the Hon. Minister is that the economy has dollarised. The nation and the market does not have confidence in the RTGS. The reflection on the ground is that the economy has dollarised. Why are we not either dollarising or reverting to the Rand or going back to the multi currency because that is the situation on the ground?
*HON. SVUURE: Thank you Madam Speaker for giving me this
opportunity to contribute to the debate on the Budget proposals presented on 14 November 2019 by the Minister of Finance and Economic Development. Looking at this Budget, I get the impression that he really took into consideration that the environment is very hostile to the development of the economy of this country. There are also signs that there was a lot of expertise used to overcome those adverse conditions that apparently are being generated by some in this country who do not want to see this country progress.
Looking at the previous budget, we see a lot of developments and we see a lot of progress in terms of fighting for the development of this country. We realise that the Minister of Finance and Economic
Development put a lot of effort on key ministries that promote economic development of this country. I applaud the Minister for the funds allocated to the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development. It shows that he has a very good vision, not only for the near future but even many years to come. I would like to applaud the Minister for that. Hon
Minister must be on the lookout for strategic minerals of this country. I do hereby request that the Minister should take into consideration that we cannot exploit all the minerals at once because this country has minerals that are more than 30, but let us concentrate on key minerals at any given time because our economy is fighting to get started in terms of development.
I would like to refer to gold. At this moment this is one of the minerals that I think we should concentrate on in terms of its exploitation and marketing. The Ministry of Mines has planned to produce at least 40 tonnes of gold, but if you look at where we are at this moment, so far the gold that has been produced is around 23 tonnes - which means we are far way below the target, it is worrying. We should now look at the possible causes to why our production lever did not match our projected target.
One of the factors that contributed negatively to that is the issue of energy or electricity. If we do not address that issue, we cannot get our target of 40 tonnes per year. I also appreciate the fact that the Minister seems to acknowledge that and he allocated more money to energy development. The second thing is the marketing model process of selling our minerals. The issue of foreign currency versus local currency in terms of buying the gold. If only the money paid to gold be reverted back to 70% foreign currency and 30% local currency because miners want to import spare parts for their machinery which is not found locally and therefore the need for foreign currency and that will promote mining in a big way.
I would like to applaud the Hon. Minister Prof Ncube for allocating more resources to the Ministry of Agriculture because now there is the issue of climate change which means that we can no longer expect to continue our agricultural practices the traditional way. Yes I would like to applaud him very much for allocating more funds to irrigation development as well as dam construction. If only the Minister could continue thinking along the lines of not importing agricultural inputs or equipment such as centre pivots. It pains me a lot when I look at the figures that are used to import implements like centre pivots. Looking at the education levels that we have in this country I wonder why we still import things like centre pivots. Why should we be importing such implements? Now I believe we should be promoting local production of such equipment like centre pivots among many other. I believe that at this time more money should be allocated to industries or manufacturers of implements like centre pivots and other agricultural and mining equipment. We have a lot of experts or innovative people in this country. If you were to go to areas like Magaba in Mbare and analyse what is happening there, you can really appreciate that this country can produce a lot of things that can be made locally instead of importing. This country should promote innovation in order to substitute imports whereby we use a lot of money to import certain things, so local production and innovation should be supported so that we reduce on importation .
Before I sit down I would like talk about the financial sector, we are aware that most of the production in this country is being done by SMEs. For such people, it is not easy to collect tax or revenue from them. I would like to applaud the ways that were devised by the Minister of Finance to collect revenue from such people, the SMEs. May I then refer to the issue of indiscipline that is really wrecking havoc in the way money is being used in this country. A lot of discipline is needed in handling money in this country. People need to see evidence of measures being put in place, especially against money changers. All towns and streets are full of money changers but we have not seen people who have been arrested and prosecuted successfully. We are now waiting for such an opportunity from the Minister of Finance and Economic Development. What steps are they going to take against money changers who do that in broad daylight? That will restore confidence in our money if such people are prosecuted and successfully
jailed.
Finally, I would like to refer to industries that manufacture basic commodities. I think it is now overdue that we still import things like fertilisers yet we have raw materials in this country that can be used to produce such things. I hereby request the Minister of Finance and Economic Development to look at such industries that manufacture basic goods like fertilisers so that they are allocated more money in order to promote manufacturing. That would mean that in a few years to come, we will no longer be importing such products like cooking oil, fertilisers and other basic commodities.
I would like to appreciate the vision that I see the Minister of Finance and Economic Development is taking. I think the Minister should promote such manufacturers of basic commodities. If we look at what used to happen in the past, Olivine used to actually produce and export cooking oil. The Minister should be looking at promoting such manufacturers so that we go back to that state where we would export basic commodities instead of importing them.
I would like to appreciate the budget proposal by the Minister of Finance and Economic Development this time around. I believe that if the country sticks to this budget proposal this time around, the country will progress very well. Thank you Madam Speaker.
HON. P. CHIDAKWA: Thank you very much Madam Speaker
for giving me this opportunity to thank the Minister of Finance and Economic Development for a job well done. You have tried your best given the trying environment. Last year, you budgeted but unfortunately for you, there were some unbudgeted for incidences like Cyclone Idai which put your projections off rail. Things like drought did put you off rail but given the circumstances, please do not give up. Keep on fighting you will make it.
Madam Speaker, if we keep on with what the Minister has projected, we are on the right footing. Minister, we would like you to look out on the welfare of civil servants to keep them motivated. Capacitate them to keep on going to work so that we can move our country forward – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Gonese, please do not
disrupt him.
HON. P. CHIDAKWA: Madam Speaker, the Minister should
look at stabilising the exchange rate. The exchange rate is driving the inflation. Inflation is causing untold suffering to our people. If we can address inflation, our country will move on despite those who are wishing us bad luck and those who want this country to fail. We will keep soldiering on and we will make it.
We would want to applaud the Minister of Finance and Economic
Development for championing infrastructure development. This will help improve economic growth in our local communities and develop our country, providing employment. Keep on working on infrastructure development.
My challenge to the Minister is timeous release of funds and making sure that all projects are well funded for them to succeed. You have got good projects on the go. Let us make this succeed and our country will go forward. We will also like the Minister to look at capacitating DDF. DDF is the mother superior of the rural areas in respect to roads and water. If we can look at capacitating DDF, our country will move forward and we will give meaning to our budget.
Hon. Minister, keep your sharp eye open and come up with your good master strokes. The 2% tax was a master stroke. It managed to solve most of the revenue leakages in this country and to fund some of the projects which were going to cause problems in this country. I would want to thank the Government for running the ZUPCO public transport in urban areas. Unfortunately, the people who are leading these people who are benefiting from ZUPCO do not seem to appreciate it.
Hon. Minister bring the ZUPCO into our rural areas where we will fully welcome you and will appreciate it.
Finally, we would like to thank the Minister for the Presidential input scheme in our rural areas. It will help food security in this country. I would like to wish our Minister the best and not to encounter unbudgeted fundamentals in the economy like what happened to you last year. People are now judging you academically. You are doing a good job under very difficult conditions. Keep it up. Thank you very much.
HON. TSUNGA: Thank you very much Madam Speaker. I also rise to express my issues, views and comments on the Budget Statement as presented by the Hon. Minister of Finance. As we all know, the budget provides parameters for Government action and inaction in the ensuing year and what Government does and does not do is policy essentially. The Budget therefore for all intents and purposes is
Government policy and as I debate, I am taking it in that perspective.
First Madam Speaker, the Budget in real terms as presented by the
Hon. Minister is much less than that of 2019, that is the first observation.
That means in terms of service provision, development, goods and services that the Government is going to be able to provide in the coming year; that is going to be much less than 2019. Effectively therefore, the quality of life of our people in 2020 is going to be declining given that the Budget in real terms has come down – [AN HON. MEMBER: Inaudible interjections.] – No, because the thing is if the amount of money that we are going to be spending on providing services has gone down, it means what we are able to do with that money has also declined. So, we need to be cognisant of that and try to increase the provisions.
The Budget Madam Speaker is manifestly anti-poor in several respects. The budget has not adequately addressed the issue of mass transportation system in this country and it is going to be difficult for our people to be able to commute to work and back on a daily basis, notwithstanding the provision of the ZUPCO buses because even as we speak, not everyone who wants to make use of that service is able to access it. The issue of fuel and electricity provision, we are experiencing serious shortages and it does not look like the Budget has adequately dealt with the issue of electricity provision and generation, fuel procurement and I reference paragraph 180 and 189 of the Budget Statement.
The financing modalities for agriculture Madam Speaker, it does not look like we are going to have a much improved agricultural season. Even as we speak now, the land under tillage appears to have declined because the cost of agricultural inputs, it is not many that are going to be able to procure and the budget is not manifestly addressing that dimension.
The Budget is also manifestly silent on gender considerations for the various expenditure items enunciated in the Budget. Also, hospitals, the issue of doctors, medicine provision in the hospitals, issue of teachers’ salaries and civil servants in general, the Budget does not adequately address the plight of civil servants. So, I implore upon the
Minister to reconsider the issue of civil servants’ remuneration.
Madam Speaker, a good number of many of our people are without accommodation especially in urban settlements. The Budget pays lipservice in the area of housing development. I realise also that there is a new Ministry of Housing which has not been provisioned in the current Budget and the Minister must be looking at that Ministry to ensure that the aspect of housing delivery especially in urban settlements is adequately dealt with.
Another area of concern that the Budget does not adequately address is that of water Madam Speaker. In this august House, we have had motions on the acute shortage of water and also the provision of poor quality water in urban settings and indeed, in all other settlements including growth points and rural areas. So the area of new dam construction, water harvesting and generally to improve water delivery, the Budget has also not adequately addressed. I am deliberately focusing on those areas that need the Minister’s attention.
Unemployment upwards of 95% depending on where you are coming from, I think is also another area that the Minister should have deliberately focused on so that the aspect of employment creation is adequately dealt with or at least there is some movement in terms of trying to reduce unemployment especially for our youths in this country. So, it does not look like there was serious thought in the preparation of the Budget in trying to address the acute shortage of employment in this country, particularly for our youths.
Another area of grave concern Madam Speaker is that of pensions. Our pensioned elderly have now been condemned to destitution because of the meagre monthly payouts that they get if they are luck to get them because they queue at the banks overnight only to get peanuts, hardly enough for their bus fares to and from their homes. I think there is need for a re-look at the pensions payouts from NSSA that our pensioned people must receive so that they are able to continue with their normal lives.
Madam Speaker, many parents have received notices of serious hikes for school fees for their children at the various schools around the country. It is highly unlikely that the average parent will be able to afford to pay school fees for their children. I think the aspect of financing education should have been prioritised so as to reduce the burden on parents in payment of school fees for their children.
The Budget has made some priorities or the Minister has made some priorities for the 2020 Budget, notably growth and productivity as a priority area, job creation as a statement of intent for priority, competitiveness and strong sustainable and shared development. This is stated in paragraph 22 of the Budget Statement but I fear this may not be or is unlikely to be achieved without the requisite reforms for stabilisation. As we all know Madam Speaker, capital is scared of instability and also the absence of predictability in the way the economy is managed, run and functions.
Despite the seemingly good intentions as stated and as espoused in the Budget Statement, the aspirations of the generality of our people of Zimbabwe will remain unfulfilled under the current conditions. I fear as I see it, the need for engagement is paramount. The need for dialogue and engagement between political antagonists who matter is very important and unless we do that, we will continue to go round and round in circles without progress. So the need for that kind of engagement and dialogue between antagonists who really matter is important because as we see it, there are those that do not matter but who are involved in engagement and it is not taking this country anywhere. That needs no over emphasis Madam Speaker. As I see it, the writing is clearly on the wall. The budget is unlikely to succeed and that is one assertion I must make unless the fundamentals as I have already alluded to, are taken seriously and addressed. In the current schemata of things, in the current configuration of issues in this country, the budget is unlikely to succeed unless what I have just mentioned is taken heed of. The Hon. Minister may as well start working on a Supplementary Budget whose anchor currency should be the US dollar. I thank you Madam Speaker.
HON. MADHUKU: Thank you very much Madam Speaker for
giving me this time to make my contribution to the budget. Let me begin by thanking the Hon. Minister of Finance for producing this kind of budget under these difficult circumstances. However, I want to make a few comments especially with regards to the Education budget. Madam Speaker, it is common knowledge that sustainable economic development or growth is not possible without huge investment in education. We need knowledge and skills in education and this is the right platform that produces such skills. We also take note of the current global shift which talks about inputs and outputs and moves to outcomes as well as processes which also need results. I want to thank that the Minister of Finance has also come up with a budget which speaks to
Vision 2030 which has been promulgated by the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe. To a very large extent, we also know that one of the key goals of Vision 2030 talks about raising employment levels or rates upwards, not only for the formal sector but also for the SMEs.
We also note that in the Vision 2030, there is talk of moving Zimbabwe to an upper middle income economy by 2030 and also raising the per capita income to around $3500. I want to applaud the Minister that this budget also tries to ensure that we move towards that direction. We also note that in the Budget Statement of 2020, the Minister did allocate $8.5 billion to the education sector which is 13% of the total budget and about 459% increase from the 2019 Budget which is very much applaudable, although we notice that this budget also falls short of the Dakar declaration of 20% of the total budget for any nation. However, I want to point out a few issues which we think we have to take note of; firstly, the Secondary Education Vote which the Minister also increased. We want to take note of the fact that this education sector among many other goals or aims is the provision of pre-technical vocational education which talks about science, technology, engineering and maths. This is very critical if we are looking towards job creation, which is one of the key tenets of Vision 2030.
We need to ensure that we move or have a bias towards the VOCTECH education and have a slight departure from an exam oriented curriculum which is more to do with rote learning and also need to change our mindset in order to ensure that we offer the VOCTECH subjects or curriculum which is favourable to job creation. Madam
Speaker, a few statistics here which I have compiled – we have seen that for the ‘O’ Level examinations for 2018, out of a total of 239 411 candidates who sat for the 2018 examination, only 50 664 did manage to score five subjects and above. We had about 188 777 who did not manage to score five subjects or they scored four subjects and below. These learners; we are offloading them into the economy where they need to look for jobs. Our Vision 2030 which talks about creation of employment was saying from 2018 to 2030 if we offload an equal number, by 2030 we are going to be having about 2.5 million job seekers who have failed to get more than five subjects passes.
I want to applaud the Minister that he should also look into this budget so that we avoid a situation whereby we have a youth threat into our economy. We have to empower and give more resources to the education sector to capacitate the VOCTECH subjects whereby we can also ensure that we acquire heavy industrial machines for engineering like wood technology, technical graphics, dress and textiles and food technology so that we capacitate these learners when they leave school and fail to manage the academic route.
Madam Speaker, I am also of the view that the Minister may also look into giving more resources to the education sector so that we also create the so called innovation hubs. I am happy that the Minister of Higher Education also talks about the creation of innovation hubs at the higher levels but I think this should start at the lower levels like the secondary levels. We have to ensure that we capacitate them so that they are able to do their researches, innovation as well as industrialise on top of the other soft skills which we equip them like creative thinking and all the other things. Madam Speaker, I also want to speak about the Minister if he can also look into the issue of giving more resources to schools. We are aware that we have so many satellite schools in the rural areas. These satellite schools are failing to register as exam centres. So my view is that let us capacitate these schools, ensure that we build more resources and enable them to register and become exam centres. I am also praying that the Hon. Minister can give more resources to the satellite schools which have been in existence for so many years.
Let me move on to the learner support services where we talk about the learner’s welfare. I want to make specific reference to the school feeding programmes which tend to reduce those who are vulnerable, the poor. We are happy that the Minister has also allocated a lot of money to this area but I want to take note that in the past we have had situations whereby the Government has been funding for the provision of maize only. Most schools have been giving learners only sadza or mangai and they have been asking parents to pay more for the relish. So I want to applaud the Minister that he has also increased some money to this area. However, I think more can be done to ensure that schools will not ask parents to pay more for their children because we are talking about the vulnerable groups who are not capable of paying more money for the relish. There may not be any feeding at schools or learners can be given only sadza or those who cannot pay for the relish may end up not being fed which destroys the whole purpose of the school feeding programme.
Special needs education which the Hon. Minister has also given a lot of money, we have on record that in 2018 the Ministry recorded about 36 640 learners with disabilities in our schools whereas in 2019 we have about 42 277 learners with disabilities. So it is also my plea that the Hon. Minister can look into the area because we have ballooning enrolments of learners with disabilities who need quite a lot. The learners with disabilities need more than those without disabilities. The Vote will assist the learners with disabilities in the provision of assistive devices, Braille, other hearing aids, physical mobility and creams for learners with albinism. So, it is my belief that we have to give more resources to these learners free of charge like what has been happening or what the Minister has done to give free sanitary pads. So the assistive devices also need to be given free of charge to such learners.
Lastly, I want to make a contribution in terms of revenue collection that the Minister can also look into the area of tax. I think we have many cases of our citizens who buy a lot of expensive assets. The
Minister can also look into the area to verify whether these expensive assets which are being bought, whether people are paying tax. I think we can add revenue by making a check on these areas.
Madam Speaker, let me end by thanking the Finance Minister for coming up with this kind of budget under these difficult circumstances whereby our economy is facing a lot challenges. I think with all due respect, this budget passes the goodness of it because it has been well thought out. Thank you.
+HON. MATHE: Thank you Madam Speaker for affording me this opportunity to also contribute towards the 2020 Budget. The good thing that I would like to say before I delve deeply into my presentation is that I would like to applaud the Minister, Hon. M. Ncube for coming up with such a budget which is a very difficult thing to do because he has touched on all Government activities. He has also given each department an allocation out of the budgeted money and even his figures are balancing. I would like to thank him for doing a great job here in
Zimbabwe.
I looked at education; he has put about 8, 5 billion towards education because he knows that people have to be educated and that includes salaries for teachers who are teaching at those schools. As a mother, I am happy that a lot of money has been put towards education. This shows that our children are going to attend school and pass. When they pass, it pleases the parents and the teachers are going to be happy if they get paid a good salary.
I just want to add a few more words that over and above what he has done by coming up with a budget, I think we should put more funds into grade zeros because there are no schools specifically for them. That is why at times they get zero pass rates at grade zero. What is causing bad results at grade zero is that they have no proper structures; they are attending lessons outside. This causes them not to have proper writing
skills.
Mines - the Minister allocated a good lump sum. I would like to urge the Minister that when it comes to mines, most of the budget should go towards the youths. Youths all over the country are not employed, most of them are illegal artisanal miners. They are engaging in these activities because they have no jobs and they do it illegally. So, I am happy that he has given them something.
I am also happy that he has made a contribution towards transport and he did it in a very clever way. If we provide funds for our roads, it is for us that we specify which roads should be repaired and that will assist the Minister if he has to come up with each road and how much he is allocating towards the road. I heard someone laughing about the supplementary budget. It is important that we should have a supplementary budget. If he specifies that such and such a road will get how much, it is good because it will show us how much has been spent so far on that road and we will also get to know how much we still need for the road to be completed.
Mr. Speaker, I also looked at the issue of social welfare where we assist people. In assisting people under the social welfare, he has put some money that can be used to buy food for those people and if the money that has been put there by the Minister was to be used for ploughing, and for whatever piece of land that is there, if the land was allocated to someone and that person has not been using the land for two years, the money should be diverted to farming. It is not that we do not get grain because there are no rains; rains are there but it is just that people are not using those farms. They are just keeping the farms but if the Ministry was to use the money for farming together with the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement, we will get a bumper harvest and that will help us save money by not importing food.
Also coming to the issue of assisting others, I am talking about food for work - food for work normally is done during the ploughing time. If the Ministry gives us quite a lump sum and if that lump sum is given to people and people are given enough time to go and plough, then we can avert hunger. If someone goes to food for work, they work and when they get money, they go and buy food and because of that, their own farming will lag behind and they will not harvest much. By virtue of the times that they finish work, they will be so tired and will not be able to do much on their own pieces of land.
Now when it comes to water, the money that was poured into water throughout the provinces is good money and that is the money meant to drill boreholes and to repair our dams. As a woman, I know the problems that we face when it comes to water. The Minister should maybe increase that portfolio because we still need to drill more boreholes and build more dams. I would like to thank the Minister because times are hard but I know that he is doing a great job and I would like to thank him for a good budget.
*HON. CHINOTIMBA: Thank you Mr. Speaker. I want to thank the minister of Finance and Economic Development for the 2020 budget which he presented. I have a few words which I intend to say as regards the budget, especially in the education sector. There is need to relook on the issue of the sector. Governments in other countries have industries and companies such as the Government Printers. As we speak today, the prices of notebooks have gone up. A two quire book is now selling at $25 and it is important that the Minister of Finance and Economic Development looks at the issue of having Government companies such as the Government Printers so that they can make notebooks for use in the schools because the notebooks are now beyond the reach of the ordinary parents. It is important for the Minister of Finance and Economic Development to look seriously into such issues with regards what is now happening in that industry.
I would also want to thank him for the amount that he allocated to the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement which got adequate funding. Be that as it may, there are some farmers that are complaining and the parents are complaining because of the money that was increased in October. The farmers are unhappy about it. They delivered their maize in August/September and they were not paid the amount that was announced in October. Some people delivered their crops on the 25th of September and on the 1st of October; they were told that there has been an increase in the price.
The price was increased to the middlemen and not the farmers. They were getting the grain, pretending to be millers and then there was a merry-go-round and they benefitted where they were not supposed to have benefitted. It would be important for the Minister of Finance and Economic Development to look closely into that issue. That is what I term dog-eat-dog and it is now a blame game between the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development and the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement. So when you approach either of the parties, they blame each other. So, I urge the Hon. Minister to look into the issue closely so that next year we have adequate maize or grain stocks delivered to the Grain Marketing Board. They are waiting for the producer price of maize to be increased in October but in the interim people will be dying of starvation. So we urge the Hon. Minister to closely look into that issue because it is problematic.
On transport, there is ZUPCO; the Minister of Local Government is being given money. If you go to Dubai, you will see that every mode of transport in Dubai, be it a taxi or any public transport is owned by the Government. In fact Government did well by giving ZUPCO subsidised fuel. The Minister of Finance and Economic Development should give Government sufficient funds so that Government goes back into the transport sector and runs the transport sector because private operators no longer have the people at heart. As a result, the ordinary man is now blaming the Government – [HON. SIKHALA: Inaudible interjection.] -
Mr. Speaker Sir, may Hon. Sikhala withdraw his words. He is saying the Hon. Minister is cruel. He must withdraw his statement, he is a lawyer and he is a respected person. I shall sit down briefly while he is withdrawing his statement.
*HON. SIKHALA: I withdraw my words Hon. Speaker.
*HON. CHINOTIMBA: If you go to China, Dubai and South
Africa, Governments in those countries own transport sector. Our economy is not as robust but others would say beat others and doing other things –Hon. Prof. Ncube is a strong man, he crafted the Budget yet there are others that are saying Zimbabwe must be under sanctions.
Our Budget will become problematic and the Minister will have problems whilst others are advocating for sanctions. This needs to be looked into and that we act in consent and come up with a law to deter people from calling for sanctions. There must be a severe punishment.
Thank you.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Before you take the floor. I
am reliably informed by the Minister that there is a lot of repetition on contributions that are coming now, there is nothing new. Please can you come up with new points that have not been said by anyone?
HON. MADZIMURE: My first issue is that the Budget provides a model of how the Government might perform. If we look at the figures that the Minister presented, the Minister presented a Budget which has a total of 68 RTGs billion. What it means is that our Budget will be around US$4.5 billion. If we take the current exchange rate of 15.5, the budget will be around US$4billion. This means the Minister will be presiding over a budget that is more than 50% less than what we had last year. We are going to spend less for everything. Considering the problems that we find ourselves in for example the health sector has collapsed, we do not have electricity and also you see teachers in classes but they are not teaching. There is nothing that we can applaud the Minister for because the Budget is less than what we had last year. The population is growing, so starting from that point Mr. Speaker, there is nothing that the Minister would want to make us believe that there is going to be growth in the economy. Let alone the fact that we are starting from a minus six percent for us then to expect to cover that gap of 6.5% and then record a 3% growth, that will never happen. It has never happened; there is no one who is such a genius who can perform such gymnastics to come from -6.5 to +3.5%. So, as far as I am concerned Mr. Speaker, there is nothing to celebrate.
Mr. Speaker Sir, if we look at the amount of money that we used for agriculture between 2017 and 2018, it was around $3.5 billion but our entire budget for next year will be around US$4 billion, so there is no economic growth. If we look at growth itself, there are about four factors that we consider for a growth of an economy. We are talking of our natural resources, capital and goods.
Mr. Speaker Sir, on the resources side, already this year our target for the gold production, the gold that would go through Fidelity it went down by more than 30%. As things stand right now, we are getting around 23 tonnes of gold but the projection was 40 tonnes. So, how are we then going to expect us to cover that and then record a growth in the production of gold? There is no explanation why we have that deficit. If you look at the capital, for us to record growth there must be flow of capital. One means of us getting capital is attracting FDI. As far as FDI is concerned, we have had representatives of those capitals where there is capital telling us that you are doing very little as far as those reforms that we promise the international community that we were going to embark on. We have done very little to align the laws to the
Constitution. We have done nothing to reform our electoral processes and even to reform our institutions of accountability.
On the issue of the Finance Ministry, the report which was presented in this House pointed to the fact that the biggest culprit as far as financial mismanagement in Zimbabwe is concerned is the Ministry of Finance. If we look at the amounts that cannot be explained, they are so much that if we had managed those funds well, we would not need any foreign direct investment or any money coming from outside.
On the issue of the human capital – right now we are busy chasing our doctors away. How do we expect the quality of our health services to improve? If you do not have a workforce that is healthy, you have a big challenge. Right now, no one can take his/her relative to a public hospital because there is nothing happening there. As far as growth is concerned, if there is no health, there is no growth. You talk of the goods- we are producing very little and as far as the budget is concerned, I cannot see in the budget anything that points to the fact that we are going to create goods and services for ourselves.
We cannot create goods for our own consumption when we do not have electricity. Mr. Speaker, last week alone at my own small factory, we did not have electricity during the day from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. This means that for the whole week, there was no production. The sizes of the generators that we would generate are the single phase generators but most of the equipment, they are three phased and there is no electricity. How do we record growth if we do not have electricity?
The issue of fuel – the Hon. Minister did not speak to the issue of fuel. How is he going to address it? We have now gone 12 months with queues of fuel. The amount of time that is lost on the fuel queues is almost 50% of the productive time. How do we expect productivity? Productivity is the ratio between input and output and included in input is those resources like power. If there is no power, the kind of machines we will use to produce are those machines that are not efficient. For me to believe that we will record or we will talk of any productivity as I have already said. There is no way we are going to improve our productivity. What productivity entirely means is that when your input becomes less and the output is more, you are going to be able to supply goods and services at an affordable price.
In our case, there is no way. It has never happened in a country where there is no fuel and electricity, and you expect productivity to be achieved. I am an industrial engineer by profession and when you do not have those inputs, there is no production and there is no way the Minister would want to convince us that the economy is going to go apart from the fact that I have proved that this year’s Budget is less than 50% the Budget that we had last year.
On job creation - you cannot create jobs in a country where you do not see a crane. The cranes you see today are those at the airport. If you go to Kenya today, you peep through a hotel window and you count until you cannot count anymore the number of cranes. You turn to your east and to your west; that is the same order. This is the only way you create employment. You do not create employment by simply saying here in the House that we are going to create employment. The evidence must be there on the ground.
The only way you can put money in the people’s pockets is by you producing the work and making sure that Portland Cement works 24 hours and by only making sure that there is always lights on the cranes in the evening working. That is the only way you can create employment. In our case, there is no miracle, we are not creating any employment. We are not even doing it on the farms because the farmers are always complaining. You heard all Members from the ZANU PF side debating today and no one has ever said farming is being funded adequately, we have adequate electricity and adequate fuel and so, it means that area is dead.
Even with the climate change. There are mitigatory measures that we have. We have Tokwe/Mukorsi where we can irrigate. There is nothing happening in Tokwe/Mukorsi. We have not started irrigating anything. So, where do we expect the food to come from? There is nothing. We are simply parroting talking and praising the Minister but the fact is that nothing is happening. Probably, we cannot blame the Minister alone because he jumped into a sinking ship and there is no way he can save it alone. It needs a lot of people to do so.
*HON. RAIDZA: On a point of order Mr. Speaker Sir. We heard the Hon. Member saying the Minister jumped onto a sinking ship. May the Hon. Member withdraw the statement or explain what exactly he meant by a sinking ship? I thank you.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: May you honourably withdraw
that statement?
HON. MADZIMURE: My whole debate is premised on the
economy...
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: No, I said may you withdraw
that statement?
HON. MADZIMURE: He said can I explain...
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER (HON. MUTOMBA): I said
can you withdraw please.
HON. MADZIMURE: Mr. Speaker, okay I withdraw. When the
Minister came in... –[HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections]- Mr.
Speaker, when the Minister in, the economy was sinking.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER (HON. MUTOMBA): You
seem to be going back to that statement again.
HON. MADZIMURE: But a sinking economy is the only
measure, the empirical evidence. I did statistics – a sinking ship can only be identified by a minus. When there is a minus on something, it means something is going down and it depends on how you describe it. If it is going down, it is a minus and it is emperical and it is from the Minister’s only statement. So, I do not know how I can describe it apart from saying this is an empirical evidence that is there – how can I do it the other way round?
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Hon. Member, are you done?
HON. MADZIMURE: Mr. Speaker, I respect you so much and if
you are going to chuck me out of this House because I have said the economy is sinking, then so be it, I can easily be chased out of the
House. With that expression you can take me out of the House – [HON.
MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
HON. MATEWU: Mr. Speaker Sir....
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: I have not recognised you Hon. Member – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – I have not recognised you Hon. Member – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – What is your point of order?
HON. MATEWU: Mr. Speaker Sir, what the Hon. Member from
Kambuzuma ....
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: May you raise your point of
order?
HON. MATEWU: I am raising it now.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: You do not have to explain what the Hon. Member has said.
HON. MATEWU: My point of order is that in the English language, we have rhetorical speech which the Member of Parliament used – ‘sinking ship’. If you google that, you will see that it is rhetorical and it is a figurative expression to many words. It is English language and it is allowed. One cannot be asked to withdraw a simple rhetorical statement – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Overruled. Can you resume
your debate?
HON. MADZIMURE: Mr. Speaker, I had tried by all means to make sure that my debate deals with the economic issues and this is precisely what I am doing. I am not trying to grand stand in any way. If anyone can prove otherwise....
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: I have given you the time to highlight your point Hon. Member.
HON. MADZIMURE: My point is on the issue of competitiveness. Our products will not be...
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: You are left with five minutes, can you wind up?
HON. MADZIMURE: Our products will never be competitive because of the reasons I have already outlined. If you are supposed to produce eight hours and you do not produce at all; there will not be even that good or service which you would want to be competitive. Unless we address those fundamentals, we will still have a problem.
We also have a problem of technology. The technology that we are using is now outdated, including even the speed at which we access our data; we need technology to produce at a competitive rate. Until the Minister finds a way of attracting capital for us to do that, it will not help. I will give an example of when you are woodworking – you need lathe machines that are now automatic. You do not need to use your hands. You simply programme it and something that used to take an hour or 30 minutes will take even two minutes. That is the only way you can have competitive products and services and this we are not doing.
Apart from that, even doing business for other people providing the technical assistance, we cannot do it in Zimbabwe because we do not have the means of doing so. We need to correct that.
The Minister also told us that he would want a strong, sustainable and shared development. This is another area which is lacking in our country. The Minister never shared the TSP with anyone and up to today, the Minister has not come back to explain to this House how it has fared. Austerity measures are still upon us. The 2% tax is causing havoc. What the Minister should have done is to say incentivise and remove the tax so that people can use more money. There are many other ways that the Minister can collect the taxes. If there are high business activities, it is the frequency at which people do business that will generate more money. In our case, people do not have the money at
all.
Lastly Mr. Speaker Sir, as long as our Government employees – by the way Government still remains the biggest employer in Zimbabwe, do not have disposable income; there is no way you can stimulate growth. There issue of providing ZUPCO buses – those are not ZUPCO buses; it is a group of people who have been brought together and are milking the people. The people are being milked because you do not even know whether the person has provided the service. This is one of the worst and it is not included in the Budget – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Your time is up Hon.
Member.
HON. MADZIMURE: I implore the Minister to go back and revise. Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE): I will start with the contribution from the Chair of the Committee on Budget and Finance. The first issue which he mentioned and is critical refers to the suspension of duty on goods used by physically challenged persons.
The Committee is concerned that there is slow or non- implementation of the recommendations which the 2019 Budget made regarding this issue. I want to say that we suspended duty in the 2019 Budget and this is still enforced by the way – this is in paragraph 839 and 844 of the 2019 Budget.
Following the pronouncement of the 2019 National Budget to suspend duty as well as removal of value added tax on imported goods for use by the physically challenged, the Statutory Instrument 279 of 2018 was also gazetted – this is the previous year thus facilitating implementation of Government policy. Over two successive years, we have been dealing with this issue and it is still in force and effective although there was no pronouncement in the 2020 Budget because it was not necessary as it is still in force.
Let me turn to the issue that the Committee raised around ZIMRA
– ZIMRA’s operational costs should be within the standard costs of collection of 3% which means that for every dollar of revenue collected, ZIMRA should not spend more than 3 cents. As such, the Budget should adequately support ZIMRA to plug loopholes and improve border systems efficiency. It should also provide for modernisation of infrastructure at the ports of entry in line with global trends and therefore, it is pertinent that ZIMRA be given a certain percentage of revenue collected as an incentive mechanism.
When Treasury endeavours to avail adequate resources support to ZIMRA, however, for purposes of transparency and accountability in the utilisation of public resources – funds are allocated through this august House so we will be transparent as to how we allocate funds to ZIMRA but we support ZIMRA. It is our collection agency and they are doing a very good job.
On the issue of mining fees and charges that the Committee has raised; there is a proposal. The mining fees and the charges should be aligned to those of the major mining jurisdictions in SADC, North America and Australia. This again has been recommended over years with no action on the ground.
The Committee should bear in mind that Zimbabwe competes for the same investors with these countries. I must hasten to say that we have been aligning our charges to the region and globally. We have reduced the royalties on diamond from 15 to 10%. In the 2019 Supplementary Budget, we made sure that all royalties are now tax deductable in line with best practices. We are not out of step at all.
A lot has been said about that and perhaps we have been silent on employment creation and youth and so forth. Actually, the whole budget is about job creation, growth, productivity, competitiveness and making sure that our infrastructure also generate jobs. What we did and this is the first time that this has been done in 40 years since independence, we introduced a youth employment tax credit scheme (YET) to deal with youth unemployment. I notice that the Committee did raise this and they are worried about whether this will be implemented properly or not. I can assure them that we have a lot of experience through ZIMRA in terms of implementing such tax rebate schemes, which is what it is really to support employment. I can assure them that we will be able to follow through so that it works well and it achieves the results that it ought. We will listen carefully to Members who have said perhaps we should include all sizes of companies. Initially, we did not want to target the medium scale companies because by supporting them we are making sure that they grow and at the same time support the objective of providing employment.
Then there was something which was brought up by the
Committee on Defence, Home Affairs and Security Services for the Central Registry to review service fees upwards. Treasury has already reviewed fees upwards. User fees levied by the Ministry of Home Affairs are in line with the current economic developments. Of late, you have seen our review of the fees for passports that is paid by those in the diaspora which was announced literally a day ago.
There is also a proposal to levy 1% excise duty on alcohol and ring fence this for security services including war veterans. The excise duty on alcohol and beverages is already very high. It is averaging 40%. Now we are being asked to add 1% and it will be too much. Any further increase could be regressive and that negatively impacts growth of production volumes in the sector. Maybe we should look at other ways rather than this specific proposal.
There is also a proposal to levy a 2% targeted population tax on gross income of non polluters and ring fence for all security services. Already, carbon tax is levied on fuel in order to address the negative effects of pollution. Furthermore, EMA is implementing a number of levies targeted at regulating operators that pollute the environment as well as reducing the negative impacts thereof.
The Portfolio Committee on Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation and I must preamble this by saying we had a session with His Excellency two weekends ago, with people in the arts sector in Bulawayo. He was very impressed by how organised and clear they are in terms of their needs. I also said to them that they must also try to engage us early enough so that we can prepare for their needs in the budget to make sure that they are adequately catered for.
Again, this Committee on Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation went back to the issue of YET and said the Minister of Finance’s introduction of the tax credit to $500 per month per employee for corporates that employ additional employees in a year of assessment recognise that the tax credit is however limited to a maximum of $60 000 per year of assessment. The tax credit is subject to the following conditions. I think what they wanted here was further explanation. I can go into details on how this works but perhaps we will spend too much time. What I can do is that I submit a written statement so that we can go into it.
On the excise duty on fuel, this was raised by the Portfolio
Committee on Transport and Infrastructure Development. The Committee commends the proposal to ring fence 5% of excise duty revenue collected towards the construction and rehabilitation of the Beitbridge-Harare-Chirundu highway and encourages funds to be remitted on time. I agree with this call that we should remit funds on time.
There were some comments that we should increase the budget for DDF. I must say that we will do that. In fact you will notice that when we come to the Appropriation Bill we will increase the budget from the current $100m in 2019 to $233m and we believe this will go a long way in dealing with the issues that DDF is seized with, which is to drill boreholes and provide water to the vulnerable.
I also listened to good comments and I must say from both sides of the House regarding our loss in the gold sector. I must hasten to say that what we are seeing, gold output is in fact going up but the deliveries to Fidelity are going down for a variety of reasons. It is about basically
VAT incentives that are paid in South Africa which are encouraging smuggling into South Africa. If you check the figures at Rand Refinery they are higher than what we are recording at this end. You do have gold leaking through UAE. We have been informed that about US$60m worth of gold is leaking every month through the UAE into the rest of the world. Clearly, there are leakages and we are seized with this issue. We want to capacitate the gold mobilisation unit but also make sure there is a unified system for marketing. Fidelity should be at the core of the gold buying process in this country. We need to plug leakages. The small to medium scale producers are very productive. We have 1.5 million of them. It is one of the biggest empowerment opportunities and yet we are not buying any gold from them because we set the rule that we will only buy if it is above five grammes. If it is below that we will not buy. We are going to change that to make sure that we buy at any gramme level so that we mop up all the gold produced by the small scale miners. It is very important for us to really capacitate them. We want to make sure that whatever support we are giving to the sector is not captured by those who are in the marketing business but it is captured by the targeted producers in the way they buy equipment or chemicals and so forth.
Last week, Hon Adv Mudenda raised an issue about the CDF Fund saying that there have been delays in disbursement under the fund. He wanted to know why - if I can take a couple of minutes to explain. In the past, there was no fund account for the CDF. There was an account at the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and then there were disbursements into individuals accounts in order to implement projects. That was the case. This year we agreed with Parliament that we should create a new fund account. The process of creating that account, putting systems around it has taken a long time. Finally, the account has been created and it is now open. I must say that the first ZWL$5m was disbursed a couple of months ago. The process will be speeded up. It was really an issue of not having an account. The account has been created and once created the system for managing the account took a while.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: May the owner of the
following vehicle AEN 7732, please go and remove your vehicle. It is obstructing other vehicles.
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: That issue is going to be accelerated. In line with incredible discussion we had in Victoria Falls which I must admit I found very useful, it was very good and I really appreciate. It was better than the 2018 retreat in Bulawayo in my view; I really thank them for that. You will notice that from your plea, we will be able to increase the amounts for the CDF Fund which is very important for your needs in terms of developing your constituencies.
If I can press on, what I notice as well in terms of some of the
Portfolio Committee comments and some of the Members, you are all asking for more budget, more budget especially for the areas in which you are cutely involved as Chairpersons or as constituency Members. I did a count, we have a budget in terms of ZW$58.6bn but we are seeing that the bids come up to $136 billion. So that is way-way above if I add up everything you have been asking for. A $136 billion versus what we can afford in terms of what the economy can carry of the $58,6 billion; it follows that no Ministry can get all that they ask for.
In fact, I can only cite one Ministry which got more than what they asked for and that is the Ministry of Mines. In the end we had to add an extra $100 million because we realised that they probably forgot or they thought we would not respond because they self censored. It had to do with the exploration where we gave them an extra $100 million. We want to target exploration because our country is under explored but also resources to make sure that we can meet the cost of the guarantee that we have proposed in the budget, to guarantee access to credit through MMCZ for the non-precious metals sector – non-diamonds and nongold. We want again to provide a credit guarantee similar to the
Command Agriculture guarantee for access to finance from the market.
Really, you are lobbying for your sectors and so forth and I like the passion but we cannot meet those budgeted months. Just in terms of the framework, I know some members were saying oh Minister, you told us this and that about the budget. Colleagues, I can assure you in 2019 we will meet our target of 4% GDP for the budget deficit and again I am determined that in 2020 we will meet our target of 1,5% of the deficit to
GDP.
As I said, our revenue is $58,6 billion against an expenditure of $63,6 billion and that deficit I can assure you will be met. I think that also in reading the Blue Book, some members were saying oh Minister it is inconsistent and all of that. The numbers, colleagues let me remind you that when you present the budget, the Blue Book is really proposals for you to challenge, contribute and alter, after all it is your budget. So, that process is going to happen when we debate the Appropriation Bill. If you feel there are numbers you do not like or do not agree with because they are low or high, you will have that opportunity to do that. It is just a proposal.
However, I want to highlight three things in order to help Members navigate through this year’s Blue Book. The format has changed. We have changed the accounting and reporting system. It is now more comprehensive. We have now adopted what we call the Government Financial Statistics Standard (GFSS) of 2014. Previously, we were on the GFSS of 1986. We have now modernised and are now at 2014. That is what the whole world is doing because this standard has been created by the IMF and all countries in the world without exception are being encouraged to move over to this new standard so that accounts across the globe are comparable. That is one of the things we have done in the Blue Book and this is new. We can do further one on one explanation later or train Parliament. We are happy to do that.
Secondly, this is technical. Let me explain the technical difference in this change in the financial reporting standards. For example, we see in the Blue Book, there is an item that pertains to the issuance of Treasury Bills. Previously, this item would have been part of the expenses of the budget but under the new GFSS 2014, it is below the line so you see it shift to below the line and therefore you remove it from the main budget considerations.
Now, there is also another issue Madam Speaker according to this year’s Blue Book. There is another second issue that I also want to highlight regarding the format of this year’s Blue Book that there is a table that pertains to what we call the common functions of Government.
If you look at the current ministries, they are organised according to
what we call the administrative classification. So you have the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, Ministry of Industry and Ministry of Mines under the functions approach. You would amalgamate those ministries because what we want to do is, we want to create common standards across the globe. This is again yet another standard that we are conforming to in this budget and which will allow Zimbabwe to be compared to the USA, UK, Swaziland, Rwanda, Kenya, Bangladesh and Singapore. So it is called the functions approach and I am sure Hon. Members will enjoy reading this.
What it does as well for those who really want to go into this because I can spend hours on it, is that it also helps us participate competitively in what we call the Open Budget Survey. Obviously, it is very important for us to be benchmarked globally and also our budget process should be well reported under what we call the Country Policy and Institutional Assessment Programme (CPIAP). This is about global comparability. I think I should explain this issue, the last issue in terms of presentation of the Blue Book which again is new.
We have moved decisively to programme based budgeting which speaks to results. You find that under every Ministry there is a programme, a line and a budget. This was very good for us Madam
Speaker because when for example the President decided to create the Ministry of National Housing and Social Amenities, it was easy for us to literary remove that budget item from the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works and put it to the new created Ministry. That is really the advantage of programme based budgeting. This is good for you Hon. Members of Parliament, you know why? It will force us to really interrogate the Executive as to how we are doing it line by line, programme by programme so that we focus on results, not input but output and impact. This is very important and commendable.
On the issue of climate change Mr. Speaker, there is a mention from the Committee and other Members that in the 2020 Budget it provides an allocation to the Ministry of Environment, Climate Change, Tourism and Hospitality Industry towards climate management under Programme 4 on weather, climate and seismology services and is broken down as follows;
- $5.25 million for Climate Change Management.
- $13.986 million for seismology meant for data collection and weather monitoring.
- $165 million for weather and climate services meant for the acquisition of equipment.
We have done a lot in terms of dealing with the issue of climate Change; anticipating the weather we really feel we have applied enough resources to this area.
A lot has been said about Urban Mass Public Transportation
System from the Committee that is responsible for this and various Members. Mr. Speaker Sir, Government introduced urban mass public transportation system as a safety net to cushion the public from increases in transport costs resulting from fuel price corrections after the introduction of the interbank foreign exchange market in February. This was also partly triggered by extortionate and exploitative behaviour by some public transport operators who were overcharging the vulnerable travellers.
Resources amounting to ZWL$113 million have been expended for the period from January to October 2019 through ZUPCO for hiring and fuel expenses for the buses. Currently, 500 buses and 1 000 commuter omnibus operators are being hired to augment the ZUPCO fleet of buses. I have before me and through you Mr. Speaker, some expenditure on a month by month because some members requested to know this.
The month on month expenditure is shown in Table 1 below;
Table 1: Monthly expenditure on Mass Public Transport
Month |
Amount(ZWL) |
January |
2,500,000 |
February |
4,300,000 |
March |
5,000,000 |
April |
4,235,000 |
May |
5,003,300 |
June |
9,897,000 |
July |
12,273,000 |
August |
35,800,000 |
September |
34,287,476 |
October |
36,600,000 |
Total |
113,295,776 |
Review of fuel prices as well as the increase in the coverage of buses influenced the increase in the amount of the resources availed. Currently the Government is in the process of ensuring that is ZUPCO capitalized so as to increase its fleet size which may entail a reduction in hiring buses and commuter omnibuses in the medium to long term.
Government’s long term objective is to provide affordable, reliable and vibrant mass public transport system.
Some Members also wanted to know who benefited, who exactly is benefiting from the programme, who is participating, again I have a whole list. The Beneficiaries of public transport are illustrated below:
NAME OF BENEFICIARY |
Is it individual |
Company |
Abdul |
Yes |
No |
Busy Signal |
Yes |
No |
Changu Logistics |
Yes |
No |
Chapu |
Yes |
No |
Chihota |
Yes |
No |
Chimukise |
Yes |
No |
Chitaunhike |
Yes |
No |
Choto |
Yes |
No |
Coconut |
Yes |
No |
Delta |
Yes |
No |
Dzimbabwe |
Yes |
No |
EU Transport |
Yes |
No |
Explorer |
Yes |
No |
G Musanhi |
Yes |
No |
GMRI Finance |
Yes |
No |
God Bless |
Yes |
No |
Gwangara |
Yes |
No |
Humula |
Yes |
No |
Joseph |
Yes |
No |
K Makuku |
Yes |
No |
Koga |
Yes |
No |
KS Musanhi |
Yes |
No |
Kupfuma Ishungu |
Yes |
No |
LeeJay |
Yes |
No |
Lofombo |
Yes |
No |
M Musanhi |
Yes |
No |
Madyiise |
Yes |
No |
|
|
|
Makaza |
Yes |
No |
Makuku |
Yes |
No |
Makuku K |
Yes |
No |
Makuku Tsikirai |
Yes |
No |
Mamovies |
Yes |
No |
Manyonga |
Yes |
No |
Marange |
Yes |
No |
Masere |
Yes |
No |
Mashoko |
Yes |
No |
Matemba |
Yes |
No |
Mazhiriri |
Yes |
No |
Mbanga |
Yes |
No |
Moyo |
Yes |
No |
Mtema |
Yes |
No |
Mugari |
Yes |
No |
Munetsi |
Yes |
No |
Munenzva |
Yes |
No |
Musanhi |
Yes |
No |
Mutsvanzva |
Yes |
No |
Mwayera |
Yes |
No |
Nashe |
Yes |
No |
Nyabadza |
Yes |
No |
Nyamweda |
Yes |
No |
Rimbi |
Yes |
No |
Road Link |
Yes |
No |
Rutifa |
Yes |
No |
Samaita |
Yes |
No |
Sea Adlet |
Yes |
No |
Senya |
Yes |
No |
Shambamuto Samaita |
Yes |
No |
T Makuku |
Yes |
No |
Tek Joe |
Yes |
No |
Tine G Musanhi |
Yes |
No |
Trastar |
Yes |
No |
Vondo |
Yes |
No |
Becktrick |
No |
Yes |
Bless it Up |
No |
Yes |
Blue Circle |
No |
Yes |
Blue Horizon |
No |
Yes |
CAG |
No |
Yes |
CMED |
No |
Yes |
Copperbelt |
No |
Yes |
Elsberry |
No |
Yes |
Fungurume |
No |
Yes |
Golden Heritage |
No |
Yes |
Graphlink |
No |
Yes |
Harrowven |
No |
Yes |
Hashtag |
No |
Yes |
Herentals |
No |
Yes |
Hitwave |
No |
Yes |
Horizon |
No |
Yes |
Inter Africa |
No |
Yes |
Kabor |
No |
Yes |
Keannie |
No |
Yes |
Kurai |
No |
Yes |
Kynergy |
No |
Yes |
Lexliner |
No |
Yes |
Mandaza |
No |
Yes |
Martnac |
No |
Yes |
Muza |
No |
Yes |
Nyamayevhu |
No |
Yes |
PCJ |
No |
Yes |
Places |
No |
Yes |
P M Express |
No |
Yes |
Royal City |
No |
Yes |
T & T Coaches |
No |
Yes |
Travel Planners |
No |
Yes |
Trio Two |
No |
Yes |
Trip Trans |
No |
Yes |
Urban Connect |
No |
Yes |
Vaya lathi |
No |
Yes |
Worldmoon |
No |
Yes |
Zebra Kiss |
No |
Yes |
ZUPCO |
No |
Yes |
Credibility of the 2020 national Budget and overall growth projection of 3.0 %, some Members have said perhaps this is not realistic, we have had projections before. I think Members forget that we were together here in July debating the Supplementary Budget and thank you for that support. We basically amended these projections together. I have heard reference that I presented a year ago, the figures are not correct, here you are now coming with new figures - but we had an interim process through which I explained that growth is expected to be minus 2% for the year and we also gave new inflation figures and so
forth.
Madam Speaker, the Members perhaps they have forgotten, if not, let me remind them but I am happy that they are sharing a concern and we are working together on this. They simply want to know how we arrived at a 3% projection which is our base case scenario. Our expectations in arriving at 3% have to do with the weather pattern. One of the biggest shocks we have suffered which Members ought to recognise is the impact of drought on the economy. It has impacted agriculture directly resulting in growth of minus 18% but it also impacted the output of power which impacted energy supply to key sectors of production productivity. Once you have a better season, that issue is lifted, and we expect a better season but the experts pronounce on how we are doing so far.
On power supply you noticed that we have budget for rehabilitation of Hwange 1 to 6 both in terms of loans and Government’s own resources, the rehabilitation of small thermal power stations also on the cards. Power imports are as well are being augmented at the moment and we are looking at increasing the importation of power from Mozambique, because that is where we get the cheapest power in the region in terms of imports.
We are also expecting the rains to be better in the catchment areas of DRC and Angola in terms of the catchment area for Zambezi River.
We expect again that the programme for promoting investment in the solar power sector will accelerate and result in improvement in power supply. I know some people said maybe we should incentives for people for going off the grid. Going off the grid is such a liberator. If you are able to please go off the grid Madam Speaker, through the investment in solar for your household if you are able to do so. Your real incentive is that you will be off grid and you have more reliability. At least you can augment the supply from ZESA.
Madam Speaker, also one of the things that we have used in terms of assumptions to arrive at a 3% rate of growth is just whole macroeconomic policy adjustments. Basically all major macro policy decisions have been made in 2018. It has been our an annus horribilis to use that famous Latin phrase and we do not intend to use major changes in 2020 that will impact or rather create uncertainty in terms of investment planning by private sector investors. We are done with the big macro changes. We just want to focus on productivity and we are supporting agriculture through a new financing model which is a PPP.
The same thing applies to industry.
We are providing them with a guarantee so that they can access capital for retooling. We have introduced an export revolving fund of US$20 million to support exports particularly horticulture. We have increased the budget for IDC for development fund and a launch of $500 million national venture fund. We are doing a lot to stimulate productivity and we think that this will go a long way in contributing to assumption of a 3% gross rate.
Again, something was said about ZIMRA and we allocated ZIMRA
$423 million for automation and construction of houses at border posts. Included in this allocation is purchase of equipment such as drones for monitoring and surveillance. We are capacitating ZIMRA and the amount provided is enough to cover the upgrading of SAP ERP ASYCUDA and Electronic Cargo Systems. Those of you who have the opportunity, please go to ZIMRA head office and see for yourself how the cargo tracking system works. I have been there to check on it. Those of you who use UBER when you travel outside, we know you travel a lot, it is exactly like that. You can watch your truck moving around and it stops. It is given maximum of time when it stops. It is a sophisticated system to make sure that a truck travels within the allocated time or else a penalty is imposed. We are doing are doing a lot to deal with issues around an efficient movement of traffic through our borders into the region.
Something was said about the ZIMRA and the national census – Madam Speaker we have agreed to stagger funding for the 2022 census as most of the items mentioned are required towards the full implementation of the programme. So we stagger whatever is required to support the 2022 census. We however have allocated ZWL$45 million for the purchase of motor-bikes, iPads and a few vehicles thus forming the first phase of the programme. Accordingly, we are targeting the cover a number of issues including motor vehicles and other accessories in 2021 Budget in time for the implementation of the census programme. Madam Speaker, we are so experienced in this regard in terms of managing a census. ZIMSTAT is very experienced. It is just an issue of resources. We will give them enough resources and donors are also contributing. What will happen in this census iPads are going to be used? We are going to cut down on the cost of collecting data. It is no longer a manual and costly approach. We will use an electronic approach that will make us more efficient and we will move faster.
Something was raised again from Ministry of Youth, Sports, Arts and Recreation – Madam Speaker, the Ministry responsible made a submission of 56 VTCs which is a far carry from 2019 budget and most of these projects are ongoing. The list provided include VTCs at Tsholotsho and Sivomo, Silobela, Insukamini and Phangani and Umguza, all in Matabeleland North Province. We note the need to create multi-purpose facilities for both sport, art and creation so as to bring all activities under one roof. And this is the only cost effective way of providing facilities to our communities for the betterment of our youth. For the ministry to achieve that, they require own properties in form of land which they can develop to their own standards and requirements. We recognise this and over time this will be done. It is multi-year issue Madam Speaker. We cannot do it in one year, it is not silver bullet but once we recognise it and we have started, thus the best way to do it.
Something was raised regarding the Foreign Affairs and International Trade. I have travelled to many embassies as we try to raise funds for Government, push for our re-engagement agenda. I was last in the United Kingdom a couple of weeks ago and I have seen the state of these embassies, so I am acutely aware as to what is going on – we have made a lot of progress this year.
The vehicles that we have bought for the embassies, I was able to see them myself and tick that box and again it was systematic. First of all we said this year we will clear the backlog for the salaries of the employees. Secondly, we cleared the vehicles in 2019. In 2020, we move to infrastructure, we are already very clear of what we will do to the UK, South African and Ethiopian Embassy.
In New York Embassy there has been force majeure incident where the building where the Ambassador was staying caught fire. So we had to move very quickly because you cannot leave a fire gutted building like that, you face heavy penalty in the United States. So, force majeure, we have no choice but to deal with it. So we are systematic or moving on a multi-year targeted approach and we will clear everything.
There is an issue that the Committee raised regarding a Budget for
ZimTrade. I must hasten to say that we have provided a budget for ZimTrade of $24 million which will support its activities. We know the role they play, especially now that the ZIDA Bill has sailed through the upper and lower House, they need to promote that, make sure that investors out there know about the existence of ZIDA as a facilitator for foreign direct investment.
An issue was raised regarding national venture capital fund, of course, we were commended for setting it up but we need guidelines, the market out there needs clarity. We will provide guidelines as to how this will operate, who can have access, how and so forth but as you can imagine, being a fund to support start ups, there needs to be a bankable, convincing project proposal from the project promoter who is seeking resources. So, that is the basic minimum that we require and the idea must be sound that is what bankable means, and that this should be evaluated by the experts within the fund who then decides how to go about funding it, other debt or equity and so forth. However, our preference is equity we - do not want to further burden our entrepreneurs with more debt unless they elect to have more debt. The preferences that we give them is equity because that is what is hurting everyone – patient capital that is what is missing in the market. Banks can always provide debt so the idea is once you provide equity, we expect project promoters to also approach banks to kind of match. It should be easier at that stage because they have already received equity; it should be easier to then crowd in the bank to provide debt capital. We believe this will go a long a way.
On the issue of Women’s Affairs that there has not been gender sensitive; I was quite surprised by this comment. Again, we have done quite a lot for the youths, women, we can never do enough but we did quite a bit, compared to the other years in terms of capitalization of Empowerment Bank, issues of vulnerable girls in rural areas, free sanitary wear, just trying to balance gender and making sure that there is equitable gender consideration in availing opportunities, that is what this budget is about. I will urge our technicians when we start this properly who are running the National Venture Fund to priorities female entrepreneurs in supporting them with equity capital for their projects.
There was a comment about the chief’s vehicles; following the recommendations by the Committee that resource be provided for more than 56 chiefs that were appointed from the 2019 budget to date. During the 2020 Budget discussions with the representative of the Chief’s Council, it was noted that not all the 56 Chiefs were appointed and installed. The Chief’s Council should verify the actual number of substantive chiefs who are yet to be granted vehicles. So, there is an issues about numbers, let them verify, once we know the numbers, if it is below what we have estimated or what we know in our books, we will then top up. In the 2020 proposed budget, a total of $4 million dollars was provided for the procurement of vehicles under the Chief’s Council.
For the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education, again I have been hearing comments that the budget is not enough. As we said earlier, the budget is never enough, there was a request of 136 billion when we can only raise 58 billion that is clearly the difference, so there will never be enough in terms of what was targeted. However, we have done a lot again, we have allocated this Ministry an over $8 billion, which will go towards infrastructure development meeting recurrent expenditures, teacher training, making sure that our learners can access quality education. Off course, for all these Ministries there are operational issues which the budget cannot capture which have to do with how the Ministries themselves operate. That is not an issue the budget can address but it is an ongoing issue within the Ministry that the Ministries ought to address.
Issues were raised under the Ministry of Transport and
Infrastructure Development budgeting process. Madam Speaker, the
Ministry of Finance, took note of recommendations made by the Committee on Transport and Infrastructure Development concerning the following:- that there are delays in payment for work done at the Harare- Beitbridge road by the local contractors and six contractors have been contracted so far. However, there is an improvement in the disbursements for allocated funds for advance payment; this was about $205 million to contractors to procure additional plant and materials resources. A total of $170 million was availed for outstanding works during the month of November 2019, although the resource is not sufficient to cover all works, but we have been disbursing resources.
Furthermore, Treasury will continue to mobilise resources for the Beitbridge-Harare-Chirundu Highway and we have already set aside 5% of the levies on fuel for that purpose and thank you for supporting that ring-fencing process. On Air Zimbabwe recapitalization: Treasury takes note of the need to come up with an innovative mechanism for us to do a debt assumption of US$381 million for Air Zimbabwe in turning around the airline. I must say that we have been sufficiently briefed by the Ministry of Transport that at least one aircraft will arrive before Christmas and maybe, by year end 2019, both aircrafts from Malaysia will arrive, we have paid for the aircraft. So, we are making progress in our quest to rebuild credible Air Zimbabwe.
On the recapitalization of department of roads and DDF, I have already mentioned the figure of $233 million, so it is quite a bit from the $100 million that we released in the 2019 budget.
Now, there is an issue about the timely release of funds that some Members have mentioned, yes we will continue to improve our systems to release funds timely for use by our erstwhile Ministries who are trying to move the agenda of development for this country forward.
I have two more additional issues; one has to do with the issue of subsidies, that in protection to the vulnerable and the whole social protection agenda, we really allocated a decent budget to this cause and you will note that basically that end of last week we decided to subsidise the price of roller meal to $50 per 10kg. Again, this is designed to protect the vulnerable, to make sure that our people have access to food and other things. All this is part of the agenda for social protection and we will look at other products that we may put on the subsidy programme again to support access to food.
Finally to power and electricity- we have allocated $8, 5 billion towards rehabilitation of various ZESA units in addition to loans in this budget. So, it is quite a bit -we have tried and are hoping they use these monies wisely, we are also aware that the re-bundling process within ZESA will take effect properly in 2020, so that we can extract efficiencies from the corporation so that they can deliver more power for us. We are acutely aware that there is an issue around thefts of stations that thieves come in and steal the whole piece of equipment like transformers from various stations across the country and the thieves remove the oil which I do not know what they use it for. Apparently it is very popular and this is very costly. Again, Ministry of Energy and Power Development will make every effort to make sure that these transformers in these stations are secured going forward. With that response Madam Speaker Ma’am, I move that the Bill be read a second time.
Motion put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by the Minister of Finance and Economic Development.
FIRST READING
FINANCE (NO. 3) BILL [H. B. 21, 2019].
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE) presented the Finance
(No. 3) Bill [H. B. 21, 2019].
Bill read the first time.
Bill referred to the Parliamentary Legal Committee.
ANNOUNCEMENTS BY THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER
NON-ADVERSE REPORTS RECEIVED FROM THE
PARLIAMENTAR LEGAL COMMITTEE
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: I have received non-adverse
reports from the Parliamentary Legal Committee on all the Statutory
Instruments gazetted during the month of November, 2019.
I have also received a non-adverse report from the Parliamentary legal Committee on the Coroner’s Bill [H. B. 5A, 2019].
Consideration Stage: With leave, forthwith.
CONSIDERATION STAGE
CORONER’S OFFICE BILL [H. B. 5A, 2019].
Amendments to Clauses 7 and 14 put and agreed to.
Bill, as amended, adopted.
Third Reading: With leave, forthwith.
THIRD READING
CORONER’S OFFICE BILL [H. B. 5A, 2019].
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Madam Speaker
Ma’am, I move that the Bill be now read the third time.
Motion put and agreed to.
Bill read the third time.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: I have to call this car for the
second time – AEV 7732. Please the owner of this car can you go and remove it because it is obstructing other cars. Thank you.
COMMITTEE OF SUPPLY
MAIN ESTIMATES OF EXPENDITURE
Third Order read: Committee of Supply: Main Estimates of Expenditure.
House in Committee.
Vote 1 – Office of the President and Cabinet - $2.3 billion.
HON. MUSHORIWA: Hon. Chair, if you look into this Vote, you
will realise that we are in real trouble. Look at the biggest allocations of funds there – there is Rental and Hire Expenses under the President’s Office - $151 million. You look at Foreign Travel Expenses - $218 million. Mr. Chair, there is no reason and no justification in my view and an explanation has to be made to say what is it that we are hiring.
What is the expense in terms of the rentals?
We need to understand why we should actually end up pouring in all those huge funds. If you then compare the amounts of money that we are spending to areas where we need real monies to be put into for instance DDF and the other staff, we do not understand the rationale and to that extent, it will be wrong. The other aspect which is clear and I think that the Hon. Minister mentions it – under the President’s Office, there is an anomaly there because there are people who are Permanent Secretaries. You cannot have this office having a lot of senior members who are just deployed there and doing non-productive work. One would even argue that the Office of the President is actually top heavy and this is problematic. The other clear aspect and I think this budget needs to be explicit, we are aware that the budget under the Office of the President has got several departments. In fact, the way this budget is presented, it makes it difficult for people to follow the several departments that are under this office. For instance, the intelligent service is also housed under this budget. The question is how much is allocated to this Department and how much is allocated for administration for the day to day running of the Office of the President and Cabinet. Hon. Chair, I think there is need to revise this figure downwards unless the Hon. Minister can convince us. We want to channel funds to where it matters most.
The other aspect which is also disturbing is that it is wrong for any one, even the Executive to take this Parliament for granted. If you read through some of the achievements of the Office of the President, you will see that they actually boast that even before this House passed ZIDA - if you go through their Vote, they claimed that in 2019, they had actually set offices and spent money which was not even approved by this House. This explains why there is need for scrutiny. It appears as if there is a laissez faire attitude and approach in this office. This is supposed to be the office that should lead all other Ministries by example. They are doing whatever they want to do and no one questions them. How will this office supervises other line Ministries when it can actually violate laws of this country.
The monies that were allocated there are confusing. How can we have 34 Permanent Secretaries and you ask yourself how many Ministries do we have. We do not have 34 Permanent Secretaries in these various Ministries. Do we really need these Ministries? Why do you not just have the Office of the President with 34 Permanent Secretaries run the affairs of the Executive? There is no need for us to have other Permanent Secretaries in the various line Ministries. By the way, these Permanent Secretaries, Senior Management, Chief Directors, Directors, professionals support services give us a total of 407 senior employees. This laissez faire approach needs to stop and the best way to stop it is for the Office of the President to lead by example. We should be complaining from line Ministries rather than from the Office of the President. I thank you.
HON. MADZIMURE: To be honest with you Hon. Chair, there
are certain things that we have to take seriously. The issue of Permanent Secretaries, when someone gets to a retirement age, he or she must retire and when someone proves to be incompetent, that person must be retired. The office must not have a pool of Permanent Secretaries. We cannot afford that as a country. What we are simply saying is that which we can avoid, let us avoid it. A lot of people are saying hanzi ndokutonga kwacho, this is precisely why we are in this predicament. This is why a lot of people would not want to work with us because of our recklessness. Hon. Chair, if we look at the amount that we use for travelling, if we are talking of austerity, let us be serious. I want the Minister to justify when he says austerity for growth, how can we grow under those circumstances where you have got a pool of Permanent
Secretaries doing virtually nothing. The Hon. Minister is an economist. It is not good to have more Permanent Secretaries than Directors, it does not add up.
How do you come up with a structure and allocating responsibilities to such a structure? You cannot have too many chiefs and not enough Indians as far as management is concerned. These are simple things that the Minister can correct. We are not saying we do not want Permanent Secretaries to be there – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – Vakambotidzingisa ku cricket ivava ava nenyaya yekusamanager mushe. Ngavasatipamhidzira kuti tirambe tichi suffer as a country because of mismanagement. Let us be serious. If you do not have anything to say as far as the budget is concerned - because the majority of Members do not even have the Blue Book, they have not even read it….
HON. TOGAREPI: On a point of order Hon. Chair. The Hon.
Member is lying because ….
HON. MADZIMURE: On a point of order, it is unparliamentary, he has to withdraw that statement.
HON. TOGAREPI: I withdraw the statement that he is lying but he is being economic with the truth. I did not see 34 Permanent
Secretaries, It is saying – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections] -
It is saying - [AN HON. MEMBER: He is disrupting the debate.] –
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: I did not recognise you.
HON. TOGAREPI: In my view, the issue is top management.
Top management does not mean permanent secretaries.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: May I guide you Hon.
Members; you should not repeat what has been highlighted by other contributors. I can only give you the opportunity to bring out new points, not repeating what has been said. The Minister is hearing and please, there is no need for you repeating.
HON. MATEWU: I am not repeating Hon. Chair, but I just want to add a point. So everything that has been said about the top managers, on top of that there are 264 vacancies. Can we have some guarantee that none of those 264 vacancies in the President’s Office also includes people who are at the same level as the Permanent Secretary and Chief Directors because in most management institutions, it is a pyramid structure but this one is the opposite; it is top heavy. Can we be guaranteed somehow that there is money to pay these 264 and that will not come outside of the budget that he has done because I have not seen in the Minister’s figures where that 264 vacancies is budgeted for?
Thank you.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: The owner of this car
AFB7482, please can you go and remove it. It is blocking other cars.
HON. MPARIWA: Thank you Hon. Chair. Still on the top management Permanent Secretary level.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: Hon. Mpariwa please.
HON. MPARIWA: It is just a point. We are seeing that there is an intention Hon. Chair, of actually men giving themselves money without gender balance there. If you see there are seven women and 27 men and we note with concern as women 52% of the population - can this be relooked at? Minister, may he kindly take this message that there is the intention of men giving themselves top posts and giving each other money at permanent secretary level. Women can also perform the same responsibilities and we note with concern. Thank you.
HON. S. BANDA: Thank you very much Chair. On page number 34, item programme (1) President and Administration Expenses, the heading is Compensation of Employees. There is something that I have seen there. It is written wages and salaries in kind.
In 2019, there were no wages or salaries in kind. So what is being said to be payable in kind? We want to know from the Hon. Minister who the beneficiaries of the $722 000 is going to in kind. The kind that I know Chairperson is something else. So we really want to know where this money is going to. Does it affect any other Votes other than the Vote of the President? Thank you.
HON. NDUNA: I just stood up on a point to complement and augment the efforts of His Excellency. He has got an advisor who is differently abled, that is Cde. Malinga. When it comes to people living with disabilities, it is my hope that there is going to be a few more people added to that department; aware that about 15% of the population is differently abled and that is a big population by any standard if it is ignored. It is my hope then that besides complementing and augmenting that department using manpower that the Minister is also going to see light in removing duty on all gadgets that are used by those people that are differently abled in order that he can help that department that is being advised by Cde. Malinga to His Excellency the President.
We certainly do not want to lose that population, but we want that money also to be apportioned for that purpose if at all you can increase the budget of the Office of the President and Cabinet so that we include the differently abled in that department.
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE): I really appreciate the
contributions from Members with all their passion as usual. They say that perhaps this budget is too large - $2.4 billion ought to be reduced but I beg to differ. Instead on page 29 and page 30 you will see how actually there have been savings from the Office of the President in the use of their budget. You notice that for example on page 30, basically for an establishment of 671 posts of which only 407 employees are in posts, 264 unfilled vacancies – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible
interjections.]-
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: What is your point of order?
The Minister is responding to your point
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: These cannot be filled in one year. They are filled over time. It means that there is foresight in the manpower planning by this department. They have not yet filled the 264 vacancies. Really, I would not think that they would want to fill these over time with individuals who are at the level of Permanent Secretary –
[AN HON. MEMBER: On a point of order.]-
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: What is your point of order?
The Minister is responding to your point.
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: I doubt that. They would be prudent in filling these vacancies, so there are no more chiefs than Indians to use - an often used phrase.
A comment was made about these Permanent Secretaries. No, the title is not Permanent Secretary, it is top management. They just happen to be at permanent secretary level because it is the President’s Office and most of the people who have the experience to operate from that office would have gone through the usual ropes in Government and know how Government operates. They have been accounting officers before and such individuals tend to be Permanent Secretaries. So is that surprising that they end up filling the top management role within the President’s Office?
I note the gender imbalance at this level. Seven women versus 27 men and I really appreciate the Member’s contribution. I will take the message back to make sure that there is a better gender balance.
Over the page on page 32, Members will notice that actually there was a saving by this department under Programme 2 on Policy and Governance of $6 000 000. So it is not as if there is a wanton expenditure of resources under this department. In fact, there is every endeavour to use resources efficiently and effectively.
I now want to comment on the travel and the cost of hiring. The President is very effective on the re-engagement and engagement agenda in his travels. We are definitely getting value for money from him. I have been in meetings with him, I have seen him operate. He is very effective. He is our best ambassador in terms of the pillar of doing business globally, opening up Zimbabwe for business. The message that Zimbabwe is open for business, the whole re-engagement and engagement agenda. You have seen his hand in making sure that we can source medicines very quickly for our disadvantaged citizens, to victims of Cyclone Idai when he went over to the UN and was able to procure medicines to support those affected by the cyclone.
One Member mentioned that we do not know how this budget is being spent. On page 34, we categorise very clearly how this budget is being spent. If we look at Programme 1, under the President’s
Administration, you have sub programmes, four of them which are the
President’s Chief Secretary Office, Finance and Administration, Human Resources Services, Provincial Affairs and Devolution are also supported through the President’s Office. So, it is very clear and the expenses, one Hon. Member mentioned that there is this issue about salaries and wages in kind. You know that when we support our civil servants, we are not confining the emoluments to wages and salaries in cash form. There is also in kind remuneration and as I have said, we should maybe even focus on this non-monetary benefit and it is very good for the retention of our civil servants, for attracting them and we should promote in kind remuneration as a way to remunerate them.
If you look at Programme 2 on page 36, again we categorize the various sub-programmes being Policy Formulation, Analysis and
Coordination Services; Monitoring and Evaluation and then Public Sector Reforms. On Monitoring and Evaluation specifically, this is critical for evaluating the 100 day cycle that Ministers commit to in terms of the key projects for delivery but also to evaluate our progress of this budget. We hope that also Hon. Members of Parliament will use this programme based approach budgeting to monitor the Executive and ask the right questions about output and impact and not just input.
On Public Sector Reforms, we are aware that this is a key issue under the KSP and we want to make sure that it will make progress in State enterprise reform. Again, the President is assisting with managing this programme and they are doing a good job. Therefore, I really submit that a budget of $2.4 billion is fair; they are very effective at doing what they do and they deserve every cent in this budget. I thank you. – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] –
Vote 1 – Office of the President and Cabinet - $2 353 887 000.00 put and agreed to.
On Vote 2 – Parliament of Zimbabwe - $1 869 495 000.00;
HON. GONESE: Mr. Chairman I object to Vote 1 being passed! – [AN HON. MEMBER: We have already passed that and we cannot go back my friend!] –
Hon. Madzimure having stood up to debate.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: Hon. Madzimure, I have not
recognised you. Hon. Nduna, you may proceed on the Parliament Vote.
HON. NDUNA: Mr. Chairman, as I touch on the Parliament
Vote, I …
HON. MUSHORIWA: On a point of order Mr. Chairman! I am
not so sure whether this is procedural, we are supposed to finish Vote
1…
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: We have finished on that one – [HON. MUSHORIWA: But how? You did not put the question! Did you put the question to us?] – We have finished with that one and I cannot go back. You were making noise – [HON. MUSHORIWA: No, you did not!] – [HON. MATEWU: You did not put the question to the people!] – I did! I did! – [HON. MUSHORIWA: They did not put the question!] – You were making a lot of noise.
HON. GONESE: On a point of order Mr. Chairman. You were supposed to put the question and those who are in favour would then say, ‘AYE’…
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: That is what I did…
HON. GONESE: No, no, you did not do that. No, no, Mr.
Chairman …
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: I cannot go back to that one, I cannot.
HON. GONESE: No, no, we are not asking you to go back. We are simply saying that you were not procedural. You were not procedural, if we want to do it by the book …
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: I did that.
HON. GONESE: You did not put it. No, no, Mr. Chairman, you did not put it to the House – [AN HON. MEMBER: Check the Hansard, you were busy snoring!] - I was not snoring, I was very much attentive!
Mr. Chairman, for the record …
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: Hon. Gonese, may you approach the Chair please? – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible
interjections] – Alright, for the sake of progress,...
HON. GONESE: We object to that Vote 1 – this is showing profligacy of the House to order. We are objecting to that Vote in terms of the figures proposed. We are not agreeing to that figure. Yes, we do not agree with that figure – yes, you must ask for an objection. I am objecting to that Vote – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] - I objected to the ruling, may you divide the House?
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: No, I do not take orders from you, sorry Hon. Member – [AN HON. MEMBER: Tough luck, try next
time!] -
HON. NDUNA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir, I just want the Hon.
Minister to look at the inflationary pressures on the monies that he has apportioned for Constituency Information Centres that is the first one. The second one will be the Constituency Development Fund, that as he looks at allocating that money, he also looks at the inflationary pressures so that by the time that money is disbursed it should still maintain the dignity or the amount that it was at the level that he would have wanted it to be in US dollars terms. So, he needs to really look at the amounts at the time of allocation and disbursement. Mr. Speaker Sir, I also want to say as a former Chairman of the Transport and Infrastructural Development Committee one of the members used to give us his planes and I used to put jet AI or the fuel or gasoline for those planes for us to undertake our duties as a Committee on Transport and Infrastructure.
For that not to happen, the Ministry of Finance need to allocate enough resources so that they can be apportioned to the Committees and the Committee should be given enough kitty for the operation of his Committee. It should not be speculative, it should not futuristic but it should be given at the inspection and at the time when we start the parliamentary session. The Committee Chair should be given enough resources for him to make sure that he is in control of his Committee and the duties that his Committee should undertake in order to interrogate the manner, the Executive carries out its mandate effectively and efficiently.
Why do I say this - because the Committee systems do now allow for a whipping system? So, in the Committees this is where we can effectively conduct our mandate. It is my thinking therefore that not only allocation but disbursement, immediately at the time before we undertake our duties in the Committee systems, so that we can quickly undertake our operations. No Committee must be greater or bigger the other and no Committee should be impeded in its operation because of lack of resources. So, the kitty should be known and the amount should be utilized knowing fully that it is there and the Committee should undertake its mandate without fear of favour because the resources are available.
Mr. Speaker Sir this is what I thought I should put across the monies should be with Parliament when we open Parliament, whether in the Second Session in 2020, that money should be given to Parliament immediately. We should not be going to Treasury to get bits and pieces. We are Parliament, remember and we are the one who perform oversight on the Executive so we should have the requisite resources in order that we do not then think that there is some naïve talks of some sort. Let us get that allocation so that we carry out our mandate without fear or favour.
HON. MATEWU: Thank you Chair, first of all I want to say the budget that was given to Parliament, given that there are three arms of State and Parliament on its own is an arm of State. The budget of RTGs1 billion is simply disappointing. Last year we came here, we were told in the budget that we would have provision for constituency offices, but that never happened. Last year we came here and even in the supplementary budget that we will also have constituency visits allowances, that did not happen.
We also agreed that there will be timeous distribution of the CDF which was raised to RTGS175 000 in the last budget. In this budget it has kind of remained constant. Given the inflation that we have had over the past year, it is preposterous to have the CDF budget the same as this current year. So, the first thing that we want Mr. Chair is we must have the constituency offices and staff included into this budget.
Secondly, we must ensure that we raise the current CDF from where it is on RTGS175 may be to about RTGS400 000, given the projection in terms of the inflation and if the Minister is serious saying that we will have growth or some kind of growth in 2020, then it is import that we also increase the CDF. Parliament - most organisations are very technologically advanced. We also came here and we talked about tablets, gone are the days where we should be using paper. We should be a very environmentally friendly Parliament. So I implore the Minister that those ICT gadgets must be given to parliamentarians without fail. We must also see that within the budget which the Minister is presenting to us. We also know that Parliament is incapacitated and we also want our staff to also have some form of allowances or incentives for doing their work – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] – they stay here and do their job sometimes till 4 in the morning. That should also be included and Parliament must do something about that.
We must look after our staff and the Members of Parliament in this House.
In conclusion Chair, the budget to Parliament is just preposterous, it needs to be increased significantly before we go to vote 3.
HON. HAMAUSWA: Thank you Chair, I have one issue which
relates to chemicals, fertiliser and animal feeds, I would want the...
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: Is that under Parliament, we are debating Parliament here – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible
interjections.] –
HON. RAIDZA: Hon. Chair – [HON. CHAIR: But he still has the
floor.] –
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: Ok I will give him the floor
after he has finished. Please sit down I will give you the floor.
HON. RAIDZA: Thank you very much Hon. Chair. My issue on
the vote of Parliament is on the issue of establishment of Parliament, taking cognizance of the fact that there are some vacancies here at Parliament and progressively Parliament has with the 2019 budget filled some vacancies of Committee Clerks, Researchers and ICT officers, but if we look at the Accounts Dept, if we go there we find that the information is not up to date and whenever we ask for the latest information, you are always giving us excuses that they are short staffed. So, I want to implore our Minister just to give Treasury concurrence just for Parliament to add more staff so that Parliamentarians get information that is updated, even statements of any nature that relate to us as Parliament you find that things are still very much backward. So, we encourage the Minister to look into that so that we have enough staff members, especially in the Accounts Department. Thank you very much.
THE CHAIRPERSON: Hon. Hamauswa, what page are you on.
HON. HAMAUSWA: On page 44 Hon. Chair. I was very aware
of the page Chair but I also wanted the House in expressing – it is not clear to find fertilizer and chemicals under Parliament. We want the Minister to explain. Do we have a farm as Parliament? If we have a farm, we will be very excited to know about it. That is the only thing that I wanted the Minister to clarify and thank you to all those who also expressed shock to see this being included.
HON. S. BANDA: Thank you Chair. Mine is just an addition to what Hon. Matewu said on compensation for employees of Parliament. I think the Minister has to really look into it closely so that we can motivate them to be able to work harder. The other very important issue is that of our interns, I think we really need to look at them. Those students work very hard but you can see that they are not really motivated. I think it will be good if the budget considers how we can help the interns. It would be strategic if they are considered under the Graduate Internship Program for 2020.
HON. MUSHORIWA: Thank you Chair. I want to start by saying; Parliament is a third Arm of Government and the Budget for Parliament should actually speak volumes for it if we want to talk of the three Arms of Government. $1.3 billion for Parliament is too little. It is even worse Chair if you compare that the Office of the President is getting double the amount of money that is allocated to Parliament. Chair, do you know that right now, even in terms of infrastructure, the way we sit here in Parliament, look at this – (Pointing to the bench) – they need to be done. Look at our elevators, normally they do not work. There are a lot of things that are non-performing at Parliament and need to be fixed. My view is that the amount of money allocated to Parliament should actually be double the figure that is proposed by the Hon. Minister.
The other aspect which I want to point out is that, when the Hon.
Minister was responding to the debate on Vote 1, under the Office of the President, wages and benefits are paid in kind and in cash but under Parliament, they are only paid in cash, there is no payment in kind. We have got some of the dedicated employees who are here at Parliament who work so hard. I want to understand Chair, why should employees under the Office of the President be allocated payment in kind and cash but Parliamentary staff is only given in cash? What is so special about the Office of the President compared to the people who are here – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – the Hon. Minister need to tell us. Look at the ladies from Hansard, they are busy getting all the things that are happening here, look at all the people who are working at Parliament even at this hour, they also need compensation just the same, in kind and in cash. It is very wrong Hon. Chair – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –the Hon. Minister is there to answer the question because we need to find why there should be people being paid in kind and in cash but in other offices, they are only paid in cash.
HON. TOGAREPI: Hon. Chair, I think when we are presenting whatever we are presenting, it is important to be respectful because if we start throwing words like, ‘what is special about this Office of the President or whatever,’ it is not very Parliamentary. I think that behaviour must be corrected. We should raise an issue for the benefit of workers at Parliament but to say, ‘what is special about it,’ I find it uncouth.
HON. MUSHORIWA: Hon. Togarepi, you are Chief Whip… THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: Order Hon. Mushoriwa.
HON. MUSHORIWA: No, but the problem that happening, he is actually putting his hat as a Chair of the Youth rather than an Hon. Member – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – he should debate the budget…
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: Hon. Member, you need to withdraw that statement – [AN HON. MEMBER: Inaudible
interjection.] –
HON. MUSHORIWA: Who are you, are you the Chair?
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: Hon. Mushoriwa, you have to
withdraw.
HON. MUSHORIWA: I withdraw the statement that he is actually wearing the ZANU PF Chair hat instead of the Chief Whip. However, Chair, I also want to raise another issue. The same way you are actually strict with us should be the same way you treat the other side…
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: No, no – [HON. MUSHORIWA: How do you allow a person to challenge your authority.] – How I should chair… - [HON. MUSHORIWA: but he is challenging.] – Hon. Mushoriwa, you have withdrawn, can you continue.
HON. MUSHORIWA: I wanted to bring to your attention Chair.
When we are in this august House…
HON. MATHE: My point of order Mr. Chair is the type of question that was raised by the Hon. Member to say, ‘what is important with the President,’ that one should be withdrawn because if we leave this Parliament to go on with such questions being welcomed in this Chamber then we are not going anywhere. He should withdraw that, we have no petty President, we have no toy President to play about in this Parliament, he has to respect the President – [HON. MEMBERS:
Inaudible interjections.] – You are chairing there because there is the President. Once we mention the name President, then we have to respect – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: Hon. Mushoriwa, the
reference that you made, you were supposed to have articulated about Parliamentary staff not comparison. So, that statement really, you have to withdraw – [HON. MUSHORIWA: What do you want me to withdraw?] – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – There is no need for you to make a comparison.
HON. MUSHORIWA: Can you hear me out. We are talking of the Vote of the Office of the President and not about the President, why does she want to bring politics into play.
HON. MATHE: You said, what is important about the President –
[HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
HON. MUSHORIWA: You did not hear me.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: Order Hon. Mushoriwa.
Order, order please! – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections]:
HON. MUSHORIWA: Chair, there are three arms of Government
and you are aware that there is Parliament, the Executive and the Judiciary. When we question to say that other staff members, other employees are given in kind and in cash...-[HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections] - No Sir, can it be recorded. I did not say the President but the Office of the President.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: We are no longer debating the
Vote of the President. There was no need for you to make that comparison.
MDC A Chief Whip Hon. Mutseyami having gone to the Chair to talk about Hon. Mushoriwa’s debate.
HON. MUSHORIWA: Thank you Mr. Speaker...
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON (HON. MUTOMBA): You
should first of all withdraw please.
HON. MUSHORIWA: Hon. Chair, if you want me to withdraw
what I did not say, I will withdraw, but I said Office of the President.
She should know that there is a difference between Office of the President and President. I think the Hon. Minister has heard my submissions pertaining to payment in kind which is not included under Parliament. Thank you.
*HON. ZHOU: Thank you Hon. Chair. This House is governed by laws. I have observed that Members of the Opposition are just taking to the floor without you giving them the chance. May you control that Mr. Chairman? I thank you.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much Hon.
Zhou. That is a very important observation.
HON. GONESE: Thank you very much Mr. Chairman. I just want
to...
Hon. Members having been making a lot of noise.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: Hon. Members, may I have
order in the House?
HON. GONESE: Thank you very much Hon. Chair. I would like to associate myself with the remarks of those Hon. Members who have asked that the Vote of Parliament be increased. I want to make three points and the first one relates to the Constituency Development Fund. When you look at it in real terms, we have stagnated and we have gone backwards. When this was initially allocated, it was $50 000. If you look at what was the prevailing rate, in fact it was 1:1 with our bond.
If you look at it now, the interbank rate which is not even the real rate, but even if you want to give the benefit of the doubt and use the interbank rate, if you multiply 50 by 16, you get $800 000. Whilst I appreciate that the budget is expressed in RTGS$, my point is that we must not equate this Constituency Development Fund with other disbursements made in respect of the different Ministries.
The reason is that the people who voted for each of the individual Members of Parliament have got their own expectations. The concept of the CDF was meant to enable an individual Member of Parliament together with the Committee to identify the peculiar and particular needs of each constituency. I would therefore submit that there is a need to revisit the figure which is allocated. The figure of $175 000 is a pittance and at the very least, assuming that the interbank rate is going to hold its own, let us have at least a minimum of $800 000 allocated. This will entail an increase in the Vote of Parliament to cater for this increase.
The second point Mr. Chairman relates to the issue of constituency offices. For those who have had the honour or the privilege to go to other countries, you will find that as Zimbabwe, we were the pioneers of this concept. We started this in 2000, but if you look at those other countries which have followed after us, they are miles ahead. At the time when it was implemented, we had donor funds, but we have failed to sustain it. I think it is now the appropriate time for the Ministry of Finance to allocate sufficient resources to enable the full operation of those constituency development offices. That will entail also an increase from the $1.8 billion. The Hon. Minister can do his figures and sums but, increase that amount to enable the Administration of Parliament to cover and to ensure that these disbursements are going to be in tandem with inflation.
The other point I want to emphasise relates to Parliament staff. What happened before I just came back to the House is that I met a member of staff who was holding six sugar buns. I asked if I could have one bun and the member of staff said no, no – you Hon. Members are going to take your time debating and so on. We are going to go home very late and this is my supper. I cannot afford better supper. You are looking at somebody who has got a Masters Degree or something like that because our staff are highly educated. I believe that what is being paid to them considering the amount of work they have to do particularly in view of the fact that Parliament sometimes has to sit late – we have got to ensure that we cater for our committed and dedicated members of staff.
For us to be able to do that, the budget allocation must be increased because if it is not – I do appreciate the concerns of other members and I want to reiterate that yes, Parliament is an arm of the state. When we look at the amount allocated to it and what is allocated to the Executive and Judiciary Services Commission, you will then see that Parliament is now regarded as a poor and distant cousin of the other two arms of the State. I therefore implore the Hon. Minister of Finance to appreciate and understand the concerns that we have raised and in order to fulfill some of the submissions which have been made by those who have spoken before me; it is imperative that this budget allocation be increased by at least 50%. I think that is the only amount that would be sufficient to enable Parliament to operate at the level it is supposed to operate. I thank you Mr. Chairman.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON (HON. MUTOMBA): May
you please come up with fairly new points and not repetition because the Minister is hearing you.
HON. MADZIMURE: I want to deal with the issue of why we still have some of the staff here at Parliament. The reason is very simple. It is those few who sometimes have an opportunity of travelling outside the country and they earn some little foreign currency. That is what sustains the majority of them – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible
interjections.] –
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: Order Hon. Members.
HON. MADZIMURE: Hon. Chair, when people are drunk, there are rooms outside there where they can go and sleep – [HON.
MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: No. Hon. Madzimure. That is
not your responsibility. May you withdraw that statement please –
[HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
HON. MADZIMURE: I withdraw. My issue was that sometimes the allowance that they get – this is the value and not what we give them. What we pay our staff is a pity and the Minister must take that into consideration. As other Hon. Members have said, we are equal and the Constitution says that.
When it comes to the issue of programmes, the Constituency
Information Centre – these are meant to be the offices that Members of
Parliament use. If you look at the amount of money …
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: Hon. Madzimure, you are
repeating now.
HON. MADZIMURE: We want an information centre where you have allocated 400 bond per month but you need staff to mann that. Take for example, elections were held in Botswana last week and they have been flighting advertisements for people who will work in the
Constituency Information Centres in Botswana next door. In South Africa, they have the same arrangement – why a lot of members would come here and simply make noise is because they do not have the opportunity to go through the documents and understand them and then come here informed and making informed decisions – [HON.
MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – This is a fair point….
HON. KASHIRI: On a point order, the Hon. Member is being insultive to other Hon. Members. He should withdraw his statement and then continue.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: Hon. Madzimure, Hon.
Madzimure! Hon. Kashiri you have highlighted your point of order –
[HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
HON. MADZIMURE: Mr. Speaker, the statement that I made is not insulting anyone. I said because we do not have information – it becomes difficult for us to come here and contribute. It is a fair comment – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – It is a fair comment.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: Hon. Madzimure, can you
approach the Chair?
Hon. Madzimure approached the Chair.
HON. MADZIMURE: I withdraw the point that I said Members may not be informed. I want the Minister to understand my point. I want the Minister to help us by making sure that our offices are well manned so that a person like me will rely on my staff to help me research and make me a better parliamentarian when I come here –
[HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
On the issue of the Constituency Development Fund (CDF), the $175 000 that we are supposed to get – I represent my own Constituency and I have to say exactly what I said to my people that I am going to raise this issue and I am raising it. $175000 is not even enough to erect 800 metre perimeter of fence. There is virtually nothing from the people’s expectation. They expect a Member of Parliament to use the CDF to leave some land marks in the Constituency and the money is not enough. He must do something.
At the end of the day, this Parliament is very inefficient because it is not well resourced. Can the Minister resource this House.
HON. HAMAUSWA: Hon. Chair, I am a bit worried because when we rise to make contributions which we think are really meaningful and they will refine the Budget as we always do; it seems as if the Members here are tired and it looks like they are no longer interested in debating. I want to express myself because we cannot be sitting here when other Hon. Members …
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: May you just raise your point.
HON. HAMAUSWA: My point Hon. Chair, if there was something that you could do, - [AN HON. MEMBER: Vapeyi chikafu.]
- maybe they need food – [Laughter.] – so we may request the Hon.
Minister to make an arrangement to provide food for the other Hon. Members who are now jittery and are no longer following. They are just waiting for- no debate, no objection. We cannot build our nation through that attitude. If they are hungry, let us give them food so that they keep quiet.
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE): I really appreciate
the contributions from Members in this House. First of all, let me say that they raised issues around the welfare of employees in this Parliament. They want us to give Treasury concurrence for any vacancies and incentives for long hours of work and obviously some adjustments; payment in kind. If you look at the budget for Parliament for 2020, under the similar inflationary conditions as 2019, we are looking at ZWL$263.9 million that was presented at July mid-term stage. That budget has been raised to a whopping ZWL$1.9 billion. That is a more than eight times increase under the similar inflationary conditions. It is a huge increase. If you go to the issue of human capital, you will see that for human capital, we had ZWL$7.7 million in 2019 and now we are talking about ZWL$229 million, so it is a big increase under the same – [HON. MEMBER: Inaudible interjections.] – No, no, no I have September figures and July figures. We revised the budget because of the inflationary issues. We also collected more money than we expected and inflation ran away to similar levels as we expect in the first half of 2020. It is a huge increase, so anything around incentives, salaries and additional vacancies will clearly be catered for within the proposed 2020 budget for Parliament. I can assure you that.
On the issue of chemicals, fertilisers and animal feeds category, certainly I did double check to make sure that Parliament does not own a farm. I do not think this square outside here amounts to a farm at all. Neither have I seen anyone attend to it, sprucing it up, cutting grass or indeed planting roses. On a more serious note, this is just a generic classification Hon. Chair. You will see it in a lot of other ministries; it is similar classification. My staff confirmed to me that it really has got to do with chemicals, detergents to clean up the toilets, seats – any chemicals that we use for sprucing up the environment of Parliament is under that budget. These are small items. It is not as if we have spent a lot of money.
On the CDF, again Members will be aware that even just finishing off the monies for this year has not been easy for them. First of all, we had to establish accounts and so forth. Really at the current levels, we think that the CDF is adequate if it is being used effectively. We are looking forward to that. Certainly, you request that perhaps we should use the interbank rate or US dollar benchmarking. Obviously, we cannot do that. We have not done that for the whole budget. We did say that in the entire budget, no item got more than it requested except for the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development. It is very consistent but we look forward to Members making use of the CDF properly.
Let me see if there is an additional item. I have noted something else. Maybe that is all but this has been a big increase. This increase in budget seven or eight times is enough. It is by demand. We cannot as Treasury tell you to go to your constituencies. You must demand to go there and if there is no budget, express it and budget will be made. Members have forgotten Hon. Chair that they demanded higher salaries and we more than performed as Treasury. They got a salary that they least expected. We have the capacity to perform. We are always ready to assist. They should count on us to stand ready to support the very important work that this Parliament does. I thank you.
Vote 2 – Parliament of Zimbabwe - $1 869 495 000 put and agreed
On vote 3 – Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare -$2 370
969 000;
HON. MATEWU: Thank you Hon. Chair. I only have two points on this one. I am worried. This country is experiencing economic troubles and according to the UN and FAO, at least 8 million people are in need of assistance. Now, if you look at the Basic Education Assistance Model (BEAM), it is targeted at 700 000 students in 2020 but it has only been allocated ZWL$200 million. If you do your maths and divide ZWL$200 million by 700 000, you get around ZWL$285, so it means that every student under BEAM is being allocated ZWL$285. BEAM is supposed to cater for both tuition fees and examination fees. Two hundres and eight five dollars ($285) for the whole year is not enough Hon. Chair in terms of the BEAM assistance. I also know that in most schools especially in the rural areas, students who receive BEAM most of them do not actually receive them for a long time. I am asking the Minister to reconsider the amount that was given under BEAM to be raised from ZWL$200 million to at least match ZWL$1000 per each student. My point is ZWL$285 per student on BEAM for the whole year is surely not enough.
I go to the next one which is also very important, which is the Children in Difficult Circumstances (CDC). The Hon. Minister says the target for this is 73 000 and he has only allocated ZWL$86 000, so the Minister is saying for every child he is going to support under CDC, they are getting just above ZWL$1. It does not make any sense. You are giving ZWL$1.30 to a student for a whole year. What is the point of that? Surely, it must be a mistake by the Minister or something is seriously wrong in the office of the Treasury to allocate ZWL$86 000 for 73 000 students. So, I think the Minister must look into that carefully. Thank you.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: Order Hon. Members. I have
got one point that I would want to stress here before I give other
Members to debate. Irrelevance or repetition; Section 106 of our Standing Rules and Orders - it says, “the Chair may direct a Member to discontinue his or her speech and resume his or her seat after having called to order such Member; (a) for persisting in irrelevant or tedious repetition of his or her arguments or those used by other Members in debate”. Please take note. I thank you.
HON. MUSHORIWA: I want to add my voice on this Vote. One
of the key policy inconsistencies that we tend to find within this Government is that if you have checked the pronouncements that have been made in terms of the social welfare and the number of people that need assistance in this country given the economic hardships and the drought that is there. If you look at the figures, on paper it may appear as if the amount that has been allocated is actually huge but in reality the amount is actually low.
If you look at page 58 under Programme 4, the number of ultra poor households that are supposed to receive cash transfers is recorded at 65 000 and those that are supposed to get health assistance is recorded at 25 000. I know for a fact that in my constituency alone without the need of including some of the very poor constituencies in this country, this figure is not only too small, but very minute compared to the number of people that need assistance. Even the 25 000 households I am not sure which mechanism or system the ministry did come up with in this instance.
The truth of the matter is that a number of families in this country are suffering. From an urban perspective, the challenges are hard and this is the reason why we find it so difficult because we cannot marry what is contained in this Blue Book with what the Minister of Public Service has said in this august House. Every Wednesday when questions are being to posed to the Minister, the assurance is that Government is keen to assist the less vulnerable in our society but the Blue Book does not cater for that. Even if you look at the number of households that are supposed to receive food assistance it is just put at 756 000. I am not so sure but if you look province by province you will be shocked to find out that 756 000 may possibly not cater for one province. We want to understand from the Minister what criteria or system they did come up with to come up with these figures.
Come next Wednesday, even if the Minister of Public Service is to respond to a question from any Hon Member, the picture portrayed is that Government is serious in terms of pouring resources towards the less vulnerable members of our society. I understand the constraints in terms of the budget but the truth of the matter is that these people deserve to get the lion’s share of the budget because if we do not do that then we are going nowhere. We are now faced with people that are failing to go to school taking drugs and people getting involved in a number of things primarily because their families cannot support them.
This is the reason why I would be happier to get a comment from the Hon Minister pertaining to these figures.
*HON. CHINOTIMBA: I urge the Minister to increase the budget on social welfare. A lot of people are suffering in the communal lands. We are grateful that Government provided maize for the people but the problem that we are facing is that the maize is not being distributed to ward level. The maize is being picked up by those with trucks and they are charging those vulnerable families $30 per bag for transportation. These are vulnerable people but they are now being asked to fork out $30 per bag. The Government is saying that they will have paid and want to assist the vulnerable groups. The Minister should look into that despite the fact that we are grateful for the food that they are buying and the food stuffs that they are giving children in schools. The beneficiaries are being asked to pay $10 per child, which money they do not have to pay every month for them to be able to carry their food from GMB on a monthly basis.
Members of the family that are on BEAM are now being forced to look for $10 per month and those that will not be paid are not entitled to eat the food. A solution must be brought by the Minister to alleviate this problem. As a solution, we would urge that Government motor vehicles transport the food directly to ward and school levels so that the vulnerable can be assisted.
It is in that regard that I urge that the budget for the Ministry of Public Service be increased. Even if the money might not be there I kindly submit that the vote be increased so that the children and those vulnerable members of society do not starve to death.
HON. MADZIMURE: What the Minister must concentrate on is
per capita, what we allocate to each old person and child. That can help us understand where the gaps are because the current situation paints a picture where we are doing enough. We pretend to be doing enough and then allocate other resources somewhere else. The issue of hunger and children failing to go to school is a serious matter. It disturbs the child’s growth and development. Even those who are now old, as long as they are not secure - of late, we have seen some cards being issued where the old are told to go and register and they will have their $100 per month deposited in their accounts. Some are being asked to just withdraw $1 200 per year. Mr. Speaker, by the time we get to November next year, everything else will have changed. Our people might not be able to go and collect the $100.
The other biggest challenge is that our pension schemes are not helping the situation. We are not increasing them as we should. As a result, even those who were supposed to have been earning their pensions are not benefitting from the pension schemes. So as the Minister deals with this issue let us go down to the issue where discuss about how much we should allocate to an individual. Like what Hon. Chinotimba has said, a lot have let the bags go, because a bag will be worth probably $300 but cannot raise $33.
As a result, the transporter will be asked to take the other bags so that we share the remainder and they have gladly done so and are ripping our people. But it is not because they are ripping people per se because as we budget we exclude the most important components of the budget. If we want to provide for our people, let us make sure that we deal with it in a manner where we talk per capita, how much do we allocate to a child who is doing Grade One. I think that will help us.
HON. HAMAUSWA: I want to raise the issue that the money targeted for those families that are going to experience hunger be increased. I say so because in the budget it is stated that they are targeting to cover the period between January and March. With the current rainfall pattern, I think we are going to have more people actually suffering from hunger.
I also raise another thing that from the Blue Book and also the Budget Statement there are some inconsistencies where in the budget statement, they indicated that in rural areas about six million people are expected to be suffering from hunger and another 2,2 million are also expected to be suffering from hunger in urban areas. This gives us about 8,2 million, but again in the same paragraph and same statement, it is written that they are targeting 7 million.
Then such inconsistencies now will not support the budgetary allocation. I humbly request the Minister to look into those disparities and really consider the issue of targeting those households that are vulnerable going beyond March. Targeting March, we assume that possibly we would have harvested but the normal harvesting period in
Zimbabwe is not March, but maybe June. That is when people will start enjoying the fruits of the normal planting season. That is my contribution, thank you.
HON. S. BANDA: I only have two issues and the first issue relates to the strategic grain reserve. I hope it is being covered maybe under agriculture, because if you look under the current vote, which is only for about $2,3 billion whereas Page 109 of the National Budget Statement says that the budget proposes to allocate $5,2 billion for purchase and importation of grain which is for social protection for those who are insecure food wise. I would want an assurance that it is indeed not on this particular vote- otherwise the $5,2 billion is over and above by more than twice the $2,3 billion that is catering for the entire vote.
My second and last issue relates to pensions. Page 36 of the
Budget Statement says, “92. The Justice Smith led enquiry made recommendations in 2018 on compensation of pensioned members and insurance contracts prejudiced during the conversion of insurance and pension values”. I have not seen in this Blue Book where that issue of the compensation of the pension is covered. Secondly, on the issue of pension, on page number 39 of the same Budget Statement, on 104 it says, “commutable pension will be reviewed from $50 to $500 per month Z$”. If you use the interbank rate and divide by 15,5, you find that it is only $1 per day. I do not think our pensioners will be able to survive on a $1 per day. Those are my contributions, thank you.
*HON. NYABANI: I just want to add that the people living with disability are also taken care of. The majority of children are not going to school so I urge the Minister to take into consideration those that are disabled in terms of wheelchairs, medication as well as their transportation so that they can have a better standard of living. May that be taken into consideration in terms of social welfare? May an amount be put aside to look at mitigating the effects of climate change, because we are experiencing floods and heavy rains and there should be a provision for such eventualities? I thank you.
HON. PROF. M. NCUBE: I again thank the Members for their valuable contributions. There is certainly a typo that was spotted by one of the Members. Hon. Matewu is right that on the item regarding the inadequate provision of social protection services to children in difficulty circumstance (CDC), that allocated figure is not $86 000, it is actually $8,6 million otherwise then you are right that it is a $1 per person and then we have not moved at all. So I thank you for that.
On the issue of the size of the budget and so forth, we are going to be giving out quite a bit of subsidies and these subsidies do not even sit in the sector ministries. They are sitting in Treasury and if you look for the fuel subsidies for instance, it is not sitting under Ministry of Energy, but it is under Treasury. Look at subsidies under transportation, these subsidies are sitting in Treasury. Look at the subsidies on roller meal and other subsidies, again they are sitting in Treasury. You find that there is a lot of social protection support taking place not via the welfare Ministry, but through Treasury because these are financial subsidies although the impact is social protection.
So the social protection budget is far bigger than this, but also do not discount the Presidential Input Scheme. It is also part of Social
Welfare or social protection because you have free inputs to enable our valuable citizens to fend for themselves by taking advantage of our very fertile soils if rains do come. I am pleased that so far it is promising. So that is also social protection and so it is spread elsewhere. What we could do is that at some point I could tell this House as to which individual areas we amalgamate, you will be amazed at the size of the social welfare budget that what we are debating here pales into insignificant but I appreciate all the comments but I do submit that it is adequate as a direct Ministerial Budget but is far bigger elsewhere as a broader social protection budget. That is what I can submit. Other comments coming from Ministry of Lands and issues like that, those are under that Ministry and clearly counts that also as social protection, That is yet another addition to our social protection agenda and I believe that this Budget is adequate. I thank you Mr. Chairman.
HON. HAMAUSWA: On a point of clarity. I raised an issue Mr. Chairman where I was saying in the Budget, on social protection, they are targeting vulnerable households from January to March. The Hon. Minister did not respond to that. I think this is important because just yesterday I had a meeting with people in my constituency who are complaining that they were registered to receive food handouts in April but up to now they are being told that we are only giving those who were already on the register. Those who are new on the register are not receiving their handouts. We want to know the reason behind targeting January to March yet the rainfall focast is showing that we might be experiencing another drought. We would want the Hon. Minister to explain and clarify that.
HON. MADZIMURE: I do not know how the Minister is going to clarify this and how he is going to intervene. We have had some of our people coming out on television with disabilities, with very serious problems and the Ministry of Labour has not been able to immediately intervene when people say can you put money into so and so person’s account. I think as a nation Mr. Speaker, we must be able to intervene and not expect individuals to start contributing to an individual. I do not know how the Minister is going to make sure that such people, we do not see them on television again. It portrays us on a very wrong way.
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE): I agree with him. We
do not want to see these kind of scenes on television and yet we have enough budget under the Ministry of Social Welfare. The issue has not been budget through you Mr. Chairman. There is enough resources, it is not a resource envelope issue. Maybe it is timing, responsiveness, it is capacity and those are operational issues which I cannot answer to as a different Minister different from the Minister of Welfare. Coming to the issue raised by Hon. Member regarding the targeting for those vulnerable between the months of January to March is just an issue of emphasis. I agree with you it is problematic when it is not just emphasis then it becomes a policy. Emphasis in the sense that, that is your toughest period when it comes to being impacted by the drought. That is your peak, your hunger period.
That is why you find that the budget then turns to over accommodate or adequately accommodate that period and tail off slightly beyond much. I agree with you that if there is such an issue, it is an administrative issue. It is not a budget issue, rather should it be a policy issue because if it is vulnerable, it is just vulnerable. If there is budget and there is budget, it should be catered for. Maybe it is an administrative issue, operational issue rather than a budget issue. I thank you.
HON. KASHIRI: Thank you Hon. Minister for your response. Minister I wanted to highlight something that is resident within rural constituencies. As we budget for people who live in rural areas, we remember we have people that stateless that live mostly in rural areas that are not documented. When we budget exactly for 500 thousand people, there may be other 200 people that live within the same constituency within the same areas that we do not plan for. These then put pressure on the budget that we have budgeted for. Would you please take care of them somehow in this budget, because they are there? This
is reality.
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE): We can take care of this within the Budget. If it needs to; use reserves, we are ready to do that. It is a very important issue. Thank you. I appreciate it.
Vote 3 – Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare - $2 370 969
000 put and agreed to.
Vote 4 –Defence and War Veterans - $3112 708 000
HON. MAYIHLOME: Thank you Mr. Chairman – [AN. HON.
MEMBER: Mazomuka manje.] –
THE CHAIRPERSON: Hon. Hamauswa, may you withdraw that statement. May you withdraw please?
HON. HAMAUSWA: Mr. Chairman, with due respect, I did not say anything – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – Mr. Chairman, maybe ndangoseka ndozvandaita. Handisini ndadaro maybe hameno kwabva rimwe voice.
THE CHAIRPERSON: Hon. Member, I think you are quite a respectable Hon. Member. Why can you no withdraw?
HON. HAMAUSWA: But handisirini ndadaro.
THE CHAIRPERSON: It is me who heard you saying that.
HON. HAMAUSWA: Mr. Chairman, I am going to withdraw what you are saying not because I have said anything. I was apologising because I only laughed. That is what I was apologising for, but if you just want to hear the word ‘withdraw’ because some Members from
ZANU PF thought – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – Yaah I am going to withdraw. That is what you are saying. I did not say anything. I am going to withdraw for the sake...
THE CHAIRPERSON: The point is that this is an august House where the two sides are one people. There is no ZANU PF there is no
MDC.
HON. HAMAUSWA: We are being treated differently – [HON.
MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – I did not say anything. Honestly, I did not say anything. I only apologised because I laughed loudly. That is what I apologised. I did not say anything, why should I withdraw something that I did not say?
THE CHAIRPERSON: Hon. Member, I heard you saying mazomukawo. Thus the statement that is why I am asking you.
*HON. HAMAUSWA: I did not say that.
*THE CHAIRPERSON: You are the one who said it.
HON. HAMAUSWA: Is there any proof? I can stand in a court.
I did not say that.
THE CHAIRPERSON: Hon. Hamauswa, why?
*HON. HAMAUSWA: Ndini ndadaro here Chair? Okay I am
withdrawing what I did not say on behalf of whoever said it.
THE CHAIRPERSON: Thank you very much – HON.
MEMBERS: Haasiriye, it is the other one.] –
HON. MAYIHLOME: First I would like to applaud the Minister of Finance for having considered some of the requests from the Ministry of Defence, Security and Home Affairs. What I want to say to the Minister is that when we come to issues dealing with security or defence, it is very difficult for you to allocate in terms of percentage.
All other Ministries will not operate as long as there is no security in this country. For any development to take place, we need peace and tranquillity, therefore we need to adequately fund Defence and Security.
I am just appealing to the Minister that in your Budget for Defence especially for Air Force, you must consider that some of the funds required involve forex, especially when we are talking in terms of planes. We do not manufacture planes in this country, therefore the spares parts require forex. Therefore I appeal that you consider that there must be a forex component in that budget to take care of that. I also want to applaud that you consider the issue of war veterans, although there is going to be a Bill- but I did not see in your budget that you have considered the war veterans, there are a lot of issues involved, their families and other things. I think you should look into those issues.
Where our security forces are staying; we need to make sure that these people stay in comfortable places. If you look at some of the houses which they are staying, they were built during the Rhodesian era – we need to consider that. It is a normal procedure that the police and soldiers must stay in their cantonments to instill discipline but right now they are staying in private residence because of shortages of accommodation. When they stay in private residents as lodgers, they are threatened to an extent that when there is noise in town, they cannot take any action because they are told that once you beat us, we are going to throw you out of our houses. So, we need to make sure that these people get decent accommodation.
In terms of transport, you see soldiers, policeman along the road hitch-hiking going to work. This has created problems with the kombis because some of them do not pay since they will be in uniform and kombi drivers want their money. So, the Budget must take care of the transport issues for them.
Hon. Minister, we are luck that maybe they do not know their rights or we do not have a trade union like in South Africa where the Army or the Police have got a trade union. We can be sued because some of the officers retire whilst still being owed a lot of money in terms of their pension and travel and subsistence allowances. For example, the police last received their travel and subsistence in 2005 and we still send them there. Some of the reasons why we are having a lot of corruption cases especially at the boarders is because we deploy those people without adequate resources, hence mbudzi inodya payakasungirirwa. This means that you want them to control boarders where people will be smuggling goods worth millions yet they will be having nothing to eat. So, let us take care of our security agencies so that we have peaceful sleep. We do not want a situation like in the DRC where soldiers go on strike, once the soldiers go on strike with guns, we will not seat in this Parliament, and they will be a lot of robberies. So, that is my appeal that when we deal with their budget, let us consider that this is a sensitive Ministry or department which requires adequate resources for the benefit of all of us. I thank you.
HON. MATEWU: Thank you Hon. Chair. My only contribution
is going to be on war veterans. War veterans in this Budget have been allocated around $190 million of which ZWL60 million of that is in administration which leaves them ZWL130 million. When you translate that to real money, you get around 6 to 7 million United States Dollars. These are people who fought for this country, for the emancipation of us so that we can be in Parliament here today. These are the people who liberated us to ensure that we enjoy the benefits that we get today. It is disheartening that hundreds of thousands of people who went to war on our behalf only get a paltry money. Most of them have lost limbs, most of them cannot work because while others were busy enjoying at university, they were on the field to ensure that we are emancipated and we are liberated from our colonisers. So, I implore the Minister to ensure that they get an adequate amount of money which is suitable and recompense them for the work that they have done as our liberators. So, I think the ZWL130 million is paltry to the welfare of war veterans because it is not only for them but their families’ education and sustenance. Most of them cannot work because of physical inabilities.
+HON. MABOYI: Thank you Hon. Chair. I will talk about Defence and War Veterans. Hon. Minister, may you increase the allocations for the war veterans department. It is an obvious thing that when the war veterans pass on, they should be given a descent burial. So, I am calling for the budget to put aside some funds for a descent burial for them. The war veterans are living in poverty because the allowances that they receive are not enough to be able to get food on the table. We do not even mention of accumulation of wealth, therefore, I think there is need for the Minister to increase allowances for these people so that they can have a comfortable life in compensation of the great job which they did in liberating the country.
Let me turn to Defence; our soldiers do not have uniforms, at most they have one pair and some of them do not even have the military boots. I have noticed that some of them are now putting on tennis shoes yet these people should be neat and well dressed. Therefore, I am asking the Minister to increase the allocation to this Ministry so that they may get at least two uniforms in order that they look presentable to the public.
These Military personnel were carrying out duties in my constituency hence I paid a courtesy call on them since they were in my constituency and I observed that they had worn out shoes and this paints a bad picture to the country. As stated by the previous Member, let us put more funds to the military. Again we should take care of the war veterans and know that these people are well behaved because if they could rebel, definitely there will be chaos in the country. Therefore, I am calling upon the Minister to put more funds for the allowances of these war veterans so that they can live a happy life.
*HON. SEWERA: Thank you Mr. Chairman for affording me this
opportunity. Let me start with the issue of the Ministry of Defence and War Veterans. First and foremost, we need to appreciate that be they police officers or the army ...
*THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: May I reiterate it to you that
do not repeat what has earlier been said as I read in terms of Section 106. Can you come up with new things?
*HON. SEWERA: I am saying we may deal with the army, the police and everyone else but, do you know why we are saying there must be an addition to the budgets? Firstly, the moral of the army is very low. As we speak right now, it is raining and their living conditions are deplorable. The police and the army cannot go on strike because they can be tried for mutiny. If you see them quiet, it does not mean that all is well.
Furthermore Mr. Chairman, you should also appreciate that
Zimbabwe as a country is under threat internally and externally. Internally we have enemies because some of our children are being used to turn against Zimbabwe which was liberated through an armed struggle. So, if you see people today saying there is no support for the security forces who are defending the independence of this country, these are the sellouts. Be that as it may, we are saying,
*THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: Let me guide you Hon.
Member that we are debating the budget, so you must confine yourself to budgetary issues and do not repeat what others have said before.
*HON. SEWERA: I am saying the budget of the soldiers and their salaries should be increased. Their accommodation, their food – we are aware of the meals that the soldiers are having on a daily basis. If you compare their meals today and what they used to have before, they are starving. There must be an increase in the quality of the food that they eat. Talking in terms of transportation – they should have army dedicated vehicles to transport them and not public transport. On the issue of the police force, they should be well equipped so that when they deal with rubble rousers or trouble causers in this country, they can do their work.
*HON. HAMAUSWA: Thank you Mr. Chair. We become afraid
when a Member of Parliament encourages the ruthless attacking of people by the police. Today it is a human rights day – allow me my place. He said they want them to be well fed so that when they deal with those that are wayward.... We recently witnessed the brutal attack on people.
*THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: I have heard you Hon.
Member.
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE): If I could respond
Mr. Chairman. I really appreciate again the comments, questions, observations and suggestions from the Members of this august House.
I know the point raised by Hon. Nguluvhe specifically because this
I have felt it, which is around making sure that when we budget for
Defence, we have to budget for the forex element, especially the Air Force because of the nature of the equipment which we do not make here. But at the same time, I am suitably impressed by their skills in managing their equipment. I repeat that I am suitably impressed but nevertheless, we have to budget for the forex. So, I am alive to this and we really make sure that we accommodate them as much as possible.
On the issue of war veterans, again, as Treasury and me, we are again alive to the plight. Yesterday I had a meeting for the first time as Minister with the Provincial Chairpersons of the War Veterans Association to try to understand better the issues. Not that we do not understand them but when you meet them one on one and they explain, you understand better. So, this is their allowances, the assistance for their children and other things. So we will do our best to make sure that if the budget is not adequate, because of inflation at least through our budget reserves we can top up. Indeed, when I met them you know what they told me, they said Minister we really appreciate that you have responded to our needs in 2019 even in the face of inflation. We have been responsive; it has been a matter of resources but the willingness to respond has been noted by the Chairpersons of war veterans. We will do everything again to accommodate them including issues around transport.
I have noted the issue again raised by Hon. Nguluvhe regarding the issue of cantonment and housing. You will find that under this element, we have budgeted $440 million for housing. One of the things about the Defence Forces is that they do have the building skills and they can build and therefore reduce the cost of putting up their own buildings so that we do not have to contract that out. We only have to budget for materials, the land is already there and we can make progress.
On the issues of uniforms and so forth, again we have noted these and even in 2019, we have done a lot to try and deal with this issue including the police. In fact for the police, my Permanent Secretary had to travel to South Africa to make sure he can find material for making uniform for the police. We are that involved when it comes to some of these issues – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] – We respond because if we do not get to see it ourselves, how do we know the money is going to the right place.
This is very important and I can assure you I am going to tour the building in Dzivarasekwa soon where there is a building for the cantonment of soldiers. I want to see for myself as it says kick the tyres, if you do not kick the tyres you never know what the truck really looks like right down there. So we really appreciate the contributions and the comments. We have done a lot. If you engage the Minister of Defence yourselves, war veterans will tell you that this year things have been different even in the face of inflation. I thank you – [HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear.] –
Vote 4 – Defence and War Veterans - $3 112 708 00 put and agreed to.
House resumed.
Progress reported.
Committee of Supply to resume: Wednesday, 11th December,
2019.
On the motion of THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE), the
House adjourned at Ten Minutes past Eight o’clock p.m.
PARLIAMENT OF ZIMBABWE
Thursday, 5th December, 2019.
The National Assembly met at a Quarter-past Two O’clock p.m.
PRAYERS
(THE HON. SPEAKER in the Chair)
ANNOUNCEMENTS BY THE HON. SPEAKER
NON-ADVERSE REPORTS RECEIVED FROM THE
PARLIAMENTARY LEGAL COMMITTEE
THE HON. SPEAKER: I have to inform the House that I have received Non-Adverse Reports from the Parliamentary Legal Committee on the following Bills:
- Veterans of the Liberation Struggle Bill [H. B. 16, 2019]
- Constitutional Court Bill [H. B. 11, 2019]
- Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Amendment Bill [H. B. 9, 2019] APPOINTMENT OF HON. PRISCILLA MOYO TO THE
PRIVILEGES COMMITTEE
THE HON. SPEAKER: I also have to inform the House that the
Committee on Standing Rules and Orders has nominated Hon. Priscilla
Moyo to replace Hon. Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga in the
Committee on Privileges which was appointed to investigate the conduct of Hon. Members of the MDC-Party.
HON. KWARAMBA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I rise on a motion of Privilege. My notice of Privilege comes from the fact that, in March, 2019, we attended the 63rd Commission on the status of Women on Social Protection systems, Access to Public Services and Sustainable Infrastructure for Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women and Girls. This was held from11th to the 22nd of March, 2019 in New York, United States of America (USA).
My problem is, we have not been given the opportunity to present our report. Now the year is coming to an end and very soon, we will be going again to America – [Laughter.] – I am asking your Office to kindly intervene so that we are able to present our report. I thank you.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Hon. Member, why have you not tabled
a notice of motion on the report?
HON. KWARAMBA: We have tabled it but we have not been
able to present it in this House.
THE HON. SPEAKER: It is not on the Order Paper.
HON. KWARAMBA: It is on the Order Paper, yes.
THE HON. SPEAKER: What you do is, you speak to the Chief Whip so that certain items can be stood over so that that particular item can be dealt with. You consult the Chief Whip.
HON. KWARAMBA: Thank you Sir.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Thank you. Hon. Members, can I warn you, I am not entertaining motions of Privilege because they are being abused.
HON. MISIHAIRABWI-MUSHONGA: Thank you very much
Mr. Speaker Sir. I stand on a point of Privilege, having been requested by my Portfolio Committee on Primary and Secondary Education.
Noting that this is quite an urgent issue, we are raising the following so that we may request you to forward a request to the Minister of Primary and Secondary Education to issue in this House a Ministerial Statement.
THE HON. SPEAKER: On what?
HON. MISIHAIRABWI-MUSHONGA: The Grade Seven
results have just come out and we have 88 schools in the whole country which have recorded a zero pass rate and most of those schools are from what we have right now, in Matebeleland North and Matebeleland South. We would want an explanation on why we are having a zero pass rate in these schools – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] – We are also having problems in schools which are refusing to release the Grade Seven results, in spite of the Government policy that says you do not withhold the results.
We have asked the Ministry before and they have basically issued a statement to say it is illegal, but that is not helpful because it continues to happen. So a number of children may not be going to Form One. We have guardians and parents who are being forced to buy school uniforms at the schools at an inflated rate when we know that most of our women are able to sew these school uniforms for their children. However, schools are insisting that this has to happen.
We have also noticed from a Committee level that there are astronomical school fees which are being asked from parents and we may actually have a lot of children not going to school next year. Having said that; we recognise that ZIMSEC, in running these examinations, did not have any leakages and it is a good point. However, it is being taken away by all these issues which we have raised. I really want, as a matter of urgency, the Minister of Primary and Secondary Education to come and address this House on these particular issues because they are urgent.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Hon. Member, the second point was expensive…
HON. MISIHAIRABWI-MUSHONGA: It is written down.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Thank you.
An Hon. Member having stood up to speak.
THE HON. SPEAKER: You do not stand up before I make a ruling. How many times shall I educate you?
Hon. Misihairabwi, I will certainly get in touch with the Hon. Minister of Primary and Secondary Education to ensure that a full statement is so given on these four items.
I said I am not allowing a plethora of – can you sit down please. Some of the issues being raised could be raised during Question time on Wednesday. So on Wednesday, you can ask your question. Thank you. – [AN HON. MEMBER: Inaudible interjection.] – You raise that with the Minister concerned. We will deal with that at an appropriate time – [HON. SIKHALA: Hon. Speaker, people must be given an opportunity to speak in this House.] – they can put written questions, do not instruct me Hon. Sikhala – [HON. SIKHALA: Being opposition is not a crime] – no, being opposition is welcome, it is not a crime. You cannot put that as a written question? – [AN HON. MEMBER: People are dying.] – people are dying? Oh, you want to touch my heart!
HON. T. MLISWA: Thank you very much Mr. Speaker Sir. My point of Privilege is on the transformers which are being stolen?
THE HON. SPEAKER: On what?
HON. T. MLISWA: The transformers which are being stolen.
THE HON. SPEAKER: What?
HON. T. MLISWA: The transformers that are being stolen and vandalised.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Yes.
HON. T. MLISWA: The problem is the copper which is in the transformers and the pipeline. The Government must ban the sell of copper in this country because we do not even mine copper. The source of copper is those transformers that they vandalise and then they sell copper. We want the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs to issue a Statutory Instrument banning the sell of copper because Zimbabwe is not mining copper. The copper they export is from the transformers. That will then help in curbing the vandalism.
The second one is the one on the machetes...
THE HON. SPEAKER: How do you replace the copper?
HON. T. MLISWA: Whoever imports copper must come through a certain channel which Government will approve because we do not mine copper but we have got people who are selling copper. Where are they getting the copper from? They are getting it from the transformers.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Right.
HON. T. MLISWA: So when you ban that, whoever wants to have copper must follow through a certain channel.
THE HON. SPEAKER: I get you now.
HON. T. MLISWA: The other one is on the machetes. His Excellency has been very clear that people are being killed and there is no action being taken. The Government is quick to issue Statutory Instruments on monetary issues but when life is being lost, there is nothing. Why do we not ban that? His Excellency has been very clear that these machetes must be banned and there must be a statutory instrument that empowers the police to arrest anybody with a machete until a certain time these issues are out because people are dying in Norton and everywhere in the country – they come and they disrupt business. They go into clubs and so forth and they are known as people from Shurugwi. I am from Shurugwi and the Shurugwi people do not behave like that. I would also like to clear that they are called mashurugwi because there was a lot of illegal mining in Shurugwi.
I would like to protect the people that I lead as a village head that the Shurugwi people are great people. They do not do machetes. Can the Government move in quickly to also come up with a Statutory Instrument to also block that because some of the leaders in ZANU PF are the ones doing illegal smuggling of gold and that is the reason why the Government is not keen on it, so why are people dying?
+HON. MATHE: On my point of privilege, may you allow me to speak about the problem that the people are facing. We hope that the
Minister would assist in registration of people who are in need of food. It is a requirement that those people who are suffering from starvation should come and register. We have noticed that when it involves NonGovernmental Organisations, they come and impose their own rules and regulations. You will also notice that in some instances, where we have 100 people needing that food assistance – they only pick on ten. In some areas, they just skip without helping the people and yet all the people are hungry. People need assistance.
I witnessed a situation whereby some people were chased from that place and yet they were coming to collect their food. These World Food Programme people should give all deserving cases the food that they want because as of now, they have created animosity where people are fighting because they have been chased from the food queues. Why is it like that? They should give food to everybody because everybody is starving instead of creating animosity amongst the village people because they think that they have been removed from the register for various reasons such as political inclinations.
+THE HON. SPEAKER: Hon. Member, I beg you – if you want to express your point in Ndebele, please stick to that. At the moment you are code switching. You are speaking in Ndebele and English at the same time including terms like ‘deserving people’. Let us be proud of our languages and let us speak straight language. From what you were saying, I did not understand whom you were saying is ‘deserving’. +HON. MATHE: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir, for correcting me. When I am talking about people who fight over food programme, these vulnerable people look forward to getting food from World Vision but through their own plans, they feel victimised. The World Vision people select a few. Like I have stated, they will pick ten out of a hundred people. People have a feeling that there are some people who are backbiting or speaking ill of them and that is why they are removed from the food list.
Some are saying the World Vision have come with an agenda to create animosity between villagers hence we are calling upon the Minister to come and explain this food allocation programme to vulnerable groups.
+THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, order. I think the ‘deserving people’ are the ones who are supposed to be given the food. Is that so?
I am doing this for the sake of Hansard Reporters who are capturing. I will tell the Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social
Welfare.
HON. ZHOU: My point of privilege goes to the Members of the other side.
THE HON. SPEAKER: I did not get the beginning of your statement.
HON. ZHOU: Constitutionally, the person who has a right to confer a diplomatic status is the President - which is why the President can appoint diplomats. A diplomat by definition is a representative, not of a country but of the President; that is why when we travel outside, we meet the diplomats that are appointed by the President and we refer them to His Excellency because they are standing in for the President.
I therefore recommend the withdrawal of diplomatic passports which were issued by the President which the other Members from the opposition –[HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
I recommend that they surrender the diplomatic passports to the
Clerk of Parliament –[HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – THE HON. SPEAKER: Order! Order –[HON. MEMBERS:
Inaudible interjections.] – order, order! There is nothing exciting here.
Hon. Zhou, that manner is not a matter of privilege at the moment. You know what is happening.
HON. NDUNA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir and good afternoon. I rise on a …- [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, order, Hon. Hamuswa! – [HON.
KARENYI: Hamauswa!] – Hamauswa, Siyamauswa! – [Laughter.] – Well Hamauswa is exactly the same as Siyamauswa and he knows why I am saying that. Hon. Nduna, you may proceed.
HON. NDUNA: Mr. Speaker Sir, I rise aware that there is 16 days of activism against gender based violence which started on the 25th
November that goes on until 16 days is out. For this year Mr. Speaker Sir, it is identifiable by putting on orange up to the time that the 16 days of activism against gender based violence is over.
I rise to encourage the Hon. Members and the people in my constituency in particular to actually also embrace the 16 days of activism against gender based violence. Further to that Mr. Speaker Sir,
I also call upon …
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, order! You want to raise an issue of national interest. The moment you are talking about your constituency, you are free to go and address them on the issue. I think be more national in your approach.
HON. HAMAUSWA: On a point of order! Mr. Speaker Sir, the issue of gender based violence was raised by two Hon. Members yesterday. So I do not think that we should spend much of our time debating on an issue that was raised yesterday. – [HON. MEMBERS:
Inaudible interjections.] –
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, order, the Hon. Deputy Speaker confirms. So, – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – Order, order! So, in terms of – [HON. SIKHALA: Inaudible interjections.] –
Hon. Sikhala cool down!
In terms of Standing Order Number 106, we cannot repeat what has been said already. Thank you. – [HON. NDUNA: Mr. Speaker Sir, I seek your indulgence. What I am going to say here was never said.] - I have ruled already, can you sit down. I have consulted the Deputy Speaker and she said that the matter was dealt with – no, sit down!
HON. CHIKWINYA: Thank you Hon. Speaker. I rise in terms of Section 68 (d) to move my point of privilege. I also stand on the strength of Section 117 (b) which allows or compels Parliament to make laws for the good governance of the country.
Hon. Speaker, I am aware that at the induction – when we began this session of Parliament. You advised us that whilst we are elected first by our constituencies, we also represent the national interests and I again rise on the strength of your advice. We have seen a growing trend of our fellow Members of Parliament and I am saying this because they have a right to reply. In particular, the Chiredzi West, Hon. Member Musikavanhu, where he is on record in the media denying members of the Opposition food.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Food?
HON. CHIKWINYA: Food yes, food that is coming from the Government. I mentioned his name because I hope that he will be given the right to reply. Had it been anyone else outside Parliament, I was not going to mention his name. I mentioned his name because he is on record in the media telling members in that particular Ward 18 of Chiredzi West that no opposition member is going to get food. So, not only did he do that, there is equipment that was donated by his contestant which he went on and took down from a hospital.
Once we do that as Hon. Members of Parliament Mr. Speaker, we are demeaning the decorum of Parliament. I hope and at some particular point, the Ministers have come out clear that no one in Zimbabwe and this year the President announced that it is a drought season and the ministers concur with us that no one is supposed to be left out in terms of food distribution but an Hon. Member is captured by all media houses denying food to members of the opposition. I want you Hon. Speaker, to call us to order. Thank you. – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!] – THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, order! Is Hon. Musikavanhu here? – [HON. MEMBERS: He is hiding!] – Hon. Musikavanhu are you here?
Alright, Hon. Chikwinya, I will definitely investigate that. Thank you.
HON. G. SITHOLE: Thank you Hon. Speaker, my point of privilege is regarding the issue of late disbursement of the Constituency Development Fund. It is good that the Hon. Minister of Finance and Economic Development is here. We would want to know the update concerning the issue of the Constituency Development Fund. Thank you.
Hon. Chinotimba having stood up.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Hon. Member, I have not ruled. I want to address myself to the Hon. Minister – do not disturb him.
Hon. Minister, this issue of Constituency Development Fund was raised – if I am not mistaken on Tuesday and Hon. Members are concerned that the disbursement is not taking place. We were trying to get hold of you so that you can explain the hold up. Perhaps we can give you a brief opportunity to explain to the Hon. Members.
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE): Thank you Mr.
Speaker Sir, I was not aware that there was a major hold up on the CDF disbursement. I will look into that as soon as possible. I just was not aware that there is a specific hold up. Thank you.
Hon. Chinotimba having stood up. – [HON. MEMBERS:
Inaudible interjections.] –
THE HON. SPEAKER: Hon. Members, just lower down on your whispers and also we should laugh honourably – [ Laughter.]- Hon. Minister, perhaps at the next opportune time, if we sit tomorrow if you can bring that clarification because it is a cause of concern to all Members of Parliament. If we do not sit tomorrow and sit next Tuesday, please kindly favour the Hon. Members with an update. Thank you. *HON. CHINOTIMBA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I want to thank the Hon. Members who are supporting me in my constituency. What I want to say is that I have a farm and what I grow on the farm is what...-[AN HON. MEMBER: Inaudible interjection.]-
THE HON. SPEAKER: If I gave you a chance to take a stand, you have no reason to shout at the Hon. Member. Allow him to speak as you did. Thank you.
*HON. CHINOTIMBA: So last week I had with 90 tonnes of
maize for my constituents and I was celebrating my election with the people who voted for me and I gave them maize. Some people might see others engaging in vote buying and think that I do vote buying. I distribute my maize to everyone. If grain comes from the Government, it is the councillors who give out the maize to the people. If I bring out own maize from my fields... – [AN HON. MEMBER: Inaudible interjection.]- Iwe naChairman wako, ndiwe ndinoenda naye kutoilet. Taurira Khumalo that word kuti enda kutoilet.You and your Chairman are the people I go to the toilet with. Tell Khumalo that word to say enda kutoilet. Iye ndiye arikutaura, mogotaura inini muchirega kutaura Chairman wenyu. So, I thank you Mr. Speaker.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, order. Hon. Chikwinya, order!
An Hon. Member having uttered the word ‘Out’.
THE HON. SPEAKER: No, we do not say ‘out’ all the time. Can
I remind you - just as I correctly said at the beginning, let us not abuse the question of privilege.3 A point of privilege must relate to the rights, privileges and immunities that Members enjoy individually and collectively. If these are threatened, then you stand up to say on a point of privilege and indicate which rights, privileges and immunities are being threatened. A matter of privilege can be raised accordingly. I want you please to understand this so that I do not have to ask Hon. Members to sit down at an appropriate time. – [AN HON. MEMBER: Inaudible interjection]- Ndotaura neshona, ah, ibvai –[Laughter.]-
MOTION
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT (HON. PROF. M. NCUBE): Mr. Speaker Sir,
could I kindly move that Order of the Day, No. 1 be stood over until Order of the day No. 2 has been disposed of. I thank you.
Motion put and agreed to.
MOTION
FINANCE BILL: BUDGET DEBATE
Second Order read: Adjourned debate on motion that leave be granted to bring in a Finance Bill.
Question again proposed.
HON. T. MLISWA: On a point of order on that. Mr. Speaker Sir, when you are Chairperson of the Committee, there are certain issues which require a Chairperson to be there and report to. I have always talked to Hon. Wadyajena, whether he is a blue eyed boy or not, he has never given reports. He never gives reports as the Chairperson. It seems as if he is only there to chair a Committee and never contributes in Parliament and so forth. You wonder what is wrong with him. What are the functions of a Chairperson according to your criteria of picking them? It does not augur well for the people. The only time you see him is when he chairs the Committee. Question time, he is not here and reading of reports, he is not here. I can give you how many times he has never done that including other Chairpersons too.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, Order. We are not dealing with the Portfolio Committee on Lands. Please sit down Hon. Mliswa.
HON. T. MLISWA: But, he has never been here Mr. Speaker Sir.
It is not a problem because he is a blue eyed boy and he is protected.
THE HON. SPEAKER: I do not know but we are not discussing the Portfolio Committee on Lands now.
HON. T. MLISWA: He was not here.
THE HON. SPEAKER: I rule you out of order now. We are dealing with Justice Committee and Hon. Mataranyika is indisposed.
Proceed Hon. Nduna.
HON. NDUNA: Thank you Madam Speaker, I will present a report on the Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary affairs, (Vote 19).
1.1 Introduction
The Ministry of Justice Legal and Parliamentary Affairs is responsible for the delivery of justice throughout the country and upholding the Constitution of Zimbabwe, incarceration and rehabilitation of offenders as well as provision of legal services to various Government ministries and the indigent.
The Ministry is operating its budget under four programmes namely; Policy and Administration, Access to Legal Services,
Incarceration and Rehabilitation of Offenders, and Registration of
Proprietary Rights. It has an approved staff establishment of 569 with 438 in post as at September 2019. Of those in post, 186 are men (43%) and 249 (57%) women, representing favourable gender representation. This favourable representation is consistent across all the staffing levels, in the Ministry.
Some of the Major Achievements in 2019 -
- Drafted 65 Bills relating to Alignment to legislation, Ease of Doing Business, and General Amendments as well as 416 statutory instruments.
- Represented Government and completed 1,312 court cases.
- Produced two State Party reports under international obligations.
- Provided free legal aid to 1,818 indigents.
- Deployed Online Name Search for checking availability of proposed company name.
- Translated the Constitution into all 16 officially recognised languages and sign language.
1.1.1 Some of the Policy Priorities for 2020-2022
- Completion of alignment of legislation to the Constitution.
- Research on law reforms and revision of statutes.
- Incarceration, rehabilitation and reintegration of offenders.
- Decentralisation of Legal Aid Directorate and Civil Division
1.2 Vote Analysis for 2020
This report is premised on the pre-budget submissions from the Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs that did not have a breakdown for the various programmes. These were supposed to be submitted at the behest of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Justice Legal and Parliamentary Affairs after oral evidence given was deemed to be inadequate. The Ministry tabled a bid of
ZWL$2,126,500,000 and Treasury appropriated ZWL$825,513,000
(inclusive of Retention Funds) which yielded financing deficit of 61%.
1.3 Implications of the Budget
Given that the allocated budget is well below the submitted bid, the Ministry will be hamstrung in delivering its mandate. Justice delivery is at the centre of reforms that are related to the Ease of Doing Business, and as such, adequate financing of this Ministry will go a long way in removing impediments to the ease of doing business.
1.3.1 Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services (ZPCS)
This arm of the Ministry has targeted to improve welfare of inmates from 35% to 90% and to reduce recidivism from 15% to 10% by
- Recidivism is the tendency of convicted criminals being reconvicted after serving their sentences. Some of the objectives for the 2020 budget include:
- To feed 20,500 inmates with at least 65% of the dietary scale requirements.
- To clothe all inmates with at least two sets of uniforms.
- To place at least 220 malnourished and five pellagra inmates on special diet.
- To drill at least 10 boreholes and 10 storage tanks.
ZPCS was appropriated ZWL$715,116,000 against a bid of ZWL$2,244,727,803 which resulted in a negative variance of 68%. This gross under-allocation will result in a decline in the welfare of inmates as inadequate quantities of food, uniforms for inmates, medicines and sanitary wear.
Rations for Inmates
ZPCS had pursued a production enhancement strategy from their
25 farms (3,447 hectares of arable land) in different parts of the country. Targeted crops include maize, sugar beans, sorghum, cow peas and various vegetables. In addition, livestock production was also a target for the 2020 fiscal year to improve in the protein requirements for inmates. From a bid of ZWL$25,074,900, Treasury imposed an expenditure ceiling of ZWL$5,117,861. This ceiling greatly limits the envisaged programme to improve dietary requirements for the inmates.
Africa Prisons and Correctional Day
For Africa Prisons and Correctional Day, a bid of ZWL$775,000 was tabled but the expenditure target was nil. This situation of nonfunding has been the case since the inception of the Programme-Based Budgeting.
Maintenance
ZPCS tabled a bid of ZWL$56,909,000 and Treasury set an expenditure limit of ZWL$29,361,000. The department needs to maintain the existing dilapidated infrastructure some of which has been ravaged by hailstorms and depreciation.
1.4 Challenges and Observations
The Ministry made a clarion call for -
More funding towards Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional
Services.
1.5 Recommendations
The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Justice, Legal and
Parliamentary Affairs recommends the following;
- The Ministry should expeditiously align laws to the Constitution for the good of the economy. The Ease of Doing Business is also influenced by these processes.
- ZCPS should be innovative by embarking on joint ventures or private-public partnerships given the vast tracts of arable land at their disposal.
2.0 INDEPENDENT COMMISSIONS
2.1 JUDICIAL SERVICES COMMISSION (VOTE 25)
2.1.1 Introduction
The Judicial Service Commission (JSC) has a mandate to promote and facilitate the independence and accountability of the Judiciary and the efficient and effective administration of justice in Zimbabwe.
The JSC is operating its budget under two main programmes namely; Governance and Administration and Justice Delivery. The Commission has an approved staff establishment of 2068 with 1871 in post as at September 2019. Of those in post, 863 (46%) are men and 1
008 (54%) women, representing some semblance of gender parity. However, representation of women decreases as the level of posts increases as follows Support Staff (54%); Professional Staff (38%);
Director level (17%); Senior Management (0%); and Top Management (0%). In terms of gender budgeting, the Commission seeks to tackle the problem of Victim Friendly Court witness expenses and peace orders through paying witnesses expenses. As for inspection in loco for children, the Commission would institute site visits.
2.1.2 Some of the Major Achievements in 2019
- Acquired Bristol House to accommodate the new Commercial
Division of the High Court.
- Commissioned the Harare Labour Court Building.
- Procured a building for Master of High Court Offices in Bulawayo.
- Rehabilitated Tredgold Magistrate Court.
- Launched anti-corruption courts in three provinces and four magistrates’ courts.
- Appointed two additional Supreme Court Judges and five High
Court judges.
2.1.3 Some of the Policy Priorities for 2020-2022
- Improve financial stability of JSC to ensure effective implementation of the mandate and assigned programmes.
- Promotion of better access to justice to enhance the ease of doing business, through the commencement and completion of court houses construction projects nationwide.
- Collaborate with other justice sector actors to advance common strategic priorities.
- Promote the implementation of sector-wide framework for combating corruption including the establishment of specialized anti-corruption courts in outstanding provinces.
- Accelerate full implementation of the case management system.
2.1.4 Vote Analysis for 2020
The JSC put in place a bid of ZWL$614,527,000 and Treasury was able to allocate ZWL$328,070,000, a negative variance of 47%. The majority of this allocation is funded from the Consolidated Revenue Fund (ZWL$292,533,000) and the balance is from Retention Funds (ZW$35,537,000) (See Blue Book). Retention Funds emanate from fees, fines and levies which are predominantly transaction-based thus making them unpredictable. The Retention Fund is housed and administered via the Courts and Administration Fund which gives limits to the distribution of the funds in terms of the set guidelines. The Courts and Administration Fund is accessible to stakeholders that include JSC, National Prosecuting Authority, Ministry of Justice and the Zimbabwe Republic Police. Currently, JSC has access to 50% of the Fund. However, not much was coming by way of Retention Funds due to the nominal nature of court fees. An attempt to increase court fees may result in depriving the marginalised unfettered access to the justice delivery system. For purposes of this analysis, the global figure is considered.
2.1.5 Implications of the Budget
Table 1 shows the total Vote allocation against bids for the various programmes.
Table 1: Bids and Appropriations for Sub-Programmes
Programme |
Bid |
Allocation |
Variance |
Governance & Administration |
$115,483,840 |
$87,333,000 |
24% |
Justice Delivery |
$499,043,160 |
$240,737,000 |
52% |
TOTAL |
$614,527,000 |
328,070,000 |
47% |
Under Programme 1 (Governance and Administration), a bid of
ZWL$115,483,840 was met with an appropriation of ZWL$87,333,000, an under-allocation of 24%. Within the JSC, Programme 2 (Justice Delivery) is the most essential programme for the attainment of strategic goals that include a well-resourced and independent Commission as well a highly efficient and effective JSC. An appropriation of
ZWL$240,737,000 was made against a bid of ZWL$499,043,160 yielding a negative variance of 52%. This under-allocation will hamper the establishment of anti-corruption courts across the country as well as hinder the smooth running of day-to-day court operations. The adage that says ‘justice delayed is justice denied’ may become an unpleasant reality if justice delivery is not adequately funded.
In line with the Ease of Doing Business initiative, there is urgent need to have commercial courts at all levels as well as specialised anticorruption courts across the country. With adequate resourcing, the JSC will play its part in dealing with current obstacles related to the Ease of Doing Business. According to the World Bank, Zimbabwe is currently ranked 140 among 190 economies in the ease of doing business. This was a significant improvement from a ranking of 155 in 2018. Between 2008 and 2019, the average rank was 160 with the lowest ranking of 171 achieved in 2011. In that regard, significant strides are being made to deal with legal aspects that have been impeding the ease of doing business.
2.1.6 CHALLENGES AND OBSERVATIONS
The Commission raised key challenges to their operations namely;
- That the current 50% retention of the Courts and Administration
Fund was inadequate.
- Construction of Gwanda and Chinhoyi Courts needs to be completed.
2.1.7 RECOMMENDATIONS
The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Justice, Legal and
Parliamentary Affairs recommends the following;
- Retention of the Courts and Administration fund should be increased from 50%.
- Treasury should releases more financial resources for the completion of the Gwanda and Chinhoyi Courts.
2.2 ZIMBABWE HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION (VOTE
28)
2.2.1 Introduction
The Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission (ZHRC) has a mandate to support and entrench human rights and democracy in the country as well as administrative justice in line with the Constitution of Zimbabwe.
The ZHRC is operating its budget under three main programmes namely; Governance and Administration, Human Rights and Freedoms, and Administrative Justice. The Commission has an approved staff establishment of 83 with 49 in post as at September 2019. Of those in post, 22 (45%) are men and 27 (55%) women, representing some semblance of gender equality. It is also important to note that this representation is consistent across all staffing levels. The Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission has sought to embrace gender biased programming through facilitation of marginalised women to access education and reproductive health care as well as ensuring that the rights of prisoners in places of detention are observed.
2.2.2 Some of the Major Achievements in 2019
- ZHRC commissioned its first ever National Enquiry called the National Inquiry on Access to Civil Documentation.
- Increased visibility of the Commission in major parts of the country owing to increased budgetary support and promotional efforts.
- Monitored the human rights situation in the country in all byelections and places of detention.
2.2.3 Some of the Policy Priorities for 2020-2022
- Decentralisation of the Commission to all provincial centres of the country.
- Maintain ‘A’ status accreditation by implementing the requirements of the accrediting body.
- Increase human rights promotion, education and advocacy to ensure improved enjoyment of human rights and administrative
justice.
2.2.4 Vote Analysis for 2020
The Commission’s proposed budget was premised on the desire of the ZHRC to spread its operations into the country’s 10 provinces to adequately serve the nation. In addition, effective and efficient service provision to the Zimbabwean population will ensure the maintenance of a hard earned ‘A’ status accreditation by the United Nations Global Alliance for National Human Rights Institution (GANHRI).
Maintenance of the ‘A’ status ensures enjoyment of full participatory benefits to this body. The next review by GANHRI is due in 2020, and maintenance of ‘A’ status is hinged on satisfaction of key expectations from the UN global accrediting body. If a nation’s human rights institution is downgraded, they will enjoy fewer benefits and are relegated to be mere observers without participatory rights. In addition, there will be collateral damage to the image of the country as downgrading will reflect badly on the human rights situation in the country. The ZHRC put in place a bid of ZWL$38,400,000 and Treasury was able to allocate ZWL$26,680,000, a negative variance of 22%.
2.2.5 Implications of the Budget
The ZHRC ought to be well resourced if it is to entrench human rights and democracy among other strategic objectives. Table 1 shows the total Vote allocation against bids for the various budget items.
Table 1: Bids and Appropriations for Budget Items
Item |
Bid |
Allocation |
% Honoured |
Compensation of Employees |
$4,540,000 |
$10,400,000 |
229% |
Goods & Services |
$9,910,000 |
$5,200,000 |
52% |
Service Providers |
$1,950,000 |
$2,000,000 |
103% |
Capital Assets |
$22,000,000 |
$9,080,000 |
41% |
TOTAL |
$38,400,000 |
$26,680,000 |
69% |
With respect to Compensation of Employees, Treasury availed more than double (229%) the initial bid of ZWL$4.54 million. This was a welcome development as the proposal by the Commission to decentralise its activities in 2020 was honoured. In addition, the increase was also necessitated by inflationary pressures to cushion the ZHRC staff. Since decentralisation to all provinces is a pre-condition to maintaining the ‘A’ status by GANHRI, Treasury saw it fit to support the Commission in this very noble endeavour that yields a favourable perception dividend for the country.
From a bid of ZWL$9.91 million for Use of Goods and Services, Treasury was able to appropriate ZWL$5.2 million, which met 52% of the expectation. This allocation was deemed not to take into account the increase in manpower under the decentralisation strategy. The hope of the Commission was to have a consumerate adjustment under this line item. As for the resource purse apportioned to payment of service providers, the ZHRC was pleased as the appropriated ZWL$2 million would pay off outstanding obligations with service providers as well as deal with obligations that will arise in 2020.
Relating to Capital Assets, the Commission placed a bid of
ZWL$22 million and Treasury appropriated ZWL$9.08 million, a 41% fulfillment of the bid. The bulk of the bid was aimed at acquisition of an office building in Bulawayo since the Commission is currently using rented office space. The Bulawayo office services five provinces and the intention is to spread across the country for accessibility of services rendered. However, the intended expansion is infeasible with the 2020 Treasury appropriation. The ZHRC will use the appropriated ZWL$9.08 million for acquisition of motor vehicles; office furniture and computer equipment. The additional assets to be procured in 2020 are in line with the expanded staff complement in the hope of satisfying the minimum requirements for maintenance of ‘A’ status under the GANHRI
accreditation.
2.2.6 CHALLENGES AND OBSERVATIONS
The Commission raised key challenges to their operations namely;
- The ZHRC Commissioners and Management are yet to receive their conditions of service vehicles ever since assuming office.
This has not been addressed in the 2020 budget.
- The acquisition of an office building in Bulawayo is critical as it would accommodate the Matabeleland Provincial offices but the capital asset budget is inadequate.
- The ZHRC risks downgrading from the ‘A’ status it currently enjoys under the United Nations Global Alliance for National
Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI).
2.2.7 RECOMMENDATIONS
The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Justice, Legal and
Parliamentary Affairs recommends the following;
- The conditions of service for the Commissioners should be met in
full.
- The Capital Asset budget must be adequately funded to ensure decentralisation into other regions for maintenance of the GANHRI ‘A’ status. Downgrading from ‘A’ status will have serious implications on the image of the country.
2.3 NATIONAL PEACE AND RECONCILIATION
COMMISSION (VOTE 29)
2.3.1 Introduction
The National Peace and Reconciliation Commission (NPRC) has a constitutional mandate to promote sustainable peace, equality, reconciliation, national healing, cohesion, unity and peaceful resolution of disputes and conflicts in Zimbabwe. According to the International Monetary Fund (2009), peace is a necessary precondition for trade, sustained economic growth, and prosperity1. In pursuit of Vision 2030, consistent maintenance of a peaceful and harmonious society will lay a solid foundation for achievement of upper-middle income status as an economy.
The NPRC is operating its budget under two programmes;
Governance and Administration and National Peace and Reconciliation.
The Commission has an approved staff establishment of 104 with 38 in post as at September 2019. Of those in post, 20 (53%) are men and women are 18 (47%) representing some equality in gender representation. On the gender budgeting front, the NPRC will focus on the challenge of women and vulnerable groups excluded in the peace process though provision of adequate safe spaces in provinces and
districts.
2.3.2 Some of the Major Achievements in 2019
- Recruitment of 32 Secretariat Staff members.
- Setting up and induction of 10 Provincial Peace Committees.
- Created safe spaces for women in five provinces.
- Initiated the process for the resumption of exhumations and reburials of victims of post-conflicts.
- Developed a strategy for dealing with the past.
- NPRC outreach programmes in all 10 provinces.
- Opened Southern Region offices.
2.3.3 Some of the Policy Priorities for 2020-2022
- Conducting public and private hearings.
- Conduct truth telling and truth seeking meetings with victims and stakeholders.
- Setting up and capacitating infrastructure for peace building.
- Safe spaces for women, men and diverse groups.
- Development of victim support tools and guidelines.
- Outreach and awareness campaigns.
- Community peace building and dialogue programmes.
2.3.4 Vote Analysis for 2020
The NPRC put in place a bid of ZWL$78,982,750 against a
Treasury imposed expenditure ceiling of ZWL$14,900,000. However, Treasury was able to allocate ZWL$31,200,000. While this is double the set expenditure ceiling, it falls far short of the Commissions requirements by 60.5%.
2.3.5 Implications of the Budget
The need for peace and harmony is at the core of any society that seeks to pursue progressive goals such as development. Moreover, wounds of the past that do not get adequate attention for purposes of healing will result in a society with fractures as the marginalised groups feel neglected. As such, it is incumbent upon Treasury to adequately fund programmes that will heal wounds of past conflicts for national and societal cohesion in pursuit of a better peaceful and prosperous Zimbabwe.
Vehicles
One of the key enablers for the NPRC to fulfill its constitutional mandate is procurement of vehicles. The Commission requires vehicles to effectively discharge its duties as a lot of traveling is involved. Currently, the Commission has a battered fleet of three vehicles for all its programmes and administrative requirements. The NPRC hoped to purchase a pool of vehicles and a minibus for easier discharge of their mandate. In line with their requirements, a bid of ZWL$26 million was placed and Treasury appropriated ZWL$9.6 million, a negative variance of 63%. This under-allocation will pose serious operational challenges to their endeavours which could likely threaten achievement of revised modest targets in line with the resource purse. In addition, the Commissioners in the NPRC are yet to get vehicles to use as they discharge their duties within the NPRC. Currently, they either use personal vehicles or resort to using vehicles from the old fleet of three.
Programme 1: Governance and Administration
Under Programme 1 (Governance and Administration), the Commission put in a bid of ZWL$6.1 million for Research and Knowledge Management but Treasury allocated ZWL$2.7 million, which is 44% of the bid. With such under-funding, the Commission can achieve the following;
- Conduct two out of six planned scenario workshops.
- Conduct one out of three Social Cohesion and Reconciliation
(SCORE) workshops.
- Defer intended Baseline Surveys into 2021 budget.
The evolution of technology has transformed the way things are done compared to 50 years ago. In light of these favourable advances, the NPRC requires ICT equipment such as laptops and desktops for storage of gathered evidence in secured servers. In addition, there is a need for intranet and internet for information sharing and research among several uses. At present, the electronic case management system is currently being stored on private laptops of members of the secretariat. This state of affairs is undesirable as it poses a serious security risk relating to the sensitivity of the information. If a member of the secretariat were to lose their laptop, the NPRC would lose out on vital information stored on an individual’s computer and yet the ideal situation is for laptops to belong to the Commission and data storage within Commission servers. This area needs revisiting to ameliorate the situation.
Under Programme 2 (National Healing and Reconciliation), Table 1 shows the Treasury allocation against bids for the various subprogrammes.
Table 1: Bids and Appropriations for Sub-Programmes
Programme |
Sub-Programme |
Bid |
Allocation |
Variance |
National |
CEWER |
$5,400,000 |
$2,900,000 |
46% |
Healing and Recon. |
Healing, Recon. & Rehab. |
$4,200,000 |
$2,780,000 |
34% |
Victim Support, Gender & Diversity |
$15,300,000 |
$2,700,000 |
82% |
|
Complaints Handling & Investigation |
$10,000,000 |
$2,700,000 |
73% |
The NPRC put in place a bid of ZWL$5.4 million for Conflict
Prevention, Management, Resolution and Transformation (CPMRT) but
Treasury allocated $2.9 million representing a negative variance of 46%. As such, the NPRC will only be able to achieve half of their intended targets for the 2020 fiscal year, that is;
- Establish 20 out of 40 District Peace Committees.
- Conduct 20 out of 40 induction meetings with established District Peace Committees.
- Conduct trainings for 600 out of 1,200 Peace Committee members.
- Train 500 out of 1,000 people on how to use the Conflict Early Warning and Early Response (CEWER) system.
Under healing, reconciliation and rehabilitation, a bid of ZWL$4.2 million was met by an appropriation of ZWL$2.78 million, which represents a negative variance of 34%. This allocation means that the
NPRC will;
- Hold five out of 15 public and private hearings.
- Not be able to carry out exhumation and reburials.
This allocation was deemed to be inadequate, especially for decisively dealing with the outstanding Gukurahundi issue. Strides have been made in the right direct, but adequate funding is desperately needed.
For Victim Support, Gender and Diversity, a bid of ZWL$15.3 million was met by an appropriation of ZWL$2.7 million, yielding a negative variance of 82%. This gross underfunding will result in victims of gender-based violence (GBV) not receiving the necessary emotional support for recovery from trauma. As such, with this paltry ZWL$2.7 million, the NPRC will;
- Establish one out of a target of 10 wellness centres to offer psychosocial support, counseling and related help to assist victims of
GBV. This low number of wellness centres is a barrier to progress
in the rehabilitation process of GBV victims. Victims that do not access this critical service may develop mental health disorders with others resorting to suicide.
- Create safe spaces in just one out of a targeted five provinces, for victims and vulnerable groups (predominantly women).
- Fail to conduct GBV survey and associated research and knowledge management.
This low number of wellness centres and safe spaces is a barrier to progress in the rehabilitation process of GBV victims. Victims that do not access this critical service may develop mental health disorders with others resorting to suicide. Serious attention needs to be paid to this subprogramme as some of the damage caused to the victims of GBV may have dire consequences in the communities they live in. Examples may include violent behaviour, use of drugs and illicit substances as a coping mechanism as well as retributive behaviour.
For Complaints Handling and Investigation, only ZWL$2.7 million was appropriated from a bid of ZWL$10.1 million, a negative variance of 73%. With these meagre financial resources, the NPRC will;
- Only be able to conduct five out of 13 investigative hearings.
- Only carry out six out of 13 awareness campaigns.
- Not be able to handle as many complaints as they would like.
2.3.6 CHALLENGES AND OBSERVATIONS
The Commission raised key challenges to their operations namely;
- That the current freezing of posts is stifling their efforts to become a fully-fledged Commission with presence in all 10 provinces of the country. The NPRC is the latest Commission to be established with its Secretariat appointed between December 2018 and March
- Current coping measures are secondment of staff from
Harare to Bulawayo.
- The Commission has lost five critical staff members (two General
Managers and 3 Managers) to greener pastures.
- The 9 NPRC Commissioners are still to get official vehicles for use since their appointment in 2016.
- The Gukurahundi issue has not been adequately funded from previous and the current budget, hence it remains unresolved. ICT requirements of the Commission have not been met. The Commission requires eight servers at US$24,746.17 each. Total budget for the eight servers would be US$197,969.30. Networking will requireUS$10,680.00giving a grand total ofUS$208,649.30.
This is equivalent to ZWL$3,421,848.85, using interbank rate of
US$1: ZWL$16.40 as at 20 November 2019.
2.3.7 RECOMMENDATIONS
The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Justice, Legal and
Parliamentary Affairs recommends the following;
- That the obtaining recruitment freeze of staff be lifted to allow the
Commission to fill the 60 vacant posts.
- The nine NPRC Commissioners should have their conditions of service met, in respect of official vehicles for Commission business.
- The Gukurahundi issue needs to be decisively dealt with to bring finality to the matter for purposes of moving forward as a united nation. To augment funding, 5% of the Devolution Fund should be directed towards finalisation of this matter.
- Treasury should honour the ICT requirements of the NPRC.
- Where possible, Independent Commissions should share office space to avoid duplication of fixed costs.
- In future, the Committee recommends that laws be changed to allow Independent Commissions to domestically mobilise resources perhaps through farming or mining.
2.4 NATIONAL PROSECUTING AUTHORITY (VOTE 30)
2.4.1 Introduction
The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) has a mandate to institute and undertake criminal prosecutions on behalf of the State and discharging any functions that are necessary or incidental to such prosecutions.
The NPA is operating its budget under two main programmes namely; Governance and Administration and, Public Prosecution and Asset Forfeiture. The Commission has an approved staff establishment of 417 with 390 in post as at September 2019. Of those in post, 180 (46%) are men and 210 (54%) women, representing some semblance of gender parity. However, representation of women decreases as the level of posts increases as follows Support Staff (27%); Professional Staff (57%); Director level (26%); Senior Management (0%); and Top Management (0%). In terms of gender budgeting, the authority will pay particular attention to murder in gender based violence, sexual abuse of people living with disabilities, sexual abuse of both females and males, and marital rape.
2.4.2 Some of the Major Achievements in 2019
- Managed to mobilise resources to promote effective and efficient public prosecutions.
- Successfully completed trials at both provincial and superior courts by an average of 83%.
- Asset Forfeiture Unit managed to seize, freeze and interdict proceeds of crime worth an estimated USD$1 million.
- Managed to secure extradition orders of fugitives from Zimbabwe to South Africa.
- Connectivity of internet for Harare and Bulawayo magistrate courts.
2.4.3 Policy Priorities for 2020-2022
- Building public confidence regarding the exercise of prosecutorial decision making.
- Implementation of infrastructure development programme.
- Capacitation of the Asset Forfeiture Unit in order to recover proceeds of crime and contribute to State revenues.
- Provide operational vehicles to all stations.
2.4.4 Vote Analysis for 2020
In the 2019 fiscal year, there were challenges with respect to disbursement of funds from Treasury. Table 1 shows disbursement rate across the two programmes.
Table 1: Disbursement Rate up to September 2019
Programme |
Revised Estimate |
Expenditure To Sept |
Disbursement Rate |
Governance & Administration |
$7,350,650 |
$2,217,302 |
30% |
Public Prosecution & Asset Forfeiture |
$24,697,350 |
$4,519,497 |
18% |
TOTAL |
$32,048,000 |
$6,736,799 |
21% |
Overally, of the ZWL$32,048,000 revised estimate budget for
2019, only ZWL$6,736,799 (21%) had been disbursed by Treasury as at 30 September 2019. Delays in disbursement of funds poses serious operational challenges on the part of the authority. In light of delayed disbursement, working relationships with suppliers are harmed with dire consequences. Some NPA stations have suffered the fate of electricity disconnection due to non-payment of utility bills. Operating without electricity has detrimental effects on attainment of strategic objectives, and as such, this area needs to be seriously looked into.
In the 2020 budget, the NPA put in place a bid of
ZWL$345,533,566 and Treasury was able to allocate ZWL$72,167,000, a negative variance of 79%.
2.4.5 Implications of the Budget
The funds allocated to the NPA leave a huge funding gap of 79% of the bid (ZWL$345.5 million). Figure 1 shows the bids against budget allocation for selected items.
Figure 1: Total Vote allocation against bids for selected items
Figure 1 shows that there is gross underfunding for goods and services (93%) and Non-Financial Assets (75%). In light of this, the authority will have to endure an old fleet of vehicles handed down from enterprises such as ZIMRA. Whilst each province, High Court and circuit courts should have a reliable service vehicle, they will have to make do with what is available. Some vehicles have mileage in excess of 400,000km. The added challenge of these old vehicles is the associated large bill for maintenance and the ever increasing propensity for breakdowns.
The current inventory of furniture and office equipment is old and inadequate for operational needs. These handicaps cause untold delays in the preparation of court papers. The need for internet connectivity is a matter that needs to be urgently addressed as it brings convenience during the court processes. Transmission of information between Head Office, provinces and the High Court ought to be swift to facilitate timeous decision making. There is an urgent need for Treasury to grant authority to recruit and provide for urgent training of new prosecutors and administration staff in compliance with the Constitutional Court judgment.
2.4.6 CHALLENGES AND OBSERVATIONS
The authority raised key challenges to their operations namely;
- There were delays in disbursement of funds affect the operations of the authority threatening the attainment of strategic objectives.
- Head Office was still operating in rented office space.
- Enhanced capacitation of Asset Forfeiture Unit will go a long way in providing substantial alternative sources of revenue.
- Security of documents that are housed in rented buildings poses security hazards.
2.4.7 RECOMMENDATIONS
The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Justice, Legal and
Parliamentary Affairs recommends the following;
- That Treasury timeosly distributes financial resources for the smooth running of the NPA.
- That Treasury releases funds to ensure that NPA is housed in owned as opposed to rented property. Once done, space could be shared with other Independent Commissions.
- That the Asset Forfeiture Unit be fully capacitated in discharging its mandate as there is great potential for alternative resource mobilisation.
2.5 ZIMBABWE ANTI-CORRUPTION COMMISSION
(VOTE 31)
2.5.1 Introduction
The Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) has a mandate to combat corruption, theft, abuse of power and other improprieties in Zimbabwe through investigation, public education, prevention, and cause prosecution after thorough investigation. The Commission is further mandated to make recommendations to Government and other persons on the measures to enhance integrity and accountability and prevent improper conduct in the public and private sector.
ZACC is operating its budget under three programmes namely;
Corporate Affairs, Combating Corruption and Prevention of Corruption. The Commission has an approved staff establishment of 192 with 147 in post as at September 2019. Of those in post, 88 (60%) are men and 59
(40%) women, a situation reflective of under-representation of women.
In terms of gender budgeting, the Commission seeks to tackle the problem of inequity in the recruitment and promotion process; inequality in training opportunities; and gender imbalance in assignment of duties.
2.5.2 Some of the Major Achievements in 2019
- Initiated consultations for the development of the National AntiCorruption Strategy.
- Submitted lay bill for the framework for protection of whistleblowers and witnesses and recommendations of amendments to Anti-Corruption Act Chapter 9:22.
- Facilitated the review of Zimbabwe’s compliance to the United Nations Against Corruption (UNCAC) and now awaiting results of the review.
- Investigated 486 cases. Of these, 56 were referred for prosecution and the rest are at different stages of completion.
- Recovered assets valued at ZWL$100 million.
2.5.3 Some of the Policy Priorities for 2020-2022
- Investigation and prevention of corruption.
- Conducting parallel financial investigations and asset recovery on all corruption cases investigated.
- Development of the National Anti-Corruption Strategy.
- Conducting National Corruption Impact Assessment.
- Decentralisation to six regions in 2020.
- Establishment of an Electronic Case Management System.
2.5.4 Vote Analysis for 2020
ZACC mounted a bid of ZWL$100 million and Treasury was able to appropriate ZWL$71,550,000, a negative variance of 28%. This appropriation of ZWL$71,550,000 translates to 0.11% of the total budget, which was considered to be very small compared to regional anti-corruption agencies. While there is no prescribed benchmark for funding anti-corruption agencies, regional budgetary allocations range from 1% to 5%. For example, the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime of Botswana is allocated around 1.7% of the national budget while the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission of Nigeria is allocated 1.5%. Comparatively, the 0.11% appropriated to the Commission is very small.
2.5.5 Implications of the Budget
Corruption is considered to be a strong impediment to economic growth and development. Some have viewed corruption as a hidden tax that negatively affects business operations, foreign investment as well as decrease government tax revenue. Tackling corruption thus becomes of paramount importance to create a conducive environment for growing the economy towards achievement of Vision 2030. If ZACC is adequately resourced, it will be in a position to meet its set targets.
2.5.5.1 Compensation of Employees
In respect of Compensation of Employees, across the three programmes, a bid of ZWL$20 million was tabled and Treasury appropriated ZWL$9.1 million, a negative variance of 54%. The ZWL$20 million bid was placed with the hope of recruiting new staff in line with decentralisation as well as improve remuneration of ZACC staff. In terms of recruitment, ZACC intends to beef up staffing in Bulawayo as there is only one officer resident there. Currently, all investigations in the country are being conducted from Harare, and this is proving to pose serious logistical challenges. Thus, the urgent need to decentralise into Masvingo and Matabeleland South provinces to intensify the fight against corruption.
In terms of remuneration, it was established that ZACC investigating officers are currently being paid incomes that are not consistent with the assignments they have to handle. A salary of ZWL$700 places these offices at serious risk of accepting bribes from persons or entities under investigation. It was felt that Treasury needs to revise this allocation in line with regional trends to prevent breeding of corruption in an anti-corruption agency.
Staffing and remuneration levels play a key role in the external relations agenda of ZACC. This priority area focuses on international cooperation and partnerships in anti-corruption and anti-money laundering issues. As such, Zimbabwe is signatory to protocols and conventions for fighting corruption with bodies such as United Nations, African Union and SADC. ZACC is currently under review by the United Nations Convention Against Corruption. In addition, Zimbabwe chairs the Organ on Defence and Security within SADC and is due to host Anti-Corruption sub-committee meetings in 2020. The allocated ZWL$9.1 million falls far short of requirements (ZWL$20 million) and will negatively affect the achievement of the overall policy priorities of
ZACC.
2.5.5.2 Investment in Non-financial Assets
This expenditure item covers all three programmes as it speaks to decentralization to three regions consisting of six provinces in 2020. The tabled bid was ZWL$50 million and Treasury appropriated $44,050,000 which yielded a negative variance of 12%. This bid was aimed at;
- Acquiring office accommodation in at least two regions including
Bulawayo.
- Acquiring at least one operational motor vehicle for the decentralised regions.
- Acquiring computers, office furniture and other accessories in the decentralised regions.
The resultant negative variance of ZWL$5,950,000 (12%) will hamper the Commission from effectively operationalising the decentralisation agenda.
2.5.5.3 Analysis by Programme
A. Programme 1: Corporate Affairs
With respect to Programme 1, Corporate Affairs, a bid of ZWL$22,650,000, Treasury appropriated ZWL$42,480,000 yielding a positive variance of 87%. This favourable variance is explained by ZWL$36,950,000 allocated towards Construction Works, under the subprogramme Finance, Human Resources and Administration. No bid was made under Construction Works. This development is in line with the decentralisation objective.
B. Programme 2: Combating Corruption
Relating to Programme 2, Combating Corruption, ZACC placed a bid of ZWL$45,250,000 and Treasury allocated ZWL$19,875,000, resulting in a negative variance of 56%. Under Combating Corruption, deliverables for the 2020 fiscal year include;
- Decentralisation to six provinces.
- Investigation of 330 cases of corruption.
- Process 45 civil forfeiture applications.
- Targeting ZWL300 million in asset recoveries.
- Establish Electronic Case Management System.
The Commission envisages that the appropriation by Treasury will enable them to achieve a third of the set deliverables. The current case management system is manual and is subject to manipulation and tampering. It was the Commissions plea that more resources be allocated towards combating corruption.
C. Programme 3: Prevention of Corruption
In the Commission, Programme 3, Prevention of Corruption, has three sub-programmes, that is, Compliance Assurance, Corruption Awareness and Research.
Compliance Assurance
This sub-programme has a policy priority of systems review and compliance checks of Government Aided Projects; and development of the National Anti-Corruption Strategy. A bid of ZWL$12,840,000 was placed and Treasury only allocated ZWL$2,443,500, resulting in a sizable negative variance of 81%. Prevention of corruption is at the core of the Transitional Stabilisation Programme where the goals of Government include improved governance in the public and private sectors, as well as eradication of corruption. In line with this noble move, the 81% negative variance will seriously affect the Commission’s ability to monitor systems in Government aided projects, thus opening up a window for abuse of State funds. Adequate conduct of systems reviews and compliance checks will be grossly affected as a result.
Corruption Awareness
The goal of ZACC under this sub-programme is to roll out ZACCNPA Anti-Corruption awareness campaign to all provinces, and to strengthen the collaboration and partnerships with key stakeholders. In line with these objectives, ZACC made a bid of ZWL$9,630,000 and Treasury appropriated ZWL$5,122,500, producing a negative variance of 47%. This negative variance will adversely affect the Commission’s awareness programme and ZACC will largely remain obscure to the public. If awareness campaigns are not rolled out en masse, corruption may continue going ahead as an uninformed public may not know what and what not to report. If incidence of corruption persists, the country’s perception index will remain high. According to Transparency
International, Zimbabwe’s Corruption Perception Index is 22 points out of 100, placing her on a rank of 160 out of 180 countries. The highest ranked country Denmark, has a score of 88 points out of 100. The highest ranked African country is Botswana in position 34 with a corruption perception index of 61 points out of 100. Botswana’s success is attributed to a well resourced Anti-Corruption agency both in terms of financial as well as human resources. For a country with a population of just over two million, a team of 316 corruption investigators shows the seriousness they attach to fighting corruption. In contrast, Zimbabwe only has 34 corruption investigators in a country with an estimated population of 15 million. In addition, the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime of Botswana is armed with prosecuting powers whilst
ZACC does not. Thus, a review of the Anti-Corruption Act [Chapter
9:12] is desperately needed over and above more financial resources.
Research
Research is at the centre of making great strides forward in any endeavour. In commerce, serious firms invest in research and development to remain competitive or to beat competition. By the same token, ZACC would need to have adequate financial resources in order to ascertain strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to the fight against corruption. In that regard, ZACC has prioritised the following;
- Investigate leakages in the mining sector.
- Investigate weaknesses in the procurement system.
- Thoroughly check the management of Public Finances.
- Conduct a National Corruption Impact Assessment.
From a bid of ZWL$9,630,000, Treasury only appropriated 17% of the bid, which is a mere ZWL$1,629,000. With this appropriation, ZACC will barely be able to conduct a targeted nine sector surveys as well as carry out a National Corruption Impact Assessment. Without evidence pertaining to loopholes in the system, lack of research funding will cost the nation dearly by way of lost potential tax revenue. Recently, Zimbabwe was grey-listed by the Financial Action Task Force for being considered as a safe haven for supporting terror funding and money laundering. Zimbabwe has put plans in place to address the strategic deficiencies that promulgated the downgrading. The next assessment is due in February 2020.
2.5.6 CHALLENGES AND OBSERVATIONS
The Commission raised key challenges to their operations namely;
- The Commission is grossly underfunded compared to sister agencies within the region. ZACC was allocated 0.11% of the National Budget whilst regional agencies get an allocation ranging from 1-5% of the budget.
- The current Anti-Corruption Commission Act [Chapter 9:22] does not give ZACC prosecuting powers as is the case with sister agencies in Botswana, Nigeria and Zambia.
- Remuneration for Corruption Investigating Officers was considered to be very low (ZWL$700) in light of the job before them. Their Zambian counterparts earn the equivalent of US$5,000. This will likely increase their susceptibility of ZACC employees to acceptance of bribes.
- It was noted that in Zimbabwe, there is no framework to protect whistle-blowers in cases of corruption but regional AntiCorruption bodies have such frameworks. Without such a framework, many offences go unreported for fear of victimisation. Some have been sacked for reporting cases of corruption at their places of employment.
- Some individuals have been seen to accumulate unexplained wealth and cannot justify their opulent lifestyles.
- Some independent Commissions are finding it difficult to expand beyond Harare due to office space challenges.
2.5.7 RECOMMENDATIONS
The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Justice, Legal and
Parliamentary Affairs recommends the following;
- Treasury should benchmark the ZACC budget at 2% of the total budget.
- The current Anti-Corruption Commission Act [Chapter 9:22] should be amended to give ZACC prosecuting powers to decisively deal with corruption cases.
- Treasury should adequately resource ZACC for it to improve remuneration of Corruption Investigation officers from ZWL$700 to a minimum of ZWL$5,000. In addition, non-monetary incentives, such as car loans and housing loans, will go a long way in motivating staff to develop zero-tolerance towards corruption.
- A framework should be put in place to protect whistle-blowers from persecution by alleged offenders.
- ZACC should seize unexplained wealth whereupon failure to adequately justify source of income will result in forfeiture to the state.
- In cases where different Commissions are seeking to expand into a mutually common area, sharing of rented buildings is one way of alleviating the problem.
2.6 ZIMBABWE ELECTORAL COMMISSION (VOTE 32) 2.6.1 Introduction
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) has a mandate to conduct and supervise elections; register voters; delimit constituencies, wards and other electoral boundaries; conduct and supervise voter education; develop expertise and the use of technology in regard to electoral processes; promote cooperation between the Government, political parties and civil society during election period; and accredit observers of elections and referendums.
The ZEC is operating its budget under two main programmes namely; Governance and Administration and, Management of Elections and Referendum. The Commission has an approved staff establishment of 679 with 414 in post as at September 2019. Of those in post, 243 (59%) are men and 171 (41%) women, a representing an imbalance in gender representation. In respect of gender budgeting, ZEC seeks to tackle poor female participation in harmonised elections with the hope of achieving 50/50 parity by the next harmonised elections.
2.6.2 Some of the Major Achievements in 2019
- Conducted four constituency and 12 local authority by-elections.
- 100% ICT network and internet connectivity.
- Launched Gender Policy.
- Acquisition of Chivhu District offices in Mashonaland East
Province.
2.6.3 Some of the Policy Priorities for 2020-2022
- Amendment of the legal framework.
- Conduct by-elections as they come in terms of the law.
- Continuous voter education and registration including updating the Voters Roll.
- Purchase/Construction of office buildings and warehouses for the independence of ZEC operations.
- Upgrade Data Centre.
- Delimitation of ward and constituency boundaries.
- Continue stakeholder engagements.
2.6.4 Vote Analysis for 2020
ZEC put in place a bid of ZWL$178,490,000 and Treasury was able to allocate ZWL$91,200,000, a negative variance of 49%.The Commission was appreciative of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Justice Legal and Parliamentary Affairs for the support rendered in the budget process. In light of the appropriated ZWL$91.2 million, only preliminary delimitation would only commence.
2.6.5 Implications of the Budget
With respect to the strategic plan policy priority area of Institutional Strengthening, this is to be achieved through acquisition of new buildings and warehouses as well as acquisition of furniture, equipment among other assets. A combined bid of ZWL$43.7 million (inclusive of
Voters Roll Data Centre Upgrade) was met by an appropriation of ZWL$14.4 million. This allocation is deemed to be inadequate as securing of self-owned premises remains a pipeline dream. This has been the case with previous Budget Statements underfunding the building/purchase of ZEC’s own premises. Having such structures will result in ZEC having total control of stored election material. Currently, election material is stored in some Government buildings to which ZEC does not have the rights to access the buildings as and when they wish.
Relating to the Voters Roll Data Centre Upgrade priority area, licence acquisition would be required to prevent saturation of current server. Currently, the capacity for the Automated Fingerprint
Identification System (AFIS) stands at seven million records. At present, voter population is at 5.6 million. In view of the surge in voter registrations, the server will likely reach the seven million mark, thus preventing further registrations. A bid of ZWL$4.8 million was made in respect of licence acquisition for the upgrade of the Data Centre to increase its capacity from the current seven million.
In pursuit of the strategic objective of Registration of Eligible Voters, ZEC put in a bid of ZWL$5 million and Treasury allocated ZWL$1.5 million, a negative variance of 70%. This appropriation is inadequate for comprehensive voter education and registration to take place. If funds are availed following the Electoral Cycle, voter registration will be a continuous process and thus relieve voter registration pressure in the electoral period.
Under strategic objective of Delimitation of Wards and Constituency Boundaries, a bid of ZWL$15 million received a 100% vote appropriation. The Commission commended the Portfolio Committee for representation and support.
Relating to Management of Elections, this priority area received an appropriation of ZWL$4 million from a bid of ZWL$15 million, representing a negative variance of 73%. Since the holding of byelections is a legal requirement, the most ZEC can do is to make an adequate provision to fulfill its constitutional obligations. By-elections are required to be conducted within 90 days after a vacancy has arisen.
2.6.6 CHALLENGES AND OBSERVATIONS
The Commission raised key challenges to their operations namely;
- The Data Centre Server has a limit of seven million voters and current population of registered voters stands at around 5.6 million.
- That they were the least funded election management body in
SADC.
- With delimitation of constituency and ward boundaries now linked to the National Census (due in 2022), ZEC raised the issue that delimitation would be impossible since preliminary census results will only be available in January-February 2023. At law, delimitation needs to be done six months before elections. This state of affairs may result in 2023 Harmonised Elections going ahead without delimitation.
2.6.7 RECOMMENDATIONS
The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Justice, Legal and
Parliamentary Affairs recommends the following;
- That Treasury makes available funds to ZEC for upgrading of the Data Centre Server to accommodate more than seven million registered voters.
- That funding of ZEC be done in line with sister regional electoral bodies.
- It is of paramount importance not to link delimitation to the census since a census involves the counting of every person whilst delimitation of electoral boundaries only relates to registered voters.
HON. MAMOMBE: Thank you Madam Speaker. I am here to
present a report on behalf of the Portfolio Committee on Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development.
INTRODUCTION
The 2020 national budget theme is “Gearing for higher productivity, growth and job creation”. As such, the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation, Science and Technology Development has a key role to play. The Ministry is responsible for oversight, formulation and implementation of policies related to planning, training and development of human capital and the promotion of science, technology and innovation. The key deliverables of the ministry are human capital development, innovation, science and technology development. The ministry also facilitates these key deliverables at local, regional and international levels, in line with the Transitional Development Plan and Vision 2030. A high quality higher and tertiary education is the engine of economic growth and modernisation. The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation, Science and Technology Development provides an oversight responsibility over this Ministry.
Major Achievements in 2019
- Setting up and equipping of the first six innovation hubs and operationalising them to ensure existing innovations in the different universities are developed into prototypes that will be industrialised at the industrial parks.
- A graduate apprenticeship programme was initiated with 1000 new apprentices recruited the previous year.
Policy Priorities in 2020
The vision of the Ministry is to deliver a competitive, modernised and industrialised Zimbabwe through higher and tertiary education, innovation, science and technology development. To achieve this, the Ministry developed a philosophy of Education 5.0, which is an education with 5 missions: teaching, research, community service (consultancy), innovation and industrialisation. Education 5.0 seeks to make the country’s higher education relevant to the key challenges facing the country. To that end, the following are the Ministry’s key priority areas in 2020:
- To initiate a graduate internship programme that equips students with entrepreneurial skills and business experience.
- To equip science education programmes in Universities and
Teachers’ colleges in order to ensure that well qualified science teachers are produced to meet the needs of our schools. Revamping science laboratory facilities in our universities and polytechnics will also be a priority.
- To develop infrastructure, particularly student accommodation and teaching and learning facilities, particularly in the new universities and colleges. Several student hostels and teaching spaces are set to be completed in 2020.
- Through its Smart Education programme, the Ministry will set up a wide area network that connects universities and colleges together to e-learning, sharing of human, library and other resources in a manner that reduce transactions costs.
- To open Hwange Campus of United College of Education in
Matabeleland North province which will evolve into a full-fledged Teachers College and Polytechnic. A master plan, civil works and construction of the new teachers’ college will begin in 2020.
Disbursements
The ministry’s 2019 expenditure target was revised to RTGS$531
926 000. 73.3% of this amount was disbursed as at 30 September 2019. Disbursements by programme shows that Policy and Administration had received 99.7% in disbursements, Skills Training and Development 72.9% and STEM for Industrialisation and Modernisation 72.5% as at the same date.
Figure 1: Disbursements as at 30 September 2019
Overview of the ministry’s 2020 budget allocation
The Ministry’s budget of RTGS$2213 900 000 from the consolidated revenue fund constitutes 3.5% of the 2020 national budget. If we include retention funds of RTGS$676 989 000 the total allocation amounts to RTGS$2 890 889 000, which represents 4.4% of the 2020 national budget. Retention Funds represent 23.4% of the Ministry’s 2020 budget allocation. The total allocation is close to the original request that the ministry submitted in its budget bid. Figure 2shows the distribution of the ministry’s 2020 budget in terms of current and capital expenditures.
Figure 2: Distribution of the Ministry’s budget in terms of current and capital expenditure.
Of the RTGS$2 213 900 000 allocation, 17.2% (RTGS$380 790
800) goes towards capital expenditures while the rest is going towards current expenditures. These ratios by and large reflect the extent to which the capital budget is underfunded. In a standard budget capital expenditures should at least be 35% of the total budget.
Figure 3 shows the trend of the share of the Ministry’s budget in the national cake. The share reflects the extent to which the Ministry is prioritized by government. On a trend basis we see that the Ministry’s share has been declining from a pick of 7.7 % in 2012 to 3.7% in 2019. Its share was slightly increased by 0.7% to 4.4% in 2020. This is a small but welcome development given the increased role that the Ministry is expected to deliver through Education 5.0.
Figure 3: Proportion of the Ministry’s budget in the total national budget (% of total budget)
Economic classification of the ministry’s vote
The Ministry’s budget is skewed towards financing current grants and goods and services to the tune of 51.3% and 25.1% respectively. This leaves 11.6% for capital grants. Employment costs for those directly employed by the Ministry take 6.3% with other expenses consuming 0.1% of the budget. This expenditure distribution reflects a highly consumptive budget, consistent with the observation in Figure 2.
Figure 4 shows the economic classification of the Ministry’s 2020 vote allocation.
Figure 4: Economic classification of the ministry’s 2020 vote allocation (%).
Programmes of the Ministry
The ministry’s budget is programme based. There are 3 programmes namely Policy and Administration; Skills Training &
Development and STEM for Industrialisation & Modernisation. The Skills Training & Development programme is taking the bulk (86.4%) of the resources followed by STEM for Industrialization & Modernisation (9.13%) and Policy and Administration (4.47%).The expenditure distribution across programmes is in line with the Ministry’s core mandate of human capital development. Figure 5 shows the distribution of the Ministry’s budget by programme.
Figure 5: Distribution of the Ministry’s budgetby Programme (inclusive of retained funds)
Analysis of the Sub- votes budgets to the Ministry
Policy and Administration programme budget
The Policy and Administration programme was allocated a total of RTGS$129 308 000. The bulk of resources towards this sub vote go towards Finance and Administration (42.3%). Zimbabwe National
Commission for UNESCO is taking 20.1% of the resources while the
Minister and Permanent Secretary’s office is taking 17%. The rest of the budget items share the remainder as shown in figure 6.
Figure 6: Distribution of the Policy and Administration budget
Skills Training & Development
Higher education (Universities) take the largest chunk of the Skills
Training and development budget (62.3%) followed by Tertiary Education (35%) while Quality Assurance and Standards takes the least (2.2%). The budget towards Skills Training and Development will increase by 282%% in 2020.This is mainly driven by the substantial increase in resources of 354% in the Higher Education sub-programme. Quality Assurance and Standards budget has increased by 4.8% while Tertiary education increased by 6.2%. The increase basically reflects improved resources in the national budget in nominal terms. However, when inflation is factored in there is no real increase. With sustained inflation it will be difficult for the ministry to attain its main goal of a quality higher education with a drive towards an upper middle income economy by 2030.
Figure 7: Distribution of the Skills Training & Development budget
STEM for Industrialisation and Modernisation
STEM for Industrialisation and Modernisation was allocated a total of RTGS$263 795 000 in the 2020 budget. The sub-programme on Research, Development & Innovation is taking 94.4% of the resources while 3.2% and 2.4% is going towards Technology Transfer and Promotion & Advocacy respectively. This expenditure distribution in this sub-vote clearly reflects government’s commitment to implement Education 5.0 which is premised on research, innovation and industrial development.
Figure 8: Distribution of the STEM for Industrialisation and Modernisation sub-vote
Some Key Highlights from Officials
Verify Engineering
Figure 9 shows the operational and capital budget bids versus the allocated amounts for Verify Engineering. RTGS$5.2 million was allocated against a bid of RTGS$17 million for operations. With respect to the capital budget RTGS$28.4 million was allocated against a bid of RTGS$36 million.
Figure 9:Verify Engineering Budget Bids vs. Allocation (2020)
Verify Engineering has achieved great success and Honourable members are excited with its progress. The Committee took note of the good progress made by Verify Engineering in its efforts to supply medical oxygen, gas and liquid nitrogen on the local market. What is needed now are gas bottles, trucks, forklifts and about USD3.9 million is needed.
The Zimbabwe Space Agency (ZIMSA)
The Committee was advised that the ZIMSA is now operational. The agency has many uses of national importance which include but not limited to the following:
- Site-specific fertilizer recommendations in agriculture;
- Redrafting the map of natural regions of the country using satellites;
- Demarcation of A1 and A2 farms;
- Wildlife tracking through the utilization of satellites; Ø Traffic monitoring.
USD310 000 was received for the training and construction of our national satellite. This allocation will be utilized by two young people who will be selected on merit basis to go and study in Japan and to work towards to construction of a satellite for Zimbabwe during training.
Salaries of Tertiary colleges (Teacher training colleges and polytechnics)
The remuneration of lecturers in our Teachers Training colleges and Polytechnics is quite worrisome as it is resulting in massive resignations and skills flight. These lecturers are earning the same salaries as primary school teachers in spite of their higher qualifications and skills set. Many of them are holders of Masters and Doctoral degrees. Historically these lecturers used to earn 75% of university salaries until a few years ago. In order to correct this anomaly the Manpower Development Act was amended and a Bill is awaiting parliament approval. If the Bill sails through parliament, which is the likely case, an addition RTGS$108 million is required annually over and above the current RTGS$45 million that was allocated. Money for this has not been availed in the 2020 budget allocation since the bill is still to be passed.
Escalating cost of bandwidth
Worldwide educational resources for universities and colleges are now accessed cheaply online. Unfortunately, our universities and colleges are increasingly failing to afford the optimal bandwidth due to the escalating cost of bandwidth. There is therefore an urgent need for the Ministry to support our institutions with more bandwidth to ensure that teaching and learning is not affected. A total of RTGS$0.5 million is required annually in addition to what the universities are currently paying.
Software subscriptions
Software subscriptions such as subscriptions for e-books and “turn it in” for anti-plagiarism are a major cost for all our universities, especially if they are subscribed for at institutional unit. An area-wide network which connects all the universities and colleges will drastically reduce the cost due to economies of scale. Accordingly, the Ministry would require USD350 000 per year to meet software licence requirements and RTGS1 million per year for subscription to bandwidth.
Equipping science laboratories
The Committee noted the deplorable state of laboratory facilities in our universities and colleges which need retooling to enhance teaching and learning. If Zimbabwe is to embrace the 4thindustrial revolution there is need to ensure that universities and colleges have cutting edge laboratory facilities. Accordingly, an additional USD1 000 000 or equivalent is required annually for the next 5 years to achieve this.
Research budget
The Ministry is grateful of the research budget allocation of 0.3% of GDP that it received. His Excellence the President promised to move it towards 1% of GDP in line with the African Union recommendation for African countries. The officials noted some conscious allocation of resources for R&D and are grateful for that.
Infrastructure
The infrastructure needs of the Ministry are quite huge and cannot fit in one budget. In addition to government support the Ministry is also pursuing many avenues of meeting its infrastructure needs including
Public Private Partnerships (PPPs), Built Operate and Transfer (BOT). It was noted that some signed PPPs have not materialized as private players adopted the wait and see attitude following de-dollarisation. Nonetheless, our new universities require multi-purpose teaching complexes particularly at Gwanda and Marondera. For instance, there are no buses to ferry students from town to campus at Marondera University of Agricultural Sciences. At least a bus and 2 vehicles are required for each of the 3 new universities. Lupane University also lacks a teaching complex and houses for staff. The Ministry is however grateful for the capital budget allocation it received and it hopes that it will do more in 2020 than it did in 2019.
Student Cities
Student accommodation facilities remain a big challenge in our universities and colleges. The idea of student cities has been mooted but no progress has been made mainly due to lack of funds on the part of government as well as lack of incentives for private players to participate.
Recommendations
Expedite the Manpower Development Bill:
The Manpower Development Bill should be expedited to quickly sail through Parliament so as to retain critical staff in Polytechnics and
Teachers’ colleges.
Verify Engineering should unlock private sector funds:
Verify Engineering is encouraged to partner private players in order to fund its operations. Sovereign guarantees should also be considered to unlock private sector funds.
Retention funds should be maintained:
The Committee strongly recommends the maintenance of retention funds in order to allow our polytechnics and universities to be innovative and industrious. The scrapping of retentions as proposed in the new policy thrust will be a disincentive for polytechnics and universities.
Prioritise construction of students’ accommodation and learning space
The growing number of universities is creating a challenge for student accommodation and learning space. The budget should consider increasing funding towards this critical area for the quality of our education to move in tandem with the need to attain an upper middle income status by 2030. Otherwise, this vision will be difficult to achieve notwithstanding the fact that education is a catalyst for growth and modernisation. Student cities are a great idea and the Local authorities should consider extending title deeds to private contractors in order to lure them to participate.
Centralise software subscriptions:There is need to centralize software subscriptions for higher education and tertiary institutions through the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation, Science and Technology Development. This way the government will economise on scale and bring down the cost of the same.
Revamp laboratory facilities
In order to embrace the 4th industrial revolution there is need to ensure our universities and colleges have cutting edge laboratory facilities. An annualized expenditure plan towards the acquisition of state of the art laboratory facilities is needed. Roughly about USD1 000 000 or equivalence is required annually for the next 5 years to achieve
this.
Put in place transport and teaching facilities at the new universities
There is need to ensure that transport and teaching facilities and complexes are put in place at each of the 3 new universities, namely Lupane State University, Marondera University of Agricultural Science and Technology and Gwanda State University.
Allocate at least 1% of GDP towards research:
The international best practice is to allocate at least 1% of GDP towards research and development. The African Union has heeded this call at its Executive Council meeting in 2006 and set this target.
However, in Africa, countries around this target are South Africa,
Kenya, Senegal Uganda and Malawi who spend an average of 0.8% of
GDP on research and development. In the 2020 national budget about 0.3% was allocated towards this important area although the government has agreed to prioritize research and development in line with the 1% of GDP declaration. If the vision to attain upper middle income status by 2030 is to become a reality, the government needs to scale up the fund for this important budget item.
HON. SVUURE: 1. Introduction
1.1 On the 14thof November 2019, the Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Hon. Professor Mthuli Ncube presented the 2020 National Budget. The 2020 National Budget marked a focus shift from Austerity for Prosperity to Gearing for Higher Productivity, Growth and Job Creation. The 2020 National Budget is aligned to the provisions of the Transitional Stabilisation Programme (TSP), a critical component of the road map to achieving Vision 2030.
1.2 The 2020 budget comes against the background of sustained fiscal and current account deficits (twin deficits) emanating mainly from fiscal indiscipline. The resultant inflationary and exchange rate challenges coupled with the austerity measures have brought with them untold suffering to the general population as highlighted by liquidity crisis, fuel and electricity challenges and declining productive capacity of local industry.
1.3 Achievement of the TSP and Vision 2030 is anchored on increased industrial capacity and complemented efforts to increase efficient and effective production levels in the country.
2. 2019 Budget Performance Review
2.1 The Ministry of Industry and Commerce’s mandate is to provide a conducive environment for sustainable industrial and commercial growth and development. Its main service delivery areas are policy and administration, industrialisation and consumer protection and quality assurance.
The Ministry was allocated a revised estimate of ZWL$195, 548, 000 and by September 2019 had been disbursed ZWL$45, 810, 181 representing a lag of 77%. These lags are displayed in the following pie chart:
All key areas of the Ministry were lagging behind in terms of actual budget allocations disbursed. However, industrialisation accounts for more than 50% of the lags yet it is a key pillar for economic growth and functioning of most sectors of the economy.
Summed achievements under the three key result areas during the 2019 budget year amongst others are as follows:
- Development and launch of the Zimbabwe National
Industrial Development Policy and Local Content
Strategy;
- Successfully lobbied for Industrial Development
Corporation of Zimbabwe funding of ZWL$30 million; iii. Successful participation in the Development of the ZIDA
Bill; iv. Consumer Protection Bill passed through Parliament and awaits Presidential Assent;
- Development of the Provincial Industrial Strategy in the ten provinces of the country; vi. Development of the Zero Draft of the National Quality
Policy;
vii. Development of the Beitbridge and Victoria Falls One Stop
Boarder Posts legal and operational frameworks; and viii. Certification of Sunway City and
Belmont/Donnington/Kelvin Corridor as Special Economic Zones.
The Ministry will continue in 2020 to implement the Transitional Stabilisation Programme focusing on industrialisation, commerce and export development. The key policy priorities will include the revival of the Zimbabwe Steel Industry, promotion of value chains and cluster development, monitoring of performance of strategic companies, lobby for additional funding for IDCZ and Venture Capital Fund, implementation of the Local Content Strategy and sector strategies, implementation of the rural industrialisation programme in line with the devolution agenda and facilitating the establishment of Victoria Falls, Beitbridge and Forbes One Stop Border Posts and improve efficiency at the existing border posts.
3. Overview of the 2020 National Budget
3.1 The Ministry was allocated ZWL$367,260,000, which is an 89% change from the 2019 revised budget figure of $195, 548,000. The allocated figure falls short of the Ministry’s bid of ZWL$3, 113, 796, 513 by 99%. However, a welcome development is on the expenditure target ceiling which had an initial ET of ZWL$189, 150, 000 but received a final ET of ZWL$492, 260, 000.
3.2 While the Ministry is happy with overall allocations to the
Policy and Administration budget allocation, the main concern of the
Committee is on the Industrialisation Programme which had a bid of ZWL$2, 617, 424, 947 but was allocated ZWL$286, 278, 000 which is only 11% of the bid. The major items were the ZWL$240, 000, 000 support to IDCZ which represents a ZWL$35, 000, 000 increase and the
ZWL$158, 000, 000 venture capital funds which were allocated to the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development.
3.3 The other huge concern to the Committee was on the 62% variance between the Ministry’s bid of ZWL$52, 695, 538 and the budget allocation of ZWL$20, 222, 000 for consumer protection and quality assurance. This will be of great significance on the Ministry’s mandate to protect the consumers and guaranteeing quality products and services. The quality assurance will also have an impact on the competitiveness of our local products and services on the regional and international markets.
Post Budget Presentation Analysis Meeting Output
Your committee duly held a post budget presentation analysis meeting with Ministry officials, CZI and ZNCC on Wednesday 20 November 2019. The following issues were observed:
4.1 In its meeting with Ministry officials on the 20thNovember, your committee raised its concerns on the resuscitation of the industries raising questions on the progress, fruition and on the destructions. The Ministry officials regardless of sighting challenges in establishing a policy framework acknowledged that in July 2019, the Policy
Framework was established in line with the private sector. The Ministry officials also highlighted that they conduct quarterly reviews to check on the state of the industry and identify challenges arising.
4.2 Your committee acknowledged the Ministry’s efforts in developing good strategies but questioned on the results associated with such actions. In addition, your Committee also raised concerns on what the Ministry is doing on issues arising as well as competitiveness of strategic industries. The Ministry officials highlighted their efforts in increasing production for local and foreign markets and how they keep tab on strategic industries. They also noted how they are monitoring processes and hindrances in Special Economic Zones and how research keeps the Ministry updated on the status quo of the industry.
4.3 Your Committee also raised concerns on the revolving fund which the Ministry received in 2019, quizzing on the disbursement and the management of the fund. The Ministry officials highlighted that they were allocated $24 million which is all now committed through the
IDCZ and the framework is in place for the management of the fund.
4.4 On consumer protection and quality assurance, your
Committee raised concerns on the Ministry’s level of consumer protection and the Ministry’s action on the same issue. The Ministry officials cited the delay on passing of the Consumer Protection Legal Bill which the Ministry believes will empower them to protect the consumers in all aspects. The Ministry officials also shared on how they are raising awareness amongst consumers on the same issue.
4.5 While your committee appreciated the Ministry’s role in advocating for research-based industrialization, it underscored the need for complementarity between the Ministry and other key stakeholders such as the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education on research and development which foster the mandate of the Ministry. The Ministry officials acknowledged the need for collaboration especially on the implementation of the research findings.
4.6 Your Committee also raised concern on the planning towards the development of the rural growth poles as this is a significant way of implementing the devolution programme and as well as fostering Special Economic Zones. The Ministry officials reiterated the need for all stakeholders to embrace the rural growth poles development.
4.7 A submission from the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) acknowledged the tax and industry specific reforms in the national budget though reiterating need for complementary monetary policy and fast-tracking of the easy of doing business reforms. Your committee however raised concern on the role of CZI in implementation of the tax reforms for the beneficiary of the consumers and also the need for CZI to clearly articulate issues in areas which require improvement as this will feed into informed lobbying and decision making by the Ministry.
4.8 A submission from ZNCC highlighted the negative changes in macroeconomic environment as noted in decline in the real revenue estimates from US$6.6 billion in 2019 to an estimated US$3.6 billion in 2020. ZNCC also acknowledged the importance of timeous information dissemination to businesses and how power shortages were impacting on the performance of businesses. Your Committee raised concerns on imports of goods, solar batteries, which we are capable of producing locally and suggested addition of LED lights to converters and panels as duty free items given we do not have capacity to produce them locally.
4.9 Your Committee also called for ZNCC to do justice by raising research backed issues to the Ministry as this will allow the
Ministry to act on an informed basis.
4.10 Your Committee also raised concerns on the state of the steel industry and the need to revive it. The Ministry officials highlighted the steel value chain efforts which are currently being hindered by power shortages. Also, they highlighted the current efforts in engaging existing and new investors in the sector though these efforts are constrained by debt issues associated with the steel industry with ZISCO debt amounting to US$225 million.
4.11 Your Committee raised concern on the current Companies
Act and how it impacts on the easy of doing business mantra. The Ministry officials acknowledged the need of updating the Bill and they cited that it was work in progress as the Companies Act is currently under review.
- Summary of Recommendations Your Committee recommends that:
- There be timeous release of funds from the Treasury to the
Ministry which will facilitate the Ministry’s operations and effective delivery of its mandate.
- The IDCZ must effectively utilise and manage revolving funds, taking advantage of the recently enacted ZIDA to speed up the processes.
- The Ministry to strengthen synergies with varying stakeholders especially Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education on the implementation of research findings which will capacitate industry and improve production.
- The call to the Ministry for research-based industrialisation leveraging on existing policies.
- The need for complementarity of functions between the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development (Fiscal Policy) and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (Monetary Policy).
- The need for creating an enabling operating environment for businesses characterised by stable macroeconomic environment and favourable easy of doing business framework as well as addressing the key issues of energy and foreign currency shortages.
- The Ministry to lobby for the finalisation of the Consumer Protection Law and ensure full implementation of such law for the benefit of the consumers.
- The need to build on devolution programme by embracing the rural growth poles development model and this should be reflective in the budget allocations.
- The Ministry to implement the Zimbabwe National
Development Policy which is primed on innovation-led and investmentled industrialisation.
- The need to address the inflationary environment and develop mechanisms to ensure the tax measures stipulated in the national budget cascades to consumers.
- The Ministry needs to revive the steel industry through engaging current and potential investors harnessing on the Zimbabwe is
Open for Business mantra.
6. Conclusion
Research-based industrialisation is key to the Government stepping up from austerity for prosperity (2019) to gearing for higher productivity, growth and job creation in 2020. It is through innovativeled and investment-led industrialisation that the country could attain the aspirations of the TSP and the Vision 2030. It is through industrialisation that we can effectively exploit the backward and forward linkages that primarily exist among the agricultural, mining and manufacturing sectors; thus, bringing to reality the structural transformation that this economy desperately needs. Government ought to diligently create a conducive environment for private sector-led industrialisation through requisite policies, incentives and improvement in the ease of doing business. Critical to this, is ensuring that (1) the private sector objectives and actions are in tandem with Government policies and (2) public institutions mandated to drive these processes pull in one direction with minimum duplication of roles whilst maximising on the existing complementarities.
HON. NYOKANHETE: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. Overview
of the Ministry of Information Communication Technology, Postal and Courier Services.
The Ministry of Information Communication Technology, Postal and Courier Services, is responsible for developing appropriate policies and strategies that seek to enhance the provision of ICT, telecommunications, cyber security and courier services in Zimbabwe. The Ministry aims to develop an enabling environment for the creation of a knowledge society that transgresses across all levels of the society through exploiting the potential of Information Communication, Technology, Postal and Courier Services for sustainable socio economic development.
The programme areas are as follows:
- Policy and Administration responsible for developing an enabling environment for the creation of a knowledge based society, spearhead the development of appropriate regulatory frameworks that facilitate the promotion of information communication technology, championing and promote ICT literacy and utilisation;
- Information communication technology development and promotion responsible for implementing government ICT programmes.
The Ministry’s key result areas are to promote the development and use of Information Communication Technology and this is accompanied by the following goals:
- Improve access to ICTs.
- Improve use of ICTs.
- Increase ICT awareness, knowledge and skills Its policy priorities for 2020-222 includes:
- Formulation of ICT sector policies namely; E-waste management policy, Postal and Courier Services Policy, cyber protection, Data protection and E-Transaction Bill.
- Maintenance of National systems.
- setting up of an E-government systems.
- Development of Community Information Centres (CICs).
- Establishment of a National Information and Data Centre.
- Set up ICT laboratories in schools.
This report is being prepared by the Portfolio Committee on Information Communication and Technology within the context of these programmes areas. The Committee will analyse the 2020 National Budget Statement in terms of adequacy of resource allocation and interventions.
The Transitional Stabilisation Programme (TSP) highlighted that the government is targeting broadening the adoption and utilisation of egovernment across all Government departments and agencies and thus expect this to improve the efficiency in the delivery of public services. Under the TSP, Government also expects growth in the services sector arising from the growth in the digital economy and operationaliSation of e-government and e-procurement systems (pp210; Transitional Stabilisation Programme). On the other hand, the 2020 Budget Strategy paper also highlighted the need to prioritise the upgrading, expansion and modernisation of social infrastructure including ICT as the country moves towards a digital economy and expects this to enhance the countries competitiveness (pp53&56 ; Budget Strategy Paper)
State of ICT Sector in Zimbabwe: ate of the ICT sector in Digital technologies and services are proven enablers of sustainable development and inclusive growth. It has been noted that a 1% increase in ICT investment will drive economic growth by 0.52 %.The rapid development and adoption of ICTs has been transforming every sector of the Zimbabwean economy. The Second Quarter of 2019 shows a high active Mobile Penetration Rate of 84.8%, a high internet penetration rate of 57.2%, and a static Fixed Tele-density of 1.9%.
However, the 2020 National Budget estimates that the Transport and Communication sector is set to decline by 4.1% in 2019 on the back of marked decline in voice traffic and decline in active internet subscriptions. On the other hand, the sector is expected to grow by 2.1% in 2020.The Transitional Stabilisation Programme (TSP) expects the growth of the service sector arising out of the adoption of Information Communication and Technology which will also benefit from increased investment in E-Government platforms and operationalisation of eprocurement systems across all levels of Government.
2019 ICT Budget Performance:
The Ministry of Information, Communication Technology, Postal and Courier Services has highlighted that its major achievement in 2019 has been the ability to maintain an uptime of 98% of the Public Finance Management System and other national systems, modernisation of the PFMS main site and recovery site, establishment of 6 PFMS district kiosks and renovations of 57 kiosks, 51 WAN and 15 LANs. This was made possible by the release of ZWL$47.02 million dollars in the nine months to September 2019 against a target of ZWL$36.01 million, however this is below the amount of ZWL$100 million announced as having been set aside to kick start E-Government programmes under the
2019 National Budget (pp.97; National Budget Speech) Administrative Unit:
The Ministry of Information Communication Technology Postal and Courier Services has only two main departments namely; Policy & Administration and the Information, Communication, Technology Development and Promotion. With regard to budgetary performance of the Ministry’s programme areas in 2019, overall budget disbursement for the nine months to September 2019 was 31% above the targeted budgetary allocation for the year. The high disbursement levels have been necessitated by inflationary pressures that have increased the costs of goods and services. Policy and administration programme had low disbursement levels of 53% whilst the Information, Communication, Technology Development and Promotion Programme area had high disbursement levels at 48% above the yearly target. High levels are appreciated and it shows Government’s commitment towards modernisation of government services and embracing the digital economy. However, there is need to take into account the impact of inflationary pressures on inflating the value of goods and services procured with the implied rate year on year inflation for October 2019 estimated at around 440%.
Table 1: 2019 Budgetary Outturns for Ministry of ICT by administrative unit
|
Target |
Actual (As at Sep) |
% Disbursed |
% Share of Total Disbursed |
Policy and administration |
6,759,000 |
3,605,293 |
53% |
8% |
Information , communication, technology |
29,253,000 |
43,415,654 |
148% |
92% |
development and promotion |
|
|
|
|
Total |
36,012,000 |
47,020,947 |
131% |
|
Economic Classification :
With regards to budget performance by economic classification, it shows disbursements towards capital expenditure and maintenance has been relatively high and above target compared to other expenditure line items. It is also noted that capital expenditure accounted for large share of disbursements towards the Ministry and this is followed by disbursement towards operational costs which accounted for 17.6% of disbursed amounts. Whilst disbursement towards operational costs have been relatively low with only 53% of financial resources allocated to the Ministry having being disbursed in the nine months to September 2019, this has resulted in the Ministry accumulating arrears to various service providers to the tune of ZWL$19.9 million and this is expected to increase to ZWL$30 million by end of 2019.
Table 2: 2019 Budgetary Outturns for Ministry of ICT by economic Classification:
|
Revised Estimates |
Actual (As at Sep- |
% Disbursed |
% Share of Total Disbursed |
Compensation of employees |
1,519,000 |
1,281,786 |
84% |
2.7% |
Use of goods and services |
15,666,000 |
8,266,601 |
53% |
17.6% |
Current Grants |
127,000 |
92,434 |
73% |
0.2% |
|
|
|
|
|
Acquisition of fixed assets |
18,200,000 |
36,880,126 |
203% |
78.4% |
Machinery and equipment |
500,000 |
500,000 |
100% |
1.1% |
|
|
|
|
|
Total |
36,012,000 |
47,020,947 |
131% |
|
Budget Analysis:
To systematically exploit the potential of Information, Communication and Technology for national development and transformation, the Government of Zimbabwe is developing the Smart Zimbabwe 2030 Master Plan, which is an all-inclusive guideline that clearly articulates how the country will develop, deploy and manage ICTs across all sectors. The Smart Zimbabwe 2030 Master Plan and
Implementation Strategy will be part of the National Infrastructure Master Plan. The African Development Bank 2019 Infrastructure Report on Zimbabwe highlighted that the country would require USD413.7 million for capital expenditure in the Information Communication and
Technology sector between the period 2018-2020. They estimated that
USD 208.5 million of the amount is expected to be funding from the government. Thus, the African Development Bank Infrastructure report expected the Government of Zimbabwe to commit at least USD 19 million in 2020 towards capital expenditure for Information, Communication and Technology (ICT).
The 2020 National Budget identifies the need to roll out EGovernment to cover various services and spatially remote areas as part of public service efficiency and decentralisation process in line with TSP vision. Thus, in order to capacitate the transitioning from manualised systems to ICT based systems, the 2020 Budget has made provisions to the tune of ZWL$341.7million for the following ICT programmes; EGovernment; E-agriculture; E-Cabinet and the establishment of National Data Centre.
2020 Budget Allocation:
In analysing allocations towards any particular Vote, The
Committee takes note of the following:
- Budget allocations are made largely from the Consolidated Revenue
Fund. This is the Fund funded predominantly by the revenue
measures which are relatively more predictable and more certain and also within the control of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development. The total available budget from the Consolidated
Revenue Fund for 2020 is estimated at about ZWL$68,244,762,000
- In addition to the Consolidated Revenue Fund, there are also some resources that come through Retention Funds. Retention Funds are mainly fees, fines, levies and rentals which Government departments collect from economic agents. In 2020, the total retention funds are estimated at about ZWL$1,977,719,000.
The Consolidated Revenue Fund and the Retention Fund generally constitute the resources that are appropriated by the Minister of Finance to the different Votes. This therefore means that the analysis for a Vote can be based on either the Consolidated Revenue Fund allocation or the total appropriated amount or both. Since no Retention Funds are accruing to the Ministry, the analysis will focus on allocations from the Consolidated Revenue Fund. Furthermore, the Ministry does not have development partners and technical partners that are assisting them in the implementation of their projects.
In the 2020 National Budget, the Ministry of Information, Communication Technology Postal and Courier services got an allocation of ZWL$114, 560,000 from the Consolidated Fund and there are no other funds expected from the Retention Fund. However, the allocated amount is contrary to announcement made in the budget speech that ZWL$341 million has been set aside for government ICT programmes (pp.99; National Budget Speech). The excess funds have been directed to other ministries and Government departments namely; ZWL$5 million for Smart Education, ZWL$194.8 million for the National Data Centre and recovery centre; ZWL$8 million for the commencement of the VOIP project and ZWL$20 million for the
Judiciary Service Commission Integrated Electronic Case Management
System (IECM). At the current prevailing exchange rate of
1USD:ZWL15, the ZWL$114. 5 million allocated to the Ministry of Information Communication Technology, Postal and Courier Services amounts to USD 7, 6 million far below USD 19 million expected by the African Development Bank 2019 Infrastructure Report for Zimbabwe to be committed towards capital expenditure for ICT in 2020. The 2020 budgetary allocation from the Consolidated Revenue Fund is an increase by 218.1% from the 2019 revised budgetary allocation. Increase in allocation is compounded by inflationary pressures and increase in available resource envelope.
For the 2020 National Budget the Ministry of Information, Communication Technology, Postal and Courier Services is ranked among the bottom five in terms of priority ranking of budgetary allocation. The ranking however is not consistent with governments pronouncement of modernising Government’s services through
Information Technology such as E-government programmes as the Ministry responsible is not being prioritised when it comes to funding its activities and programmes.
Table 3: 2018 Top 5 and Bottom 5 Budgetary allocations for Ministries:
|
Consolidated Revenue Fund |
Retention Fund |
Total Appropriated |
Top 5 |
|
||
Lands, Agriculture, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement |
11,163,481,000 |
170,978,000 |
11,334,459,000 |
Primary and Secondary Education |
8,495,794,000 |
30,429,000 |
8,526,223,000 |
Health and Child Care |
6,459,100,000 |
108,217,000 |
6,567,317,000 |
Finance and Economic Development |
3,987,042,000 |
5,000 |
3,987,047,000 |
Transport and Infrastructural Development |
3,089,800,000 |
119,378,000 |
3,209,178,000 |
|
|
|
|
Bottom 5 |
|
|
|
Mines and Mining Development |
293,197,000 |
60,528,000 |
353,725,000 |
Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation |
323,900,000 |
6,287,000 |
330,187,000 |
National Housing and Social Amenities |
246,403,000 |
16,167,000 |
262,570,000 |
Audit Office |
151,930,000 |
- |
151,930,000 |
Information Communication Technology and Courier Services |
114,560,000 |
- |
114,560,000 |
Trend in Budgetary allocation
Trend in the share of allocation towards the Ministry of Information Communication Technology, Postal and Courier Services over the past 10 years shows that the amount of resources in relation to the total national available resources has averaged 0.19% between 2010 and 2019. The budget allocation for 2020 towards the Ministry accounted for only 0.17% of the total appropriation for 2020; the figure is comparable to other regional countries such as South Africa and
Zambia. In South Africa, the department of Telecommunication and
Postal services was allocated 0.09% of the National Budget for the
2019/20 fiscal year whilst in Zambia allocation towards the Ministry of
Transport and communication accounted for 0.64% of the 2019 National Budget. However, because the country is trying to catch up with other regional countries in terms of ICT development, the 0.17% allocation is too low as this has over the years been consistently been less than 1% of the National Budget and this shows government lack of commitment to embrace the new digital age in social and economic transformation.
Analysis of budget allocation by administrative unit:
Relative to 2019, all the programme areas received substantially high increases in allocations although Policy and Administration received the highest increase, it only accounted for 32.9% of the ministry’s allocation whilst the other programme area Information,
Communication, Technology Development and Promotion took up
67.1% of the total resources allocated to the Ministry, a decline by 14.10 percentage points from its share in the 2019 Budget (Table 4).. The Information, Communication, Technology Development and Promotion programme area received the highest allocation because it is responsible for implementing government’s Information, Communication, and Technology projects. The 2020 Budget allocations are higher for all the
Ministry’s programme areas at 458.2% and 162.6% respectively.
However, the increases seems to be necessitated by projected changes in inflation
Table 4: 2020 budgetary allocations for programme areas compared to 2019:
|
2019 Revised Estimates |
Share of total 2019 |
2020 Consolidated Fund |
% increase |
Share of total 2020 |
Policy and Administration |
6,759,000 |
18.8% |
37,732,000 |
458.2% |
32.9% |
Information Communication Technology Development and Promotion |
29,253,000 |
81.2% |
76,828,000 |
162.6% |
67.1% |
Total |
36,012,000 |
100.0% |
114,560,000 |
218.1% |
100.0% |
Analysis of budget allocation by economic classification:
All expenditure line items have more than doubled in the 2020 budget allocation taking into cognisant the effects of inflation. Capital expenditure expected in the form of acquisition of fixed assets, where a budget of ZWL$60.96 million has been provided for. This capital budget for 2020 is significantly different from a budget of about ZWL$18.7 million given in 2019. Employment costs for 2020 are expected to triple by about 372.4% compared to 2019. The high inflation is likely to impose pressure on salary or operational costs and therefore there is
need to treat cautionary the total amount allocated to the Ministry as this may be eroded by inflation. However, in terms of allocation by the share of expenditure by line items, there has been an increase in the share of all line items with exception of operational costs whose share of the
Ministry’s budget declined by 4.10 percentage points from 43.5% in 2019 to 39.4% in 2020.
Table 5: 2020 Budgetary Allocations by economic classification:
|
2019 Revised Estimates |
Share of total 2019 |
2020 Consolidated Fund |
% increase |
Share of total 2020 |
Compensation of employees |
1,519,000 |
4.2% |
7,175,000 |
372.4% |
6.3% |
Use of goods and services |
15,666,000 |
43.5% |
45,125,000 |
188.0% |
39.4% |
Current Grants |
127,000 |
0.4% |
1,300,000 |
923.6% |
1.1% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Acquisition of fixed assets |
18,200,000 |
50.5% |
59,360,000 |
226.2% |
51.8% |
Machinery and equipment |
500,000 |
1.4% |
1,600,000 |
220.0% |
1.4% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Total |
36,012,000 |
|
114,560,000 |
218.1% |
|
Assessment of adequacy of Programme Budget
The Committee also assessed the adequacy of the Treasury allocation in the 2020 National Budget relative to the Ministry’s aspiration’s. Whilst the Ministry sought to be allocated ZWL$406.15 million to finance the Ministry’s programmes requirements, it was only allocated ZWL$114.56 million which covers only 28.2% of its budgetary requirements. For recurrent expenditure, the Ministry had sought an allocation of ZWL$90 million but was only allocated 59.6% of the amount and this has implications to the Ministry of continuously accumulating arrears to service providers. On the other hand, the Ministry sought ZWL$316.15 million for Capital expenditure and it was allocated ZWL$60.96 million which is only 19.3% of its total requirements. The table below compares the total amount allocated to the ministry and the Ministry aspirations. The result shows that for its priority areas, the Ministry received far much less than what they have hoped for and thus they are heavily underfunded and mostly likely it will affect programme implementation.
Table 6: Allocations Compared to bid:
|
2020 Bid |
2020 Appropriation |
% of bid obtained |
ZWL$ |
ZWL$ |
|
|
Recurrent Expenditure |
90,000,000 |
53,600,000 |
59.6% |
|
|
|
|
Capital Expenditure |
316,145,000 |
60,960,000 |
19.3% |
Maintenance of National Systems |
39,645,000 |
15,360,000 |
38.7% |
E-Government/ Smart Government |
40,500,000 |
26,240,000 |
64.8% |
Computer Lab per School |
28,000,000 |
4,960,000 |
17.7% |
Establishment of Community Information Centres |
9,000,000 |
1,600,000 |
17.8% |
National Data Centre Recovery Site |
135,000,000 |
- |
|
Motor Vehicle |
16,000,000 |
4,800,000 |
30.0% |
Furniture and Equipment |
3,000,000 |
1,600,000 |
53.3% |
Capital Transfer (ZARNet) |
45,000,000 |
1,600,000 |
3.6% |
|
|
|
|
Total |
406,145,000 |
114,560,000 |
28.2% |
For maintenance of national systems, the Ministry had requested ZWL$39.6 million and were only allocated ZWL$15.36 million which will only fund 39% of their requirements for the planned maintenance and upgrade of the National Public Finance Management System. This shows that that this activity is underfunded and would mostly likely expose the system to vulnerabilities and likely to increase the system down time as the national system needs constant upgrading. According to African Development Bank 2019 Infrastructure Report on Zimbabwe, it noted that the lack of maintenance and the lack of technical capacity on the part of government to keep their systems up-to-date is impeding the effective roll out and maintenance of E-government platforms. The Ministry had also targeted ZWL$28 million and ZWL$9 million for the computer lab per school initiative and establishment of Community Information Centres respectively. However, the Ministry was only allocated ZWL$4.96 million for the computer lab per school programme and ZWL$1.6 million for the establishment of Community
Information Centres. The amount allocated accounts for 17.7% and
17.8% of the Ministry’s requirements for the programmes implementation. With the allocated amount, the Ministry will only be able to establish less than 20 schools computer labs against targeted 100 and establish less four Community Information Centres against targeted
20 in 2020.
On funding for the National Data Centre recovery site, the Ministry did not receive anything on the amount they requested on the argument by Treasury that the Data Centre is being housed under Office of the President and Cabinet, hence funding will go directly to the relevant department. The Ministry also requested ZWL$16 million to finance the acquisition of 10 motor vehicles for project monitoring but was only allocated ZWL$4.8 million which is sufficient to procure three vehicles.
The Ministry put a bid of ZWL$45 million as capital transfers towards ZARNet, however only 3.6% of requested funds were allocated following reviews that grant aided institutions should be in a position t fund themselves. However, ZARNet is not in a position to generate funds to cover their own operations and are seriously underfunded to undertake their operations.
Recommendations:
- Treasury should allocate adequate funding and ensure timely disbursement of allocated funds to avoid delays in implementation of projects. The Committee therefore recommends that budgeted allocations be disbursed timeously so that issues and programmes are brought to a close rather than remaining on the pipeline for a long time.
- Budget allocations should also allow settlement of arrears due from Government ministries and departments, for example the Ministry has owed TelOne and NetOne over the past years. This has led to the entities not being able to adequately deliver on its service provision. The Committee is of the view that both TelOne and NetOne can be profitable if the legacy debt is resolved.
- Furthermore, the Committee recommends that arrears clearance will greatly improve the parastatal balance sheet, hence making it attractive to investors since it is earmarked for privatisation.
- The Ministry’s parastatals must realise profitability and declare dividend. The Committee recommends for the privatisation of parastatals, for example which falls under the Ministry of ICT. For instance, ZARNet could dispose of its non-viable investments to generate funds to finance its operations
- The Committee notes that the Ministry’s programming areas are thin and their focus is limited to a few priority areas with most ICT services administration being undertaken by the Office of the President and Cabinet. The Committee states that there is no reasonable justification for the Office of the President and Cabinet to continue administrating government ICT services when there is a responsible Ministry established to undertake such activities. There is also need to allocate ICT budgets for the whole Government through the Ministry so as to maximise on the utilisation of resources. The Ministry is responsible for the supervision and monitoring of the implementation of E-government programmes but some funds are being allocated through other government departments. The Committee recommends that all ICT activities must be transferred to the Ministry of Information Communication
Technology, Postal and Courier Services
- The Committee recommends that Treasury must have incentives for investors who want to start ICT businesses in the country. There is also need to capacitate innovation through the funding of start-ups in the ICT sector.
- As the Government seeks to transform itself and the economy into a truly digital economy, it should ensure that the Ministry of
Information Communication Technology, Postal and Courier Services is not underfunded as it is the most critical in the implementation of E-government services and ensuring investment in essential ICT backbone infrastructure. More focus should be on supporting ICT at the grassroots level as this will groom consumers of ICT products and services. The Committee recommends that there is need for resources allocated to the Ministry’s programmes to be increased, particularly towards:
- Maintenance of national systems. o Computer Lab per school with a target of 100 schools in 2020.
- Establishment of Community Information Centres with a target of 20 centres in 2020.
- The Committee recommends that further funding should be provided for more human resources to manage the Ministry’s priority projects. Current vacancy rate for the Ministry is at 20.4% of establishment, meaning that the Ministry is not fully capacitated to monitor government ICT requirements and man its projects. The Committee also recommends that the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe should support stakeholders in the ICT sector with their foreign currency requirements in order to support the national ICT programmes.
HON. GABBUZA: Thank you Madam Speaker. I want to present
a report on the Budget Analysis of the Ministry of Energy and Power Development (Vote 22) Budget Allocations for 2020.
1. INTRODUCTION
The Portfolio Committee on Energy and Power Development has an oversight responsibility over the Ministry of Energy and Power Development. The Ministry of Energy and Power Development is mandated to provide adequate and sustainable energy supply through formulating and implementing effective policies and regulatory frameworks. Post budget consultations conducted with the Ministry and its stakeholders showed that there was an increase in 2020 budget allocations to the Ministry of Energy and Power Development from the 2019 allocation.
1.1 Key Policy Priorities for the Ministry of Energy and Power Development in 2020
Since the country subscribes to the United Nations Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs), and with most of the goals centered on development and sustainability, the Ministry of Energy and Power Development has managed to identify some key developmental areas to pursue. Some of the Ministry’s priorities for the period 2020-2022 include:
- Adoption of a sustainable cost reflective tariff to ensure viable service delivery and sector investment;
- Competitive procurement for solar projects;
- Finalisation of National Integrated Energy Resource Plan
(NIERP);
- Implementation of Biofuels and National Renewable Energy
Policy (NREP);
- Development of Energy Efficiency Policy;
- Review of the System Development Plan;
- Establishment of the Green Fund;
- Consultations are already underway for the establishment of a Green Fund to promote the development of renewable energy projects and programmes. Modalities to deal with the fund are being looked at and various options being considered including:
- Floating of green bonds through the Stock Exchange
- Establishment of a National Green Fund in conjunction with Climate Change Department which will be administered by the IDBZ tapping resources from the Global Green Fund.
- The other option is to get seed funding from the fiscus to start a rolling fund. This will be done after review of various options.
- The Ministry will however continue to engage multilateral institutions, other development partners, development banks and other local institutions to support this initiative.
- Provision of viability gap funding for off-grid projects in disadvantaged communities;
- Coordination of exploitation of energy minerals;
- Restructuring of ZESA Holdings Group; and
- Completion of the partial privatisation process for Petrotrade
The above stated key priority areas for the 2020 budget outlay a clear picture of a determined Ministry that has the intention to achieve its goals in line with national priorities. For example, the adoption of a sustainable cost reflective tariff will ensure viable and efficient service delivery.
1.1. Ministry’s key achievements in 2019
Despite the economic challenges currently prevailing in the country, the Ministry of Energy managed to post some achievements in 2019. Some of these achievements include:
- The Renewable and Bio fuels policy have already been approved by Cabinet and awaiting launching before the end of the year to give the necessary impetus and awareness. The Ministry has started implementing the policy initiatives through an implementation matrix that was developed including carrying out necessary amendments to existing legal instruments. Some of the incentives have already been adopted through the 2020 National Budget Statement done by Treasury including provision of incentives. The other incentives in the policy were incorporated into the previous Finance Acts.
- Identified a project developer for the Batoka Gorge Hydro Electric Scheme Project (2 400MW)-completion of feasibility studies.
- Hwange 7 and 8 expansion at 23% completion and on target (main powerhouse foundation and civil works, transmission line route clearance, electro-mechanical equipment designs).
- Kariba Dam Rehabilitation: Plunge pool works commenced and dam break even analysis field surveys done
- Manufactured / repaired of six hundred and four (604) transformers to increase access to electricity and reduce the backlog on new connections.
- Installed 29 885 (twenty nine thousand eight hundred and eighty five) prepaid meters countrywide in order to improve access to electricity and improve revenue collection.
- Electrification of ninety nine (99) rural institutions (schools, clinics, service centres and chiefs homestead) in eight rural provinces and
over 350 institutions to be completed before year end following tariff review which will improve levy collections.
- Construction of 12 biogas digesters, 180 improved wood stoves and over 10 000 solar home systems in rural areas.
- Commissioned over four MW Solar power plants & 2.06 MW Small Hydropower which are already adding power to the national grid and create employment.
- More than 120 people were trained in solar home systems installations, biogas digester construction and making of efficient wood cooking stoves
1.2. Ministry of Energy and Power Development 2019 Budget
Performance
Unlike in previous years, the Ministry of Energy and Power
Development’s disbursements from Treasury in 2019 exceeded the
Ministry’s total budget allocation for the year. This was a result of additional money transferred to ZESA for electricity imports. However, for Policy and Administration, the Ministry was allocated ZWL$2.1 million but as of 30 September 2019, the Ministry had only spent close to ZWL$1.9 million. This situation negatively affected the Ministry’s operations since it has some projects outside Harare which need constant monitoring.
- Overview and Analysis of the Ministry's 2020 Budget
Allocation
2.1. Ministry of Energy and Power Development 2020 Budget
Allocations
The Ministry of Energy and Power Development was allocated a total of ZWL$419.2 million. The amount allocated represent a 105.9% increase from the Ministry’s 2019 revised allocation. While in nominal terms the amount allocated increased, the share of the Ministry’s budget the total budget decreased from a share of 0.88% in 2019 to 0.66% in
- Figure shows 2020 budget allocations for all the ministries.
Figure1: 2020 Budget Allocations
2.2. Economic classification of the budget
Of the Ministry’s total allocation of ZWL$419. 2 million, ZWL$
20.2 million (5%) was allocated towards the Ministry’s operations which includes employment costs while ZWL$99 million (24%) will be for capital expenditures (buildings, capital machinery and equipment). The largest share of the Ministry’s allocation (ZWL$ 300 million) will go towards financing a loan to ZESA for the expansion and rehabilitation of Hwange Thermal Power Station which when completed will add an additional 300MW to the national grid.
Figure 2: Economic Classification of the Ministry’ 2020
Budget.
2.3. Ministry’ allocations vs Bids
Although the amount allocated to the Ministry increased, a number of programmes were underfunded. The Ministry had submitted a funding requirement of ZWL$236.707 million but was allocated
ZWL$419.2 million which represents a positive variance of 77%.
Although the amount allocated was higher than the amount which the Ministry had requested, there are some programmes which were underfunded. Figure 3 shows a comparison between the Ministry’s requirements and the actual allocations for its two programmes.
Figure 3: Ministry of Energy’s Allocation vs its funding requirements
Figure 3 shows a funding gap for the Policy and Administration of
ZWL$25.763 million. Of the ZWL$11.341 million allocated for the
Ministry’s operations, a larger share of the allocation will go towards payment of salaries and therefore leaving very little for Ministry’s operations. Figure 4 shows the composition of the Policy and
Administration budget allocation.
Figure 4: Composition of the Policy and Administration
Budget allocation
- Possible Economic implications of the 2020 Budget for the Ministry of Energy and Power Development
Although the Ministry got an overall budget higher than what it had requested, several sub-programmes were underfunded whilst others were adequately funded. The following are some of the possible implications of the 2020 budget allocation to the Ministry’s operations;
- Goods and Services - the Ministry was allocated ZWL$5.2 million against a bid of ZWL$38.614 million. This means that there was a funding gap of ZWL$33.414 million. The inadequate budget allocation for this expenditure item will greatly affect the Ministry’s operations such as supervision, monitoring and evaluation of projects under the Ministry’s purview. It is sad to note that the amount
allocated for fuel can only last for two months. The Ministry has the responsibility of constant monitoring the strategic reserves of petroleum fuels in Msasa and Feruka in Mutare. In addition, the Ministry has some conferences which they have to attend outside the country such as the IRENA. This conference is important for the Ministry because it opens funding opportunities for some renewable energy projects at concessionary rates of 1%.
- Capital Transfers: Treasury allocated ZWL$300 million for a loan facility to ZESA for the expansion and rehabilitation works at Hwange Units 7 and 8. To this end, this allocation will go a long way in supporting the implementation of this 600 MW expansion project through 2020 with commissioning of the first plant expected. Treasury also allocated ZWL$20 to Finealt Engineering for the renewable energy projects against a bid of ZWL$30 million. In addition, funding was also provided for the Ministry’s capital transfers of ZWL$74 million to the Rural Electrification Agency (REA) against a bid of ZWL$30 million. Out of this amount,
ZWL$70 million will be allocated towards implementation of eight solar mini grid projects and the other ZWL$4 million will fund the implementation of five biogas digesters. The allocation of ZWL$74 million will likely result in an increase of the rural electrification rate that currently stands at 13%.
- Coordination of the exploitation of energy minerals: In terms of coordination of the exploitation of energy minerals, no funding was provided for in 2020 budgeting year. However, the Ministry’s intention is to have a coordinated strategy for the exploitation of various energy minerals to produce energy for the nation in collaboration with Ministry of Mines and Mining Development. An Inter -Ministerial Committee and a Technical Working Committee shall be established between the Ministry of Mines and Energy to spearhead the various initiatives. This will include conducting visits to identified sites for inspections and ensure proper coordination of new projects and their implementation prioritisation.
Reforms on Fuel, Electricity and Pricing
The budget proposed a new pricing framework for fuel and electricity that adequately reflect costs including those resulting from changes in import prices and exchange rate fluctuations. This implies a diversion from the previous model where the prices were distorted by subsidies. Although the new framework may ensure adequate energy supply of electricity and fuel, it will likely result in frequent changes in their prices as the exchange rate is usually volatile. This will have implications on cost structures for the productive sectors and will exert inflationary pressure in most sectors because energy is an important component in most production processes.
The Ministry informed the Committee that the cost reflective which takes into account all imports and local production is USc12.48.69/kwh and the 2020 projections for electricity generation from the various sources and the cost for each source are shown in table
2020 Projections of Electricity generation and costs
Power Plant |
Production Projection in GWH |
Average Capacity in MW |
Average Production Cost/kwh ZWL |
Hwange Thermal Power Station |
3 952.8 |
450 |
132.96 |
Kariba Power Station |
2 415.6 |
275 |
59.27 |
Harare |
132.2 |
15 |
540.75 |
Munyati |
132.2 |
15 |
471.48 |
Bulawayo |
132.2 |
15 |
417.15 |
Total |
6 763.7GWh |
770MW |
Blended cost 126.32/kWh |
In addition, the Ministry projects that total imports for the year at 2 103.41GWh value were budgeted at US$163,035,040.56 and these are various prices depending on the source.
4. Recommendations
The Committee is of the view that there are some outstanding areas which if addressed will unlock the full potential of the industry, deepen the inclusivity and maximise its contribution to the socio-economic development of the country. In light of this, the Committee recommends the following measures which it feels will raise revenue in the sector and contribute to economic growth.
4.1. Reallocation of Ministry’s budget to support underfunded
programmes
The Portfolio Committee on Energy and Power Development noted with concern that there are some programmes which were underfunded whilst for others, the allocation was greater than what the Ministry had requested. An example is the allocation to REA of ZWL$74 million which is more than twice the amount which REA had requested. The Committee recommends that REA should move into new more projects instead of reallocating the money towards funding Ministry’s activities. Instead, Treasury should consider increasing the
Ministry’s allocation for its Policy and Administration programme.
Finalisation of the Renewable Energy Policy.
Zimbabwe has been faced with energy challenges since the late 2000, which saw massive power outages around the country of up to 18 hours a day. In addition, there has also been acute shortages of petroleum fuel. The Ministry of Energy and Power Development (MEPD) has committed itself to the development and adoption of renewable energy technologies (RETs) in the country and is developing a Renewable Energy Policy that is aimed at deepening the use of alternative renewable energy sources which will also help in reducing the impact of climate change. It is therefore recommended that Treasury provides sufficient support to ensure that the policy is launched so that implementation of the policy starts thereof.
4.2. Support programmes aimed at educating energy users on energy efficiency
The Committee noted with concern the rise in the demand of electricity across the country. It was noted that in some cases, a lot of energy is lost due to inefficient energy uses. The Committee therefore recommends the development of an energy efficiency policy as well as rolling out awareness campaigns on energy efficiency. The Parliamentarians can play a leading role in these campaigns in their constituencies.
4.3. Allocate funds to reduce vandalism of electricity infrastructure
Cases of vandalism have increased in most areas around the country. The Ministry of Energy reported that two transformers are vandalised every day and this has affected the provision of transformers to near areas as the newly acquired transformers will be allocated to areas that would have lost transformers due to vandalism. It is therefore recommended that the budget should provide funding for enhancing security of electricity infrastructure. In addition, there is also need for ZESA with the assistance of Parliament to carry out awareness campaigns to educate people on how they can police their areas and also to have a sense of ownership for infrastructure in their areas.
4.4. Raise public funds to support the renewable energy market
During the past few years when the electricity and fuel challenges became severe, the uptake of alternative sources increased. The country should therefore take advantage of this crisis and invest in other alternative sources such as renewable energy sources. The Government of Zimbabwe should be able to raise public funds to support the renewable energy market in the country. The funds may be appropriated from the current electricity levies based on per kWh of electricity consumed. These funds can then be used for addressing and bridging the pricing gap between renewables and traditional generating facilities, providing energy efficiency services and capacity building, reducing the cost of renewable energies by way of subsidies, education and training on energy issues and supporting research and development.
4.5. Review of conditions for issuing licences
It has been noted with concern that the Government has issued licences to Independent Power Producers and tenders to some companies to work on energy projects such as solar projects but some of them have failed to deliver. In most of these projects, it seems the people or companies given these licences are not credible and some have proved that they do not have enough funding to see the projects through. In light of these developments, the Committee recommends that licences for those who have failed to deliver within a given timeframe be revoked. In addition, the conditions for issuing licences be reviewed and licences should be given to individuals who are credible and have proof that they have capacity to raise the funds required for the project. In addition, the licences should be valid for a specified period of time after which the renewal will be linked to performance.
4.6. Provision of incentives
The Committee also recommends that there should be provision of incentives for persons with power generation capacity and a targeted strategy for solar generation.
4.7. Prioritise net metering
The gazetting of Electricity (Net Metering) Regulations Statutory Instrument 86 of 2018 liberalised the energy space, allowing consumers to be part of the power generation process while being consumers of power (pronsumers). Net Metering is a solar incentive programme that allows domestic and industrial users of power to be part of the generation mix as they can also store energy in the electric grid. When one’s solar PV system produces more electricity than is needed, that excess energy is fed to the grid in exchange for credits. These credits can be used to offset the electricity bill for the home or business owner. The Committee recommends that Government should further create conditions that promote net metering. The incentive is also meant to promote small-scale renewable energy generation.
Conclusion
The Portfolio Committee on Energy and Power Development is of the view that the potential of the energy sector to optimise its contribution to the socio-economic development of the country largely depends on Treasury’s willingness to release funds timeously and resolving a number of outstanding issues which the Committee has raised in this report. Renewable energy comes in the form of hydro, solar, geothermal, wind, and biomass. Zimbabwe is endowed with renewable energy resources including solar, hydropower and biomass energy. Tapping into these resources would help the country meet the energy supply challenge. Although there is no national policy on renewable energy in Zimbabwe at present, there exists a great potential for the development of renewable energy in the country. Barriers to the diffusion of renewable energy technologies in the country can be addressed through a policy environment and supportive regulatory framework that is conducive.
HON. MATEWU: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. Let me start by saying, the…
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Are you presenting a report?
HON. MATEWU: No, the reports are finished – [HON.
MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Order. I just want to confirm
whether all the reports have been done.
HON. MATEWU: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir – [HON.
MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – havazive ava. Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – Let me start by saying the Transitional Stabilisation Programme which was introduced by the Hon. Minister Mthuli has been a complete failure.
Using the notion which he championed, which was Austerity for
Prosperity – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: I am the Chair, I am giving
you directive. Lower your voices. Hon. Mamombe, I do not expect that from you.
HON. MATEWU: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. The TSP which was introduced by the Hon. Minister…
HON. DZUMA: Point of order Mr. Speaker.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Yes, what is your point of order – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – Order Hon. Members. I am the Chair here, I am the person who is supposed to be giving directives– [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – Hon.
Members, we want to hear what Hon. Dzuma is about to say – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – Hon. Members, please do not force me to send somebody outside – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible
interjections.] –
*HON. DZUMA: Point of order Mr. Speaker Sir. We are asking the Hon. Member to withdraw what he said. He said these people are not knowledgeable and this is unparliamentary.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER (HON. MUTOMBA): May
you withdraw?
HON. MATEWU: I withdraw.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: You can continue.
HON. MATEWU: The transitional stabilisation programme which was introduced by the Hon. Minister has been a complete failure. Using the notion which he championed – austerity to posterity; austerity has plunged our nation down the abyss of extreme poverty which has seen earnings everyday being eroded – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – Mr. Speaker Sir, these are notes Sir.
The monetary policy which was introduced by the Reserve Bank Governor in February has further worsened the fiscus crisis in this country. I want to ask the Minister why we should trust him and this is very important. This year the GDP has shrunk to minus 6.5%. When the Minister stood here last year this time, he projected an increase in GDP of 3.1% but today we stand here a year after and the GDP has decreased by 10% - so why should we trust the Minister?
I will turn to revenues; our revenues last year were US$6.5 billion
dollars.....
HON. T. MOYO: On a point of order Mr. Speaker Sir...
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Order Hon. Member –[HON.
MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – What is your point of order?
HON. T. MOYO: May the Hon. Member cite sources. He cannot just give statistical data without citing sources of information.
HON. MATEWU: The Hon. Member must read the 2019 Budget Statement by the Hon. Minister. He should also read the Budget Statement for this year by the Hon. Minister. This is where my sources
are.
So to continue, our budget –[HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible
interjections.] –
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Hon. Members –[HON.
MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – Hon. Members.
HON. MATEWU: The Hon. Minister projects RTGs 21 billion revenue for this financial year; with the current exchange rate at the black market, only amounts to US$1 billion – so we are moving from US$6.5 billion to US$1 billion within a year in terms of the revenues that this country is collecting. We have a huge macro-financial calamity and with his own figures in the table in the Budget Statement, our Pay
As you Earn (PAYE) only contributes 13% to the total revenue. We say Zimbabwe is open for business in this country but our corporate tax is only estimated to be 13% of the total revenues in this country. Going further we now rely on VAT and excess duty as a means of income in a country like ours. These two contribute 45%. Excess duty contributes 20% and VAT contributes 25% of the total revenue that this country is having. This is not sustainable.
In all the other countries, the number one source of revenue for any country is income tax and PAYE but in this country, we have to rely on people importing cars or imports to charge them duty so that we pay our civil servants. This means that even if we say we are welcoming businesses, our businesses are not actually giving us anything or a substantive tax in order. This is why I explained to the Hon. Minister that I think corporate tax should be increased by a percentage point and also income tax should be decreased so that we give people more money and businesses must pay more to ensure that they contribute their fair share.
Let me turn to tax. The whole idea behind austerity for prosperity and the TSP was to ensure that we are saving more money as a country but the problem is that in September 2018, our national external debt stood at US$7.7 billion. Since the introduction of the TSP, our debt in September 2019 is at US$8 billion. We have actually borrowed more and our debt has increased year on year despite the austerity for prosperity that the Minister was talking about.
Let me turn to agriculture. I am very glad that the Government has copied the smart agriculture – something which the MDC put in their manifesto but let us turn to the figures now. Since the inception of Command Agriculture in 2016, we have spent billions in agriculture trying to resuscitate and improve agricultural production in this country. Last year – 2018, we spent US$1.1 billion on agriculture. Have we done a cost benefit analysis to see if the money that we have put into agriculture is actually yielding the results that we intend to? Have we done a value for money audit on command agriculture to see if the money that we have spent on agriculture is actually bringing us any productivity and any growth?
I will give you an example; we budgeted US$401 million last year for agriculture but we spent 100% more than that but where are the results? As we stand now, we import almost everything. There is need for us to have a look at agriculture and say how do we best finance our agriculture or our farmers? Yes, agriculture used to be the backbone of this country but now we rely on taxes and not agriculture. That is wrong. We used to be the bread basket of Africa –[HON. MEMBERS:
Inaudible interjections.] –
Finally, I will focus on Local Government.......
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: May the Hon. Member be
heard in silence.
HON. MATEWU: The Ministry –[HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible
interjections.] –
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Why are you interjecting? What is your responsibility? If you have got something that you would want to contribute, I will give you the opportunity. Do not disturb the contribution –[HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – It is me who has got that responsibility. I have got eyes that see and ears that can hear. I have not asked for any assistance from anybody.
HON. MATEWU: I will now focus on Local Government. The Ministry of Local Government and National Housing got $1.8 billion – in this country; we have got a serious crisis of water. Most of our water reservoirs, that is the purification plants – infact, the one in Marondera where I come from and the one in Chegutu were all built during the
Smith era. I will give you the example of Marondera – it was built in 1975. The population of Marondera that time was around 20 000 and now it is on 85 000. The purification plants are not fit for that purpose. They cannot sustain the whole city and this is across the country. We needed to see the Budget addresses the issue of infrastructure because we need to invest on more infrastructure. What is going to be the growth rate for the cities in the next 30 years because there is a lot of rural to urban migration and we know that cities are expanding? We need to invest in infrastructure and the money that was allocated towards this is paltry and I ask the Hon. Minister to do the right thing and allocate to water the money it needs.
Mr. Speaker Sir in conclusion, I just want to say that we can do and try anything we like - the Hon. Minister whom I know is a very educated man but the fact is, unless we get the right fundamentals for our economy and tell each other the truth; unless we deal with the fundamentals of the Bond note, the RTGs and the money that is in your first Budget Statement when you mentioned that you had introduced a new currency and expect stabilisation; the truth of the matter is that the money that you put onto the market is absolutely useless as people are still selling money on the streets, people still cannot access money from the banks and people still cannot access money from the ATMs.
So, there is need to rethink on the Monetary Policy and there is need to rethink do we and are we strong enough at the moment? Do we have the right infrastructure for us to maintain the RTGs and Bond note? Where should we go? This is something that we need to really think about as a country because the terrain that we are currently traversing as a country is still heading towards the abyss. We will be back again this year to say, ‘Mr. Minister, your projections did not work like we did’.
So Hon. Minister, I commend this statement to the House. I thank you.
+HON. DR. LABODE: Hon. Minister, I would like you to listen carefully to what I am saying in regards to the National Aids Council. As Committee of Health and Child Care, we have not debated many things regarding the Ministry of Health and Child Care.
Mr. Speaker Sir, there is a 3% that is being collected from every
Zimbabwean in the name of Aids Levy that is supposed to help in the HIV programme. My concern is, Hon. Mthuli may you carefully listen to this because this is a serious issue. We are collecting 3% from every
Zimbabwean and it is going to the National Aids Council. The National
Aids Council for the past year has not had a board in place and has an
Acting Chief Executive. Is that a pot from where you steal or what is
the idea? Who is looking after that fund? Who is approving the disbursement and everything?
It is very serious and it means NAC can choose today to double dip from donor funds and that thing. The 3% - we will not know. Hon. Minister, please do something about that because I am very concerned. I thank you.
*HON. MAJAYA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. My concern is on the 14% VAT. That is too high, may you please reduce it to 10%. Again, looking at PAYE – you said that the threshold is two thousand dollars ($2 000.00), we know because the cost of things is very high. Please increase the threshold to above $3 000.00 so that people can have a higher purchasing power.
When you talk about inviting investors, we find that the taxes are too high like 25% because we noticed that in some countries, they are charging 25% for investors. May you also support women in mining because when they go to borrow money, the finance houses talk of collateral such as houses or any other property but they do not have that?
Therefore, I am requesting Government to have a revolving fund that can be used by women without going through collateral.
I will now turn to health on maternity care. We were informed that women are not paying anything towards maternity services but this is not a free delivery system since the women are encouraged to bring items such as cotton wool, dettol et cetera that are required during delivery. If we want our women to have free delivery then let the Hon. Minister allocate more money towards maternity so that women benefit and do not buy anything.
I will now turn to the issue of sanitary wear. We were informed that there is going to be free distribution of sanitary wear to schools and this is mainly directed to rural schools but we feel that all learners should be treated the same. Learners from urban areas should also benefit from these free sanitary wear – let us not be discriminatory.
+HON. MKANDLA: Thank you Hon. Speaker Sir. I would like to speak about what the Hon. Minister of Social Welfare mentioned regarding the removal of fees for patients in hospitals especially the elderly, those with HIV and AIDS, orphans and the disabled. It is not everyone who is supposed to be getting treatment who is getting the free treatment. Elderly people who are given letters to indicate that they are supposed to receive free treatment are in turn being given prescriptions that require them to go and buy medication. Can we say this person is getting free treatment when they are buying medication?
Hon. Minister, I once heard you making reference to Ekusileni Hospital in Bulawayo that this hospital is supposed to cater for cancer patients around Bulawayo. My question is, this hospital’s budget was mentioned in Victoria Falls but it is not mentioned how much is being allocated to this particular hospital in the budget. We want something in writing so that there is evidence to indicate that the hospital caters for cancer patients. I thank you
HON. BUSHU: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir, for allowing me to contribute to this very important debate. Looking at the budget, the incomes or the revenues and expenditures, you will appreciate one thing that is very difficult for the Minister. The Minister has got a very difficult job because just getting the revenues or to cover the expenditures is a very difficult job for him. A lot of people are asking for cuts in taxes, duties and so forth. There is one thing that is very critical. We are not getting the loans to support expenditure. We are also finding it very difficult – just ourselves to earn enough money to contribute to the expenses that we would like to see service delivery being done by our own Government.
I would like to encourage the Minister to remain and continue being creative and generate the revenues that are required. If you look at the bids that were given at Victoria Falls by the various ministries, they come to about $104 billion. The Minister had planned for around $28 billion and he stretched himself to round about $61 billion. What we are saying is that there is a dysfunction somewhere. The key dysfunction is coming through our inability as a country to generate enough revenues to pay for the activities that we want conducted by our Government. – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections]- I do not have to come that side, but I am talking reality here. What we are simply saying is, we must pay through taxes.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER (HON. MUTOMBA): May the
Hon. Member be heard in silence.
HON. BUSHU: We must pay and therefore that 2% is one of the things that I am saying the Minister must maintain until such a time. We can crank this system and we crank our revenue generating system so that we pay for the services that Government must provide for us. We are talking about a situation where Government has been collecting money and some Ministers in the past have actually said that we must eat what we kill. The point is – every Ministry has not received more than 60% of the required disbursement from the 2019 budget. What we are simply saying is that we have not been able to finance that.
Therefore Minister Sir, if you can continue being creative so that we pay and provide the services that Government would like to provide to our people. We also would like to see a lot of discipline on the part of the Ministry in terms of supervising the various ministries to perform when you have given them the money to use. That is very critical and we would like a very high level of accountability in that regard. I thank you Mr. Speaker Sir for allowing me to contribute.
*HON. KARENYI: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I would like to add onto what I think should be corrected by the Minister. I am very grateful for what has been done in this budget especially to the advantage of women. I will talk about the case of free duty on sanitary wear whereby when we are importing we are not going to pay any duty on the sanitary wear. When we look at Zimbabwe, it is endowed with a lot of land and good farmers. Now that we have embarked on smart agriculture, let us empower cotton farmers because you know that as long as we harvest enough cotton, we will be able to manufacture our own sanitary pads since they are manufactured using cotton.
When we are talking about smart agriculture, let us also concentrate on crops and products such as cotton. I am begging you Minister to redistribute some of these monies to cotton farmers because after we have harvested the cotton, we will open up factories to manufacture these sanitary pads, and in that way we will also create employment - not only that, locally manufactured sanitary wear will be at low cost.
I visited Zambia and their sanitary wear is very cheap. It is 30 cents per pad. They have looked for ways and means of reducing the cost of the sanitary pads. We notice as we travel that when we went to countries like the United States of America, they are distributing these sanitary wears in toilets so that they can be accessible by vulnerable groups and hence, my call to the Minister of Finance to increase allocation to these cotton farmers.
I want to talk about accommodation in universities. The Minister has said he is looking for ways of easing the shortage of accommodation in the universities. As a mother, when we look at these universities, they are contracting HIV and other STIs. The simple reason is that these youngsters cannot afford the expensive accommodation, hence they are exposed to the vagaries of the corrupt people.
I am calling upon the Minister to put more money in constructing accommodation for the students and these youngsters especially the girls who are exposed to sugar daddies. I am not ashamed to even say some of the sugar daddies are fellow Members of Parliament. They go to these areas and prey on the young girls. These young girls call these sugar daddies blessers and they think the blesser will be abusing his body sexually. The child thinks they are having a good life because they can afford food and all other luxuries which are needed for youngsters. Minister, please put more money in the accommodation of these students so that we ease the problem of our youngsters.
We have also talked about environment in our budget. Let us invest more in our environment because at the rate at which we are going, in depleting our environment we now have climatic change where we have these droughts and other harsh climatic conditions like Cyclone Idai disaster. The reason why there is this climate change is because people are now cutting trees for firewood and some of them are even creating charcoal. I am pleading with the Minister to please add more money for the environment so that people can even afford electricity and gas instead of cutting trees. We have some of the things which are happening because we cannot repair them, but we have to address the issue of environment instead of correcting the wrongs that will have been done.
Mr. Speaker Sir, let us support the environment through resourcing the Environmental Management Agency (EMA). The reason why the
local authorities are not able to look after their forest or any other mismanagement of natural resources is because the local authorities are under-funded and they cannot afford to police all the areas within their jurisdiction. That is why I am calling upon the Minister to put more money on environment. I will now talk about health. When you look at health delivery, as a country we are failing to secure enough drugs. We had a workshop last week in Mutare and we had people who were discussing issues about family planning. We realised that family planning methods are now expensive and cannot be afforded by ordinary people. Minister, put more money on family planning methods so that people can space their children and be able to take care of them instead of having a lot of children because one cannot be able to look after them. In the long run, the Government then takes care of those children through the Department of Social Welfare.
On medicines in the country, we have noticed that the ARVs are in short supply and the biggest problem is that we are getting our medication from the donors. Let us be independent so that we can have affordable ARVs. If individuals cannot afford these then they will die. We have been told that our ARVs are in short supply and we run the risk of falling into the trap especially when the donor withdraws their services. I think we need to invest more in our drugs because if we were to investigate we would found out that most Members of Parliament are on ARVs, so let us not be ashamed about talking about ARVs. Whether you like it or not, one way or the other if you are not affected, you are infected because we have relatives and friends who are suffering from this disease.
I will now turn to transport; I know we have a subsidised system of using ZUPCO. Let us look for better ways of getting affordable transport. My suggestion is that let us increase salaries so that they are in-tandem with the current expenses in the country. At the moment, as long as we continue subsidising, the costs will still go up. Individuals must survive on their salaries; ZUPCO has draw cards where you go and repay for your fares in advance. This will be easy for us because this is happening in other countries.
Consumer Council has said the bread basket is now pegged at
RTGS4000 so that an average family will get basics not any luxury item.
This only shows that the minimum salary for a worker should be RTGs 4000, whether we like it or not this is what is prevailing in the country. As Members of Parliament, we cannot afford to get all the needs we want, how about the old people in villages, those who are not working and the vulnerable groups, how do they manage? We need to think of them, they need to live a decent life.
I will conclude my speech on Cyclone Idai. We received a lot of money from donors, individuals and neighbouring countries. My worry is on the unaccountability and acquittals of these donations. These monies are not being accounted for properly because we have heard of instances where there is food which is said to have expired and this is not good for human consumption. I am now calling upon Government to create an accountable system and I am pleading with my fellow members, please pay a courtesy call to Chimanimani. The people are still in dire need of assistance; the roads, and the schools are bad. Yes, the bridges have been constructed but the people’s welfare is at stake because when we are talking of what is happening now, the bridges have been constructed but what is now left is the welfare of the people. I am grateful for what Government has done in reconstructing these roads.
What is really pleasing is that we have had assistance from the South African National Army who came to help us construct bridges which had been destroyed by Cyclone Idai. Minister, I am begging with you, we need to have a monitoring and evaluation system on expenses.
We have a department under the Local Government called the Civil Protection Unit. This is a unit which should be well funded so that they are prepared to face any disaster which may come up because what has been noticed is that when disasters strike we are not prepared. Let us have a monitoring and evaluation programme so that they can even predict some of these disastesr which will be coming and people can be moved on time to safer areas. Invest more on people who are suffering from post traumatic stress because of Cyclone Idai. These people need to be rehabilitated and counseled because they lost people who were dear to their hearts and whom they were depending on. They need to be assisted and supported. We need to give enough funds to our Social Welfare in the country. I thank you.
*HON. TOGAREPI: I am grateful for the Minister for the way he crafted the budget, it shows that we have an intelligent Zimbabwean manning our national fiscus. There is no country in this world today which operates on a surplus budget, not even those developed countries; they cannot afford that. Some of these countries find it difficult to follow that budget because their expenses are beyond the revenues which they collect. Minister, I want to assist you in this issue by asking you to increase your tax base because the only people who pay taxes are civil servants and these are the people who are funding all the Government expenditure. I am calling upon the Minister..
HON. CHIKWINYA: On a point of order Hon. Speaker.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: What is your point of order?
HON. CHIKWINYA: Hon. Speaker, just today, Hon. Adv.
Mudenda ruled that we cannot use more than two languages in a debate and the Hon. Member – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Point of order overruled, he is using one language – [HON. CHIKWINYA: Ari kuti kufanda. Kufanda kuita sei?] – Overruled. Can you resume your seat? Hon. Chikwinya, can you approach the Chair – [HON. CHIKWINYA: Ari kuti kufanda.
Kufanda kuita sei?] –
*HON. TOGAREPI: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir for protecting me from the hecklers. I am saying as a country when we are talking of the expenses of the Government, we have a very low base where we collect our funds. Most of the people in Zimbabwe belong to the informal sector and more business is now created in the informal sector. They are using the roads, they are using the hospitals, they are using all the facilities yet they do not pay taxes despite the fact that they make a lot of money, more than what is earned even by the civil servants. I am calling upon the Minister – please, I beg you. Get a way of including these indigenous business people into the tax collection base so that you have more money. When you look at this time whereby we are now closing the business of the day, in the streets especially Samora Machel, we find there are a lot of new good cars. You wonder why we have people driving such beautiful cars yet the country is in financial difficulties. I am calling upon the Minister to check on the lifestyles. Make a lifestyle audit of these people so that they can justify the way they earn their salaries to live such a lavish life.
Mr. Speaker, I have only talked about these expensive cars. When you visit low density areas, we have mansions that were constructed by those people. You look at the background of the person who constructed that house, they are not employed anywhere but they managed to afford that mansion. That is why I am saying let us have a lifestyle audit so that you can check where all these monies come from. I will turn to local authorities. Every time Government would be looking for ways of supporting financially these locally authorities yet these local authorities have a way of getting funds from rates and rentals. We also need to have a way of evaluating and monitoring the expenses of these local authorities because as far as I am concerned these people are abusing the funds for their personal benefit.
Minister, we thank you for the Budget but I think what we need to look at now is that we have to fight the black market. If we travel in the streets, we have a lot of financial vendors who will be selling foreign currency, yet as a country we have a Finance Act. We also have the
Acts which are run by the Reserve Bank and the Ministry of Finance.
When we look at the financial vendors, they are the people determining the cost of living in the country. They are determining the rate of goods in the country.
I am begging the Minister to come up with a budget which will be able to fight the money laundering people who are in the streets. These osipatheleni, let us fight them. We also have people who are in the uniformed services such as the police, the soldiers and the prison officers. These people have shops in their cantonment areas. These stores in the past used to be well stocked so that these uniformed services that make us live a happy and peaceful life in Zimbabwe. The cantonment areas had well stocked shops and the goods were affordable. We need to get support from the Government so that we subsidise goods in these cantonment areas or the garrisons so that you do not get these people corrupted or living a pauper life.
Minister, we are very grateful for the Budget which you presented. It shows that you are an expert, crafting such a budget in such a difficult time. You have people at heart. You think about their welfare and their health. What worries us is that some of these people who are capable of paying their taxes are not willing to pay these taxes. I am calling upon you Minister, please spread your tax collection base. I will repeat, spread your collection base so that when we are going to ask for assistance from the donors we would have amass our own revenue sufficient evidence and finances. I am very grateful. Please spread your tax collection base.
*HON. CHIKUKWA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir for giving me the opportunity to make my contribution. ...
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: I am informed that you
presented a report for the Committee.
*HON. CHIKUKWA: I had presented about the Local
Government.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: No, no.
*HON. CHIKUKWA: But vamwe vataura wani?
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: No, no you cannot.
*HON. M. MOYO: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I am very
pleased by the Budget presented by the Minister. We are living in difficult times but the Minister managed to craft a well calculated budget for the benefit of the nation. I will add my voice onto what has been stated by my previous speakers. In rural areas especially when I look at the young girls who are in secondary boarding schools, they are forced to look for makeshift homes where they can get accommodation. These children are taken advantage of, victimised by even the teachers any other people in the surrounding areas. They are sexually abused. In my constituency in Mwenezi, these learners seek for lodges in the villages near the schools. As a result they are exposed to the life of corruption, sex and life which is too bad for them. Let us support these children in these difficult areas.
We now look at the small scale miners. These people are getting their gold and minerals but they are not selling to the State through Fidelity. Hon. Minister, may you please create areas where the Fidelity arm is present so that these small scale miners do not travel long distances to go and sell their gold, because at the moment they may have to travel long distances. As a result, the best is to sell this gold to other unscrupulous dealers. Minister, may you please create an environment which is conducive for women miners to fully participate in mining because the current rates make it difficult for women to partake in mining. In your budget, please support women miners.
Let me talk about the black market, especially these money launderers. We were even told that some monies which had been obtained through the banks were then taken to the money launderers in the streets, these osiphatheleni and some of the people who abuse these chances are workers in the financial institutions. I visited a certain bank with the intention of withdrawing some money. People were given numbers so that they could collect money. What surprised me is that I was given number 42 yet physically I was number one. So there is corruption there. Hence, I am calling upon the Minister to look into such issues whereby bank officials are corrupt. I thank you
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: May the owners of vehicle numbers AEX 2969 and ADI 9028 remove their cars which are obstructing other cars.
*HON. MATSUNGA: Thank you Mr. Speaker for giving me the opportunity to make my contribution. I would like to advise the Minister of Finance to put more money on the BEAM programme. This programme should not only be applicable to primary schools but should spread to secondary schools and also tertiary level. BEAM should also be well-funded so that it can pay all the school fees. What has since happened is that we have Grade Sevens who have not received their examination results because their fees have not been paid, yet when we talk about some of the people who benefit we have all the people in all the classes of life who need the support of BEAM because you will be creating a bright future for Zimbabwe. When we are talking of BEAM, we are talking of vulnerable children.
We have been informed that people who are above the ages of 65 years should not pay for services in Government hospitals yet what happens is they are given a prescription to go and buy their medications. Even the under fives are not supposed to pay for treatment but they are only diagnosed and given prescriptions to go and buy the medication. We have children who are being taken advantage of by these abusive men and when they give birth nobody takes care of those babies. So put more money so that they are supported.
Let us now look at the Ministry of Energy, may you please look at funding the gas acquisition because it should be easy for women or people to access gas because at the moment women are forced to go into forests to seek for firewood and they are exposed to rapists, muggers and thugs. That is why I am saying when you are allocating funds to the Ministry of Energy, please look for ways of putting more funds on subsidies of gas and women cannot afford to buy the gas because most of them are unemployed. So please subsidies gas.
Another issue that is related to women is on agriculture. Women work very hard, especially in tobacco farming but despite working so hard, nobody is taking care of them. I am begging you through the Ministry of Agriculture, may you please de-silt the dams that have been suffering from siltation and also repair those that are broken down so that women will be able to carry out irrigation programmes. We all know that if you bank on a woman there will be success. Thank you.
HON. MUDARIKWA: Thank you very much Mr. Speaker for
allowing me to stand up and contribute to our national budget. Our national budget has put money into education but in the whole process of putting that money to education there is somewhere where we are stopping. I was going through last year’s O’ Level results, the national average pass rate for our O’ Level results is 10%. These are the people who are passing O’ levels, going to A’ level and obviously, on to universities. The population of our students at universities exceeds
50 000 people but then 90% of our students are supposed to go to VTC (Vocational Training Centres). VTC means that you are giving somebody life skills, skills that will work for him. An audit into our
VTC, we only have 2000 people in our VTC.
What is a VTC? A VTC is an institution that gives skills even to Hon. Members in this august House who are have difficulties in communicating or presenting can still go to VTC and acquire critical skills where they are able to communicate or mobilize. Those who are losing elections can actually acquire skills as part of vocational training where you go through a training of mass mobilisation. Mass mobilisation is an ability to be accepted and be admired. You know, you can be ugly but when you have the skill of mobilisation you will be admired by everybody. Vocational skills can assist everybody to be accepted – [AN HON. MEMBER: Zvinei nebudget?] – It has something to do with the budget.
We now want to move to a system Hon. Minister, where we have vocational training centres at ward level. We do not have infrastructure for vocational training centres. But what we do is, we say every secondary school, when they close; it is now a vocational training centre. We are giving our people skills like building, carpentry and building which is critical in our society. There are social problems associated
with poor building abilities. At our home there, people built a grave and there was a huge crack and it created social problems because people did not understand what was happening until we educated them that this grave was constructed and there is no bond. So, we need these skills so that it creates social stability.
People were talking about houses affected in our area – Uzumba-
Maramba-Pfungwe where the people were said to be affected by the Cyclone but also, the quality of houses being built in rural areas leaves a lot to be desired. We need to build a lot of houses and we need also to build a lot of toilets as a way of developing the quality of our lives. Mr. Speaker Sir, war in Zimbabwe ended in 1979 but there are some families that do not have a toilet at their houses. So every morning, they wake up, take cover under the bush and it is bringing them back to war memories where they were taking cover behind the bush because they did not have a toilet. So, when we have Vocational Training Centres, we then have toilets all over and that is the basis of our development.
Vocational Training Centres create another situation where we create employment at home. We create employment at home because there is massive movement of people into urban areas as some are coming into Harare and quickly they are rank-marshals shouting Harare apo, Harare apo. What are they doing but, we cannot waste that energy just announcing Harare apo, Harare apo when somebody knows where he is going. We must give these people a skill to develop – either they produce agriculturally or they produce many other things.
Hon. Speaker, I announced in this august House that we must grow mbanje for the purposes of economic development but many people laughed because of the problem of ignorance. Ignorance is like death because you do not know that you are dead. The day you will know you are ignorant is when you wake up and say, I must make money for my life and my country and we must never as an august House admire poverty. What is poverty? Poverty is the inability to make money for yourself, your family and your country. So, when we have a social grouping of people who admire poverty, then they manifest themselves into a political party which then admires poverty. You will then continue to be admirers of poverty in a political institution, then you destroy the economy of the country because you are poverty admirers. Poverty admirers are people who do that out of ignorance and because they are ignorant, you must forgive them. When you forgive ignorant people, you are also educating them. There is no point in our situation to say, when somebody is ignorant... - [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections] - This is part of the budget.
I want to salute the Hon. Minister because the situation in
Zimbabwe is very difficult but you have come out strong. - [HON.
MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections] -
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Hon. Members, please can you
allow him to proceed?
HON. MUDARIKWA: Iwewe wakapfeka kunge hweta, I will ask
an order from you.
*HON. KUREVA: On a point of order Mr. Speaker. The Hon.
Member who is making his contribution is pointing a finger at me and I do not know what that means. - [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible
interjections] -
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Order please. I hear you Hon. Member and I gave you notice that you are making a lot of noise and you are creating that noise. Please, can we proceed?
HON. MUDARIKWA: Mr. Speaker Sir, I want to thank you very much. Every situation where you have results, you will then have a lot of confusion. You know that Joseph was thrown into a pit by his brothers for him to be a king. And, Jesus Christ was kissed by Judas Iscariot for him to lead the world to where it is today. So, every difficult situation creates a moment where in the whole process, some difficult situations do arise. So, when a difficult situation does arise, Hon. Minister and Hon. Speaker Sir, hamufanire kutya rima risina bere kana kutiza banga rehuswa. - [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections] -
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Order, Hon. Sithole.
HON. MUDARIKWA: We only have one Speaker in this august
House and that one Speaker is who I respect but hallucinations to be Speaker is part of life and that is also part of manifestation of ignorance and when ignorance comes to you, you think that you are right.
Let me salute the Hon. Members in this august House who have come here to debate and contribute to the development of our mother country, Zimbabwe. Aluta continua. Thank you very much.
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (HON. M. NCUBE): Mr. Speaker Sir, I move that the debate do now adjourn.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Tuesday, 9th December, 2019.
SECOND READING
CORONER’S OFFICE BILL [H. B. 5, 2019]
First Order read: Second Reading: Coroner’s Office Bill [H. B. 5,
2019]
Question again proposed.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you Hon.
Speaker. I just want to start by thanking the Hon. Members that debated the Coroner’s Bill and the Committee for a job well done. I just want to make a few responses to issues raised by Hon. Members and the Committee. In its report, the Committee was concerned about the definition of unnatural deaths and they wanted it changed. It is my submission Hon. Speaker that in defining unnatural death, Members be advised that they are supposed to read it in conjunction with the definition of natural deaths then it will have a clear meaning. In that regard, the definitions as they are in the Bill are okay.
Mr. Speaker Sir, there was a concern on the establishment and constitution of the office. The Committee was of the view that we should not have in the Bill a statement that the Minister may endeavour to establish branches at provincial, district and other administrative levels. Rather, they were of the view that these offices must be, at the first instance, be established. However, the reason for framing the provision as an endeavour is to take into account the resource constraints that we may have. Government is faced by competing priorities like the wage bill and public infrastructure. Therefore, we cannot commit in advance to say at the inception of the office, the Minister shall establish offices at provincial or district levels. However, they will be progressive and gradual realisation of decentralization. Besides devolution, it is secure because the Deputy Coroner -General will reside in Bulawayo.
In terms of Clause 5, appointment of Coroner- General and Deputies, the Committee was of the view that there must be some involvement of Parliament in the appointment of the Coroner and the Deputies. However, consistent with the doctrine of separation of powers, appointments into executive offices are the preserve of the Executive. Mr. Speaker, where Parliament is involved in such matters, the Constitution has always explicitly expressed so like in cases of independent commissions. It should be understood that fulltime public officers do not allow other paid workers to be done.
On the issues of qualifications of Coroners, let us be clear that for the most part of the Coroner himself or herself, he or she will not do the postmortems. It is not the duty of the coroner to go and do postmortems. That will be done by medical practitioners. Therefore, it is contemplated that even retired police officers with extensive experience in forensic homicide investigation may be appointed. Hence we do not wish to tie ourselves too much with specific qualifications. As such, I believe the term ‘prescribed discipline’ needs to remain in the Bill.
On preservation of records, the relevant institutions like hospitals and prisons already have established protocols on record keeping which the Bill need not to interfere with. These protocols identify specific persons to be responsible for record keeping. As such, the Clause must
be left as it is.
On Clause 10, review of a decision not to hold an inquest, the Committee indicated that the Clause provides for the review of a decision by a Coroner not to hold an inquest. It states that a person aggrieved by the decision not to hold an inquest can apply to the Coroner or Coroner- General for a consideration of the decision and that should be done within a period of 30 years from the date of the deceased concerned.
My response to that is that I believe that the 30 years is a generous provision for an application for consideration of a decision not to do an inquest. We should remember that witnesses pass away and that written records have a timely limit for their safekeeping, usually five years. This does not mean that if murder was committed, then the murderer is exonerated because there is no limit to the prosecution for murder cases as long as you have proof. Further, there are other ways of obtaining evidence besides inquest. On publications of findings, I am agreeable to putting a provision that findings be published within three months.
In terms of Clause 16, inquest to be disposed with in relation to members of the Defence Forces. As regards, internal investigations by the disciplined forces, the notice to the Coroner mentioned in this Clause is sufficient and that notice may be called a certificate if one wishes.
Mr. Speaker Sir, on Clause, 17, which I believe Hon. Members have misunderstood completely, there was a view that this Clause provides that the Minister may give policy direction to the Coroner General to which the Coroner- General should comply. The Committee was of the view that the Minister must not give the policy direction. Mr. Speaker Sir, if you go into the Constitution, Ministers are appointed to make and implement policies. Therefore, by saying that Ministers should not give policy directions, you will be stopping them from fulfilling their functions. I believe that we should not assume that Ministers cannot be trusted to make good policies; it is the job of Ministers to make policies. So, this clause should be left as it is and if they make a bad policy, I think Hon. Ministers are answerable to Parliament. You can always ask them on any policy issues that they would have made.
Clause 18 on regulations; the opinion is that the clause that provides that the Minister in consultation with the Coroner General may prescribe regulations is not good enough. My response to that is that regulation is law making and the power to make laws is delegated to Ministers by Parliament. Therefore, the Minister is accountable to Parliament for the exercise of his or her powers. So you cannot delegate the power to make laws to the Coroner General because that particular individual is a stranger in the House and cannot be delegated powers as he has no audience in the House.
There was a suggestion to create a board of the office that “why not create a board for the Coroner’s office”. Hon. Speaker, it is not the case that every Statutory Office must be accountable to a board. If that was the case, there would have been more boards than officials and the system will be simply unmanageable. For single holder public offices such as the Coroner General and the Deputy Coroner General, appointment by the President is sufficient and accountability to Parliament through the Minister is enough.
I will now respond to issues raised by Hon. Members. I want to thank Hon. Nduna for his concerns; he indicated that there was a fear that doctors may be prosecuted for genuine mistakes - that is not the case. This Bill is about unnatural deaths and not deaths in hospitals, despite that there are regulations as to how hospitals operate and so this does not arise as the Bill is not targeted at medical personnel.
Hon. Nduna was also of the opinion that there should be electronic record keeping which is a very big thing and this can be progressively realised. There is also a matter raised that there is need for a Coroner to liaise with regulatory bodies before he or she sends information to NPA in cases where a criminal offence has been committed. This provision is not targeted at specific professionals. What we are looking at is unnatural deaths, there is no unnatural death that occurs in a hospital unless if the doctor, for some strange reasons deviates from doing his normal duties and does something that a reasonable person in the person of a doctor would not ordinarily do. After the relevant professional board has ruled that this conduct is not professional, a reasonable person would have done this, then perhaps that is when it can be referred for prosecution but those are cases that are not covered by unnatural deaths as described by this Bill.
Response to matters raised by Hon. Phulu. Hon. Phulu’s submission wanted that at least three family members be involved when an inquest is done. I agree to the submission by Hon. Phulu and I want to thank him for his afro-centric perspective relating to the role of families and this we can amend accordingly.
Responses to matters raised by Hon. Mliswa; it was the matter about the Coroner General’s appointment and I think I have already addressed this. So Hon. Chair, these are the issues that came up for debate and I think we can proceed. I move that the Bill be now read a second time. I thank you.
Motion put and agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Committee Stage: With leave, forthwith.
COMMITTEE STAGE
CORONER’S OFFICE BILL [H. B. 5, 2019]
House in Committee.
Clauses 1 to 9 put and agreed to.
On Clause 10;
HON. MATEWU: Clause 10 is the review of the decision not to
hold an inquest. I agree and I want to focus on Clause 10 (3), if the Coroner or Coroner General or Deputy Coroner General decides to uphold the decision in terms of Section 9 (8) that you can apply to the High Court. Since the debate has been mentioning the Minister as someone who the Coroner General reports to, I was proposing, because if a family that is aggrieved has to go direct to the High Court to make an application against the Coroner General or the Deputy Coroner that would be costly. So this could be from a poor family who genuinely wants an inquest to be held. I think we should add another clause, Clause 4 and in that case they can go to the Minister at no cost and the
Minister must be given very minimal time to respond to the applicant. We should add on the clause that if they do not agree with the decision of the Minister then they can go to the High Court, which will make
Clause 10 (5) if that makes sense.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): I seek your
indulgence, in my presentation there are certain concessions that I promised the Committee and it skipped my mind when we got to Clause
- So I seek your indulgence to go back to Clause 7.
On Clause 7 on page 9 of the Bill in line 42 after the word death, I propose we delete “by a member or a representative” and substitute the following words: “not more than three members of the family or representatives”. This was the proposal that Hon. Phulu had put forward.
On Page 11 of the Bill in line (1) delete the words “by a member or representative and substitute the following words “by the members of the family or representatives of those families.” On Page 11 of the Bill in line (4) after medical practitioner insert the following words; “or by any other medical practitioner chosen by the family to represent them. I thank you Hon. Chair.
Amendment to Clause 7 put and agreed to.
Clause 7, as amended, put and agreed to.
HON. ZIYAMBI: Thank you Mr. Chair, we revert to Clause 10. I listened attentively to Hon. Matewu and I disagree. This Bill pertains to unnatural deaths and the moment you want to refer a decision of the Coroner to a Minister, it will be interpreted as the Minister is a politician and there will be political interference. We would rather have it – you appeal to the Coroner General and from there you go to the courts. If you go to the Minister, it is very dangerous. Otherwise the very same Hon. Member who raised it, the moment it happens to somebody who is close to him and he is not aligned to the Minister, there will be an outcry that the Minister suppressed the inquest. So I think the way it is has got very good safeguards and it clears the Minister out of all these issues pertaining to an inquest. Thank you.
HON. MUSHORIWA: Mr. Chair, I think the Minister did not hear the concerns, the point is very simple. Most of the people that are affected by the decision, some of them will be coming from poor backgrounds. Right now, the Hon. Minister as a legal practitioner knows the costs of getting a lawyer to represent you in the High Court. It will be beyond the people, for instance in the constituency that he represents. Maybe constituencies like ours may probably find it easier but for most constituencies it will be very difficult. I also think it is not correct for the Minister to try to say he wants to remove the Minister because he is afraid of their political nature and that they will be seen to be interfering. We know Mr Chair that most of our legislation refers to the Minister, so I do not understand why the Minister would want to move primarily because we are talking of unnatural death. I do not think it is an issue. What the Minister should do is just to concede for the sake of the ordinary man and woman of this country that there will arise a time that they may not have the money to apply to the High Court. So I think the request by Hon. Matewu makes sense. Hon. Minister, I think on this one you should concede. If the Minister does not concede he should make another concession and say in this life of Parliament he will not bring a Bill that has got the Minister being referred to because we have passed Bills before in this august House where the Minister is actually a referral point. So to that extent Hon. Minister, I know you do not want to do a lot of amendments but I think it is important that you concede.
HON. MATEWU: Just to buttress what Hon. Mushoriwa has said. When we make laws in this House we are not making them for ourselves. We should never ever consider that one day I will come and put the Minister to account for those laws that we have made here. We make these laws for the greater good of our constituency – those who we represent. We know that most people are poor at the moment and asking someone from Zvimba where the Hon. Minister resides, to go to the High Court and apply when they have a genuine concern about the death of one of their loved ones. I know the Minister does not want that responsibility, but today it is him in that position, tomorrow it could be Hon. Madzimure. Let us make these laws so that they are in the greater interest of the public. I thank you.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you Hon.
Chair. What the Hon. Members are requesting me to do is unattainable.
They are actually asking me to create a bad law because somebody cannot pay to do the correct thing. However, we have provisions in our Constitution where we now have legal aid. We have provisions for setting up that institution within my Ministry. So if you do not have, you qualify to seek legal aid within our legal aid directorate. What I just want to urge Hon. Matewu is, you must not let hard cases be the cause of a bad law. It is bad practice.
Hon. Chair, what will happen is, if the Coroner decides to decline an inquest and then you approach the Minister, if the Minister upholds that decision, it is the Minister who will be blamed and not the Coroner. So already, we would have set a bad precedence that the Minister is the one who has declined. What we are saying is, let us leave the Minister out of this equation. You go to the Coroner and if he declines, you apply to him for a review so that he can review his decision. If he refuses, you go to the High Court, that is good law. However, if you say that because
I do not have money in my pocket, I now want to go to the Minister when we are dealing with unnatural deaths, we would have created a bad law. So I propose that we adopt it as it is. I thank you.
Clause 11 to 13 put and agreed to.
On Clause 14:
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Hon. Chair, on
Clause 14 on page 14 of the Bill on line 35, between “must” and “publish” insert, “within 3 months.” So, must ‘publish within 3 months.’ I thank you.
Clause 14 put and agreed to.
Clauses 15 to 21 put and agreed to.
Schedule 1 and 2 put and agreed to.
Bill reported with amendments.
Bill referred to the Parliamentary Legal Committee.
MOTION
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you Hon.
Speaker Sir. I move that Order of the Day Number 3 be stood over until Order of the Day Number 4 has been disposed of. I thank you.
Motion put and agreed to.
SECOND READING
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION BILL [H. B. 6, 2019]
Fourth Order read: Second Reading: Freedom of Information Bill [H. B. 7, 2019].
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI) on behalf of THE
MINISTER OF INFORMATION, PUBLICITY AND
BROADCASTING SERVICES (HON. SEN. M. MUTSVANGWA):
I would like to take this opportunity to present my second reading speech on the Freedom of Information Bill.
I take this opportunity to state the purpose and main features of the
Bill and in brief, the Freedom of Information Bill H.B. 6, 2019 sets out;
- the procedure for access to information held by public institutions by the citizenry and permanent residents;
- the procedure for accessing by any person of information held by any person where the information is necessary for the exercise or protection of a right;
- considerations for making available certain categories of information on a voluntary basis by entities, thereby obviating the need for formal requests for such information;
- the scope of limitations on the right of access to information which are conceived, in some cases as mandatory, and in others as discretionary and protection against disclosure of information;
- the rights of third parties with respect to any information whose disclosure has been requested;
- the role of principal officers of entities and information officers in the implementation of the right to access information;
- the procedures for internal appeals and court appeals against decisions made by information officers or principal officers of entities with respect to requests for access to information;
- the time limits within which processes must be carried out; and
- the additional functions of the Zimbabwe Media Commission with respect to the right of access to information, which are to be exercised in the normal course of its role as the guardian of right of access to information.
The repeal of the Access to Information and Promotion of Privacy
Act [Chapter 10:27], (AIPPA) which necessitates the introduction of the
Freedom of Information Bill as well as the other aforementioned two
Bills – the Zimbabwe Media Commission Bill and the Protection of Personal Information Bill was undertaken as part of the ongoing constitutional alignment process. My Ministry, in collaboration with the Inter-Ministerial Task Force on the alignment of legislation to the Constitution (IMT), commenced this process by developing discussion papers which assessed the compatibility of AIPPA with the Constitution from a number of perspectives including in respect of the right of access to information.
A number of gaps were identified in these analyses, which also included a comparative analysis of AIPPA vis-a-vis international treaty provisions that the Government of Zimbabwe is party to. One of the emerging findings from the research done, was on the need to have stand-alone laws that facilitate the existence of effective legal frameworks on the various rights and on other aspects that AIPPA seeks to regulate. One of the proposed stand-alone laws in the Freedom of Information Bill which should outline the framework within which the right of access to information may be exercised in Zimbabwe and whose need is mainly necessitated by the fact that on the whole, the provisions of AIPPA do not adequately facilitate the exercise of the fight of access to information as envisaged by the broad scope of the right as provided for in Sections 61 (1) (a) and 62 of the Constitution.
Further, some of its provisions are in direct conflict with the stated as well as other provisions of the Constitution. Aside from the substantive issues regarding the conformity of AIPPA with the Constitution, there is notably a growing trend across the continent and beyond to have a separate legal framework for the right of access to information.
The African Commission on Human and People’s Rights which is the African Union’s human rights body for example, continues to advocate for the passing of comprehensive and separate access to information laws through its Model Law on Access to Information which it adopted in 2012. As such, the passing of a separate law promoting access to information would also be in line with the proposed
African standard and with trends in other African countries.
The discussion paper with proposals for the framework of the Freedom of Information Bill, was subsequently presented to stakeholders during 5 round table stakeholder consultation meetings that were held in Harare from the 26th-30th November 2018 and at an All
Stakeholders workshop also held in Harare from 7th-8th of December 2018 respectively. The purpose of the Stakeholder Consultations was to solicit stakeholder input on the gaps in AIPPA, including in respect of the right to information and on the possible scope of the Freedom of Information Bill.
This Freedom of Information Bill, 2019 will repeal the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act [Chapter 10:27]. The Bill will give effect to Section 62 of the Constitution which enshrines in the Declaration of Rights the right of access to information. In more detail, the Bill provides as stipulated in the Clauses of the Bill. In that regard, I move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Hon. Speaker, I recognise that the Chairperson of the Committee on Media is not in and consistent with our practice that the report of the Committee be presented first, I move that the debate on this motion be adjourned.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Tuesday, 10th December, 2019.
On the motion of THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE LEGAL AND PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI), the House
adjourned at Sixteen Minutes to Seven o’clock p.m. until Tuesday, 10th December, 2019.
PARLIAMENT OF ZIMBABWE
Thursday, 28th November, 2019
The National Assembly met at a Quarter-past Two o’clock p.m.
PRAYERS
(THE HON. SPEAKER in the Chair)
ANNOUNCEMENTS BY THE HON. SPEAKER
APPOINTMENT AS ZANU PF DEPUTY CHIEF WHIP
THE HON. SPEAKER: I have to inform the House that Hon. C.
Mutambisi will serve as the ZANU PF Deputy Chief Whip – [HON.
MEMBERS: Hear, hear.]
APPOINTMENTS TO REGIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL BODIES
THE HON. SPEAKER: I have to inform the House that Hon. T. Mnangagwa will serve in the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU). I also have to inform the House that Hon. Ndiweni will serve in the SADC-PF
Regional grouping – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.]-
HON. CHIKWINYA: I rise on a motion of privilege in terms of section 68 (d) and 69 read respectively. Hon. Speaker, I am a Member of
Parliament and I am deployed to two Committees – the Mines and
Mining Development and the Media, Information and Broadcasting Services. For the past two weeks Mr. Speaker Sir, Committee business has been disrupted by Members who have chosen to lay upon their own ground rules, therefore disturbing Committee business. As of today, the Committee on Media sat not more than five minutes when certain Members chose to dislodge the Chairperson and therefore disrupting the Committee business.
We operate as a caucus from my party and the reports that I am receiving is that all the Committees which are chaired by Members of the MDC are being disrupted from doing their business. It is my humble submission Hon Chair, that Committees are sub sects of the House and therefore our business feeds into the House which you chair and any disturbance to such is a disturbance to the business of the House.
I therefore call upon your Chair to set up a Privileges Committee to investigate these Members who are disrupting your Committees and put to an end this disruptive behaviour which we have seen in the past two weeks. I so move.
THE HON. SPEAKER: I hear you Hon. Member. The events are symptomatic of a bigger problem which the Committee on Standing
Rules and Orders is seized with and it will look into it in detail. I thank you.
*HON MATANGIRA: I rise on a point of privilege to register my concern. When I joined Parliament, I took an oath as a Member of Parliament that I would respect and honour the President. Every Member of the House is supposed to do the same. I would like to say that those who do not recognise the President should just stay out of the House. I thank you.
THE HON. SPEAKER: What the Hon Member has said I thought
I had covered it already in my first ruling that these matters are being looked into by the Committee on Standing Rules in a broader manner.
HON. MATHE: On a point of privilege. My point of privilege is on the continuous running of the bar during sittings of Parliament. Most Members especially from the other bench continue to go to the bar and drink when Parliament is sitting. If we continue having that situation, this House is not going to function properly because most of our Members would be going there to drink and when they come back here they make noise which affect the people we represent. These Members come here to disrupt and disturb the proceedings of this House and at the end of the day, you find that even the rulings that you make will not be listened to. We come here to listen to drunken people and we are not going to tolerate this. Can the bar be closed up to the end of the day? I thank you.
THE HON. SPEAKER: I wish to say that the bar should not be opened during sittings of the House. However, if that administrative arrangement has been violated, I will revisit that with the Clerk of Parliament, otherwise it should be closed.
HON. BITI: I rise on a point o privilege in terms of Rule 68 of the esteemed Standing Orders of this august House. The Budget Statement was presented by the Minister of Finance and Economic
Development on 14 November 2019. In terms of Section 305 of the Constitution, when the Budget Statement is presented there must simultaneously be presented the estimates of revenue and expenditures of Government for the next financial year which are contained in the Appropriation Bill.
We are concerned that up to today, the Appropriation Bill has not been tabled; it is not available upstairs in the Papers Office. The
Finance Bill 2020 has also not been tabled. Mr. Speaker, whilst the Blue Book has been tabled, it contains figures that are different from the statement, which makes the provision of the Appropriation Act so important. I implore Hon. Speaker that you direct the esteemed Minister of Finance and Economic Development to present as a matter of urgency, and to table as a matter of urgency, the Finance Bill and the
Appropriation Bill. I thank you Hon. Speaker.
THE HON. SPEAKER: I will check with the Clerk of
Parliament and ensure that the necessary papers are provided for.
HON. MADHUKU: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I rise on a point of privilege and it concerns the issue of Constituency Development Fund (CDF). I think most Hon. Members did submit the requisite papers which are required as per the checklist for us to receive the CDF. We also made submissions whereby we submitted photocopies of signatories to our account to enable Parliament to come up with vendor numbers. We are made aware that the funds have been released by Treasury, but up to now we have not received the funds. Our worry is that in view of the fact that the prices are increasing day by day, we think we are going to lose out, especially with some suppliers being attacked by the festive euphoria. We think we are going to lose out in terms of the purchasing power of the money. It is my plea Mr. Speaker Sir, if we can be able to get the money so that we make use of what is due to us. Thank you Mr.
Speaker Sir.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Hon. Madhuku, I am informed that the
committee on CDF is currently meeting to finalise the logistics.
FIRST READING
VETERANS OF THE LIBERATION STRUGGLE BILL [H. B.15,
2019]
THE MINISTER OF PRIMARY AND SECONDARY
EDUCATION (HON. MATHEMA) on behalf of THE MINISTER OF DEFENCE AND WAR VETERANS presented the Veterans of the
Liberation Struggle Bill, [H. B.15, 2019].
Bill read the first time.
Bill referred to the Parliamentary Legal Committee.
MOTION
LEAVE TO MOVE FOR SUSPENSION OF STANDING ORDER
NOS. 51, 62 (2) AND 139
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you Mr.
Speaker Sir. I move that the provisions of Standing Orders Number 51,
62 (2), 135, 136 and 139 regarding the automatic adjournment of the
House at five minutes to seven o’clock p.m. on sitting days other than a Friday, and at twenty-five minutes past one o’clock p.m. on a Friday,
Private Members’ motions taking precedence on Wednesdays after Question Time and that Question Time shall be on Wednesday; the referral of Bills to Portfolio Committees, Procedures in connection with Parliamentary Legal Committee and stages of Bills respectively, be suspended for today and for the remaining series of sittings in respect of the following:
- Business relating to the Budget and the Committee of Supply; ii. The Finance Bill; iii. The Appropriation Bill, (2019); iv. Zimbabwe Investment and Development Agency Bill, [H. B. 2,
2019];
- Money Laundering and Proceeds of Crime Bill, [H. B. 4, 2019]; and vi. Coroner’s Office Bill, [H. B. 5, 2019].
Motion put and agreed to.
COMMITTEE STAGE
ZIMBABWE INVESTMENT DEVELOPMENT AGENCY BILL [H.
- 2, 2019]
Second Order read: Committee Stage: Zimbabwe Investment
Development Agency Bill [H. B. 2, 2019].
House in Committee.
On Clause 45 (now Clause 46):
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you Mr.
Chair. I am proposing the following amendments – [HON. MEMBERS:
Inaudible interjections.] –
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: May I have less noise in the
House Hon. Members.
HON. ZIYAMBI: I am proposing the following amendments,
Mr. Chair.
On page 2 of the Bill, delete sub-clause (1) in line 44 the words
‘after consultation with the Board’ and substitute ‘after consultation with the Chief Executive Officer and the Board’.
Amendment to new Clause45 (now Clause 46) put and agreed to New Clause 45 (now Clause 46), as amended, put and agreed to. On Clause 47 (now Clause 48):
HON. K. PARADZA: Thank you Hon. Chairman. Yes, that is our amendment Hon. Chairman. We are feeling as a Committee that those licences which are already in operation under Zimbabwe Investment Authority (ZIA) and Zimbabwe Special Economic Zones Authority (ZimSEZA) should just continue until they expire.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFIARS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you Hon.
Chair, I want to substitute what they have said and request that we disregard what he has said, but basically it is more or less the same as the amendment that I am proposing.
So Hon. Chair, I am proposing that on Clause 47 on page 24 of the
Bill that we insert after line 38 the following-
‘(8) Any premises declared to be a special economic zone in terms of General Notice 675 of 2010 shall continue as such until the expiry of licence in relation thereto.’
Amendment to Clause 47 (new Clause 48) put and agreed to.
New Clause 47, (now Clause 48), as amended, put and agreed to.
On Clause 48 (now Clause 49):
HON. K. PARADZA: Thank you Mr. Chairman. Our feeling as a Committee is that those employees who are already under ZIA, ZimSEZA and those who qualify can be employed by the new agency but then our worry is what happens with those who do not qualify. What is the agency going to do with those employees because we cannot be a cruel country to throw them in the streets? So there must be an arrangement to make sure that they are catered for.
Where we went, Mr. Chairman, Rwanda, the situation is that all those who could not fit into this new agency were taken up within the civil service but that arrangement could be different here. We want the Minister to explain what they are going to do with those employees who are not going to be swallowed in the Agency? Thank you.
HON. ZIYAMBI: Thank you Hon. Chair. I hear the Chair, but however, we have made several amendments that should be consistent with what we are doing because we changed the Agency to ZIDA. So, I am proposing the following amendments as opposed to what he is proposing. We are proposing that we amend Clause 48, on page 24 of the Bill, we delete from sub-clause 2, the word “Agency” where it occurs for the first time and substitute with the “Chief Executive Officer of the Agency”. On page 25 of the Bill, delete sub-clause (6) and substitute with the following sub-clause “(6), Subject to the consent of the employees concerned, the Chief Executive Officer of the Agency may engage such of the persons who were employed by either of the former Statutory corporations as the Chief Executive Officer believes are necessary for the uninterrupted provision of the services (now provided by the Agency) which had been provided by them,”.
On page 24 of the Bill, delete from sub-clause (7) the word “the board” on line 30 and substitute “Chief Executive Officer of the
Agency”.
HON. K. PARADZA: Sorry Chairman. I hear the Minister but what are we going to do with those employees who are going to lose their jobs – what are we going to do with them?
HON. ZIYAMBI: The relevant laws will apply as to the winding
of that. It is provided for in another law and we cannot put it here.
Amendments to Clause 48 (now Clause 49) put and agreed to.
Clause 48 (now Clause 49) as amended, put and agreed to.
First Schedule put and agreed to.
On Second Schedule:
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Hon. Chair, I
propose that on line 32 of that schedule, we substitute where it says
“three and we substitute with “five”.
Amendment to Second Schedule put and agreed to.
Second Schedule, as amended, put and agreed to.
Third and Fourth Schedules put and agreed to.
House resumed.
Bill reported with amendments.
Bill referred to the Parliamentary Legal Committee.
SECOND READING
MONEY LAUNDERING AND PROCEEDS OF CRIME
AMENDMENT BILL [H. B. 4, 2019]
Third Order read: Adjourned debate on motion on the Second Reading of the Money Laundering and Proceeds of Crime Amendment Bill [H. B. 4, 2019].
Question again proposed.
HON. MHONA: Thank you Hon. Speaker Sir. Your Portfolio Committee on Budget, Finance and Economic Development is tabling this report on the public hearings on Money Laundering and Proceeds of Crime Amendment Bill [H.B. 4, 2019].
1. Introduction
Section 141 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe mandates Parliament to engage the general members of the public in its legislative processes and ensure that all interested parties are consulted about Bills being considered by Parliament. Thus, in fulfillment of this constitutional provision, the Portfolio Committee on Budget, Finance and Economic
Development conducted public hearings on the Money Laundering and Proceeds of Crime Amendment Bill (H.B. 4, 2019), which was gazetted on the 5th July 2019. The public hearings were held in Harare, Mutare, Gweru and Bulawayo from 9 September to 12 September 2019. The consultations begun by a Committee meeting in the Senate Chambers on
9 September 2019 to help the Committee to unpack and understand the
Bill. The meeting was co-hosted by Parliament of Zimbabwe and Transparency International Zimbabwe (TIZ).
2.0 Background to the Bill
The Money Laundering and Proceeds of Crime (Amendment) Bill, seeks to amend the Money Laundering and Proceeds of Crime Act (Chapter 9:24). The amendments were initially effected through
Presidential Powers on 9 November 2018 under Statutory Instrument 246 of 2018. The Statutory Instrument was issued in line with Section 6 of the Presidential Powers (Temporary Measures) Act (Chapter 10:20), which usually lasts for six months, upon which the requisite law is enacted. However, the regulations expired on 9 May 2019 after the lapse of six months, hence the need to urgently amend the law to cater for the affected provisions. The amendment to the Bill is very progressive as it will further strengthen the provisions in the Act to combat corruption, money laundering and terrorist financing. It will also ensure that the key and strategic institutions in fighting corruption are effectively empowered to undertake their mandate.
3.0 Methodology
Given that this was a technical Bill, the Committee was strategic in its engagement processes by targeting the key stakeholders affected by the Bill namely; Zimbabwe Revenue Authority, Judicial Service
Commission, Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission, Transparency International Zimbabwe and the Zimbabwe Republic Police. In addition to that, the members of the general public were as well invited to submit their input on the Bill in line with the constitutional requirements. Thus, the Committee was able to receive diverse contributions from the key stakeholders and the members of the public. Generally, the Bill was widely accepted by the members of the public who supported the proposed amendment with some additional proposals to strengthen the Bill. In line with that, the Committee would like to thank in particular,
Transparency International Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe Revenue Authority and the general members of the public for their valued input during the public consultations, which forms part of this report.
4.0. Generals Comments and Observations raised by the members of the public
4.1. Clause 37 (a): Enforcement Authorities
The members of the public welcomed the provision to empower the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC), Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (ZIMRA) and Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP), who are the “enforcement authorities” in the Bill, with the powers to legally bring to account anyone suspected of flouting the provisions in the Act. The members of the public implored on ZACC, ZIMRA and ZRP to exercise their mandate without fear or favour and to remain nonpartisan in discharging their mandate for the good of the nation. The members of the public also called upon the enforcement authorities to ensure that all reported cases of corruption are investigated and cleared within a given space of time. It was proposed that timeframes would guide the enforcement authorities to perform their mandate and ensure they bring closure to all reported cases. An example was given in Mutare of a businessman whose funds were seized by the police in the process of investigations and after the case was cleared, the businessman failed to recover his money and to date, none of the responsible authorities are liable to the loss. Lastly, members of the public further submitted that it was important for all these institutions to operate based on performance contracts which set out their targets per annum in terms of handling cases of money laundering and proceeds of crime. Performance contracts would ensure that the institutions deliver tangible results.
4.2. Clauses 37(b): Unexplained Wealth Order (UWO)
The members of the public welcomed the introduction of the UWO as an investigation tool. The Bill mandates only the High Court to issue an UWO in respect to contraband property or ill-gotten wealth. The purpose of the UWO is to compel the respondent to explain the source of his or her wealth in the event that there are reasonable grounds to suspect that the wealth was acquired through illegal means. Of importance to note is Section 37B (1) (b) which stipulates that before issuing an UWO, the High Court must be satisfied that
“… the value of the property is greater than ten thousand United
States Dollars or its equivalent in any currency.”
While members of the public acknowledged that corruption happens at all levels ranging from low profile to high profile cases, stipulating a figure of ten thousand United State Dollars or its equivalent in any currency in the Bill was problematic. It was argued that the figure was too low and would keep the enforcement authorities pre-occupied by petty corruption cases instead of the mega deals. Thus, it was recommended that the value be reviewed upwards to probably over fifty thousand United States dollars.
4.3. Clauses 37 (c): Cases of Non-Compliance
The Bill provides for cases of non-compliance, which stipulates that any cases of non-compliance by a respondent to the UWO implies that the wealth or property is presumed to be tainted. However, the members of the public acknowledged with concern the lack of a penalty on anyone who fails to comply with the UWO. Thus, it was suggested that the Bill should provide for measures to be pursued by the enforcement authorities in the event that one fails to comply with an UWO.
4.4. Clause 37 (e): Penalty for Making False or Misleading Statements in Response to UWO
The members of the public welcomed the provision to penalize anyone who makes false or misleading statements in relation to responding to the UWO. However, it was noted with concern that putting a value of USD65 000 or equivalent was problematic. It was argued that USD65 000 would be too much for someone who falsely account for wealth or property valued at less than that amount, or it might be too little for someone involved in mega deals, hence it was proposed that the Bill state a certain percentage of the value of the property under consideration as the penalty.
4.5. Clause 37 (o): Compensation for Victims
The members of the public welcomed the provision to compensate the victims affected by the freeze orders issued in terms of the Bill. The Bill provides that an application must be made to the High Court within three months from the date of discharge of the freeze and the court may order compensation if necessary. However, members of the public noted with concern that while there is a timeframe to lodge an application for compensation, there was no timeframe stated for the responsible authority to pay the compensation, hence it was recommended that the Bill set a timeframe for the authorities to compensate the applicant once a determination is made by the High Court.
4.6. Sharing of information between the enforcement authorities
The members of the public submitted that there must be a clause in the Bill to facilitate and expedite the sharing of information between and among the members of the enforcement authorities. It was proposed that for the effectiveness of the institutions to discharge their mandate, there was need to enable them to share information as they undertake their investigations. Thus, it was recommended that there be a provision in the Bill to enhance sharing of information within a stipulated timeframe to quicken the investigation processes.
4.7. Capacity Building
The members of the public noted that the concept of money laundering and terrorist financing was very technical in nature and therefore required the capacitation of all key stakeholders in fighting the menace. The members of the public noted that the cases involving money laundering were on the rise in Zimbabwe and involving complicated transactions which require well trained officials to handle the incidents. It was therefore proposed that the court officials such as the prosecutors and magistrates, ZIMRA, ZACC and Financial
Intelligence Unit (FIU) officials be continuously capacitated so that they are able to monitor and investigate such cases when brought before them. It was also proposed that the enforcement authorities must also take the responsibility to educate the members of the public about the effects of money laundering and terrorist financing on the economy.
4.8. Strengthen the Asset Declaration Laws (Public Officials
and Non-Governmental Organisations)
Members of the public highlighted the need for all public officials to declare their assets in a transparent manner, which in turn enhances the accountability process. It was submitted that the process to declare assets must be done within a specified timeframe once one is hired or elected to be a public official. Other members of the public felt that the idea of declaration of assets must also be extended to NGOs and other key institutions, including churches so that they declare their sources of income. Members of the public felt that this was critical in curbing the laundering of proceeds of crime, especially the huge transactions involving big organisations.
4.9. Informal Sector
Members of the public were concerned by the fact that about 70% of the Zimbabweans are operating in the informal sector where the bulk of the transactions are largely informal. It was therefore noted that the application of the Bill in terms of requiring one to explain the sources of one’s wealth might be problematic. It was noted that many people operating in the informal sector hardly maintain bank accounts and books of accounts, hence called upon the Government to formalize the informal sector.
4.10. Whistle Blower and Witnesses Protection Legislation
The members of the public felt that the implementation of the Bill might be a challenge in the absence of the whistle blower and witnesses legislation. The question that was asked by the members of the public was on how the Bill will protect the whistle blower? The reporting of the cases of money laundering and proceeds of crime activities heavily relies on the whistle blower hence the need to protect them from victimisation and abuse. For example in South Africa, a person who reports corruption will get the legal protection that he or she deserves to secure his or her safety when proven that his claims are true. This provision is provided for under the ‘Protected Disclosures Act of 2000,’ which was passed by the government to protect the lives and even properties of ‘whistle blowers’ in South Africa.
4.11. Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU)
Members of the public noted that in 2018, during the amendment of the Money Laundering and Proceeds of Crime Act which established the FIU, they had proposed that it be housed outside the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ). Thus, in line with that, members of the public expressed concern over the fact that the FIU remains under the ambit of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe as a department despite having recommended that it be an independent institution. While they supported that the FIU was established as an autonomous body in terms of the law, its operational independence is not guaranteed as long as it is under the RBZ. Members of the public alleged that the RBZ is at the centre of the thriving parallel market in Zimbabwe hence the FIU is compromised in terms of monitoring and investigating the institution. Thus, it was recommended that the Unit be an independent institution reporting directly to a board and not to the Governor of the RBZ.
4.12. Equality before the Law
Generally, the members of the public reiterated the need for the law to be applied equally, fairly and in a transparent manner. It was proposed that no one should be above the law. Members of the public pointed out that the application of the law must not be selective but must apply equally to every Zimbabwean as well as investors coming to invest in Zimbabwe.
4.13. Typos relating to the Bill
The following observations were made in terms of typo errors in relation to the Bill. It was noted that there was a repetition of a clause under Section 37I (1) and Section 37I (4). One of the provision must be removed. The Bill has errors on the numbering of the provisions. Clause
37B appears twice but with different headings as follows; 37B
‘Unexplained Wealth Orders’ and another 37B ‘Requirements for Unexplained Wealth Orders’. Therefore, this must be rectified.
5.0 . Committee Observations
5.1 The Committee welcomed the new provision re-defining the term
‘enforcement authorities’ which now refers to the Zimbabwe Anti-
Corruption Commission (ZACC), Zimbabwe Revenue Authority
(ZIMRA) and Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP). This new
insertion would enhance the roles and functions of the authorities as stipulated in the Bill and ensure they perform their mandate effectively.
5.2 The Members of the Committee noted with concern the value of property which warrants for the issuance of an UWO by the High Court, which is stated at Ten Thousand United States Dollars (10 000 USD). The Committee concurs with the submissions received from the members of the public and the stakeholders that the value of ten thousand United States dollars (10 000USD) was too low, hence requires a review upwards or categorisation.
5.3 The Committee observed that the suggested penalty of Sixty-Five Thousand United States Dollars (USD65 000) for making a false or misleading statements in relation to UWO was difficult to implement, especially in cases whereby the value of the property under consideration is below the amount or is more than the amount.
5.4 The Committee noted with concern the absence of timeframes for the authorities to compensate the victims affected by the freeze orders issued together with the UWOs. It was observed that the Bill only sets out a timeframe of 60 days for responses to an UWO and another 60 days for an applicant to apply for compensation after the freeze has been discharged. However, the Committee observed that there was no timeframe set for the authorities to compensate the victims once it has been granted by the High Court.
5.5 The Committee noted the need for a provision to facilitate the sharing of information between and among the various agencies involved such as the banks and enforcement authorities to quicken up the investigation processes. It was noted that some of the institutions are bound by the Official Secrecy Act and therefore may not divulge any clientele information to another party.
5.6 The Committee shares the same sentiments with the members of the general public who called upon the Government to promulgate Asset Declarations Laws in line with Section 198 of the Constitution as measures to enhance transparency and accountability, especially of public sector officials and politically exposed persons. The members of the Committee felt that declaration of assets by the Government officials and politically exposed persons must be conducted within a stipulated timeframe once one is hired or elected into a public office. This should not be left at the discretion of the institution hiring or working with the official.
5.7 The Committee also observed that there was need for the Government to establish mandatory public registers that disclose the beneficial ownership of trust funds and companies to make it more difficult and less attractive for people to benefit from the proceeds of corruption and crime.
5.8 The Committee concurs with the observation raised by the members of the public on the urgent need for the enactment of the whistle blower and witness protection legislation to support the implementation of the proposed provision in the Bill.
5.9 The Committee noted the concerns raised by the members of the public regarding the independence of the FIU. The Committee
Members highlighted that during the last session of the Eighth Parliament, its counterpart Committee tabled a report on the proposed amendments to the Money Laundering and Proceeds of Crime Bill in 2018 which created the FIU. In the report, the
Committee had recommended for the removal of the FIU from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe as measures to enhance its operational independence in monitoring suspected cases of financial terrorism and money laundering. However, this proposal was not taken on board. The Committee noted that across the globe, FIUs are either situated within the Ministry of Finance, Central Bank or established as a stand-alone independent body.
5.10 The Committee is greatly disturbed by the abuse of the Eco Cash platform by the money changers and those who hoard cash and in
turn sell it to the ordinary citizenry. It was observed that the Eco Cash platform was contributing significantly to the financial sector challenges, hence the need to engage Econet Company and the RBZ over the matter. Members of the Committee noted with concern the daily transaction limit of 50 000RTGs, which is too high and therefore promoting the parallel market to thrive.
6.0 Committee Recommendations
Having carefully considered the views submitted before it by the various stakeholders and the general members of the public and noting its own observations, the Committee submits the following recommendations;
5.11 Value for issuance of UWO: That the value of “…Ten Thousand
United States Dollars (10 000USD)” for the issuance of an UWO appears too low and may be reviewed upwards to about “…fifty thousand United Stated Dollars (50 000USD)” or that the values be categorised to cater for all classes of corruption ranging from low to high profile cases.
5.12 Penalty for Making False or Misleading Statements: That the Bill stipulates a certain percentage to be calculated as penalty for making any false or misleading statements in relation to an UWO which must be calculated based on the value of property under consideration.
5.13 Timeframe for Payment of Compensation: That a timeframe of 60 days be set out in the Bill mandating the enforcement authorities to pay the compensation upon the issuance of a determination for compensation by the High Court. This is critical so that the victims are not prejudiced of their compensation and are able to sue the authorities in the event that the compensation is not paid on time.
5.14 Sharing of Information: That a provision be put in place to facilitate the sharing of information between and among the various agencies and enforcement authorities investigating cases of money laundering and proceeds of crime as measures to quicken the investigation processes.
5.15 Whistle Blower and Witness Protection Legislation: That the Government prioritise the enactment of the whistle blower and witness protection legislation as a matter of urgency to support the implementation of the proposed provisions in the Bill.
5.16 Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU): That the FIU be removed from the RBZ and be a stand alone independent body as measures to enhance its operational independence. This is important given that the majority of the people in Zimbabwe do not have confidence in the financial sector, in particular the Central Bank.
5.17 Asset Declaration Laws: That the Government urgently promulgates asset declaration laws in line with Section 198 of the Constitution to enhance transparency, accountability and boost citizens’ trust in public administration.
5.18 Capacitation of Enforcement Authorities: That Government adequately fund these institutions to enable them to effectively discharge their mandate.
6.0 Conclusion
The Bill basically seeks to address some of the financial crimes that bedevil the economy. The introduction of UWOs rather marks a new era in fighting corruption in Zimbabwe. The concept of
‘unexplained wealth order’, though familiar in other jurisdictions is somewhat unique in Zimbabwe and this is commendable. The amendments proposed in the Bill to empower of the enforcement authorities namely; ZACC, ZIMRA and ZRP to issue an UWO to anyone suspected of flouting the Money Laundering and Proceeds of Crime Act is plausible. This indeed would enhance their effectiveness in discharging their mandate. Thus, the Committee fully supports the passage of the Bill in the august House as it will go a long way in tackling cases of money laundering and combating financing of terrorism in Zimbabwe.
7.0 Committee’s Recommendations
Having carefully considered the views submitted before it by the various stakeholders and the general members of the public and noting it own observations, the Committee submits the following recommendations;
7.1 Value For Issuance of UWO: That the value of “...then thousand United States dollars (10 000USD)” for the issuance of an UWO is too low and must be reviewed upwards to for all classes of corruption ranging from low to high profile cases.
7.2 Penalty for Making False or Misleading Statements: That the Bill does sets out a certain percentage to be calculated as penalty for making any false or misleading statements in relation to an UWO which must be calculated based on the value of property under consideration.
7.3 Timeframe for Payment of Compensation: That a timeframe of 60 days be set out in the Bill mandating the enforcement authorities to pay the compensation upon the issuance of a determination for compensation by the High Court.
7.4 Sharing of Information: That a provision is put in place to facilitate the sharing of information between and among the various agencies and enforcement authorities investigating cases of money laundering and proceeds of crime.
7.5 Whistle Blower and Witness Legislation: That the Government prioritise the enactment of the proposed provisions in the
Bill.
7.6 Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU): That the FIU be removed from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe as measures to enhance its operational independence. I thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.
HON. BITI: I rise to make my contribution on this important Bill
– the Money Laundering and Proceeds of Crime Amendment Bill. Hon. Speaker Sir, corruption has become endemic and cancerous in our country and it is important that Parliament plays its role in also fighting corruption.
I submit however that what we actually need as a country is for the
Government through the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary
Affairs to actually:-
- Harmonise all corruption laws – the Corruption Act, the various provisions dealing with corruption in the criminal court, the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act, various pieces of anti corruption laws in the General Laws Amendment Act, the original Money Laundering and proceeds Act itself. I propose that the same be consolidated.
- I also propose that our laws be modernised. Many of our laws were made in the 60s and 70s but we are now living in a complicated age where cyber crimes are the order of the day; where your laptop or mobile phone has become a work station of corruption but the laws are not mobilised to deal with these complicated laws.
- I also proposed that in view of the fact that a huge chunk of our leakages is actually coming through Government itself. In our work in the Public Accounts Committee, we have come across billions and billions of dollars being siphoned out directly from the Government itself, directly from the Ministry of Finance. If you go to the audit report by Mrs. Chiri of 2017, you will see that US$2.9 billion was siphoned out in 2017; US$3.5 billion was siphoned off in 2018, which means that a lot of the looting is actually taking place inside Government itself.
The updated law must put heavy penalties and sanctions against operatives in the Government, oligarchs in the Government that are responsible for much of the omission and omissions. I propose comprehensive updating of the law.
- I also propose that all public officials, including Members of Parliament, Government officials at a certain level, Permanent Secretaries and Principal Directors that there must be an obligation to declare assets. There must be a duty on all of us to declare at the beginning of a term of Parliament how many goats or cows we have so that at the end of the year if we see you having 100 cows or goats, we ask you how and where you acquired those goats and cows. The issue of asset declaration is key.
I come to the Bill Hon. Speaker Sir. I have a problem with the philosophy of the Bill which assumes that all of us in Zimbabwe are criminals; that anyone who has acquired an asset in Zimbabwe is a criminal that anyone who has acquired an asset in Zimbabwe is a criminal but there is a fundamental provision in our Constitution which is on Section 50. Section 50 makes it very clear that everyone is honest until proven guilty. The philosophy of this Bill is to assume that anyone with an asset has committed a crime and the Bill does not strike a balance between honest, hardworking citizenship; crime, theft and corruption. So, there is a fundamental problem in that that Bill just assumes that once someone has an asset it equates to a criminality and corruption and so forth. So, I would submit that we need to change the philosophy because the Bill in its philosophy criminalises innocent and honest citizens.
Number 3, Hon. Speaker, I have a problem with the multiplicity of agencies that can approach the court in respect of unexplained Wealth
Orders Section 37 or an order of freezing one’s property. If you look at Section 2 of the Bill, there are four enforcement agencies which are: - the Zimbabwe Anti-corruption Commission, the National Prosecuting
Authority, the Commissioner General of the Republic Police and the
Zimbabwe Revenue Authority.
Hon. Speaker, there are too many agencies that are enforcement agencies. In my submission, constitutionally, the law enforcing agency is the Zimbabwe Republic Police, so let us give powers to the Zimbabwe Republic Police. Instead of having multiple agencies that are enforcement agent, the danger with giving so many of these agencies power to enforce is subjectiveness. You do not want these huge powers to be abused; you do not want subjective sectors to take in. If I am, for instance at the National Prosecuting Authority and I do not like Prof. Lovemore Madhuku, I do not want to abuse my authority as an enforcement agency by going to apply to the High Court of Zimbabwe for an enforcement order against his house in Mt. Pleasant. We know traditionally that we have one lawful enforcement authority which is the
Zimbabwe Republic Police set out and defined in Chapter 17 of the Constitution.
So I propose that the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs and his officials must consider reducing the enforcement authority. Maybe could have the ZRP and the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority for obvious reasons but to have Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission and more importantly to have the National Prosecuting authority, I submit as dangerous, particularly the National Prosecuting
Authority. The National Prosecuting Authority’s functions should be restricted to prosecution on the basis of a docket prepared by an enforcement agency, in this case the Zimbabwe Republic Police or Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission. It will be very dangerous for the National Prosecuting Authority to be both a prosecutor, investigator and an actor. So with great respect, I submit that the definition of enforcement agency must be removed so that we only have at most, two agencies, ZIMRA and the Police as enforcement authorities.
I now move to point number five of my submission which is Section 37(b). Section 37(b), allows the High Court of Zimbabwe on an ex-parte application to apply for an order for unexplained wealth. Hon.
Speaker, we have Section 68 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe, we have
Section 3 of the Administration of Justice Act in Zimbabwe. The
Constitution is very clear; every person is entitled to a right to be heard.
The enforcement order, even though it is not acquisition of property in breach of Section 71 of the Constitution, it is certainly an order that diminishes the value of that property and therefore is a deprivation for the purposes of Section 71 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe.
I therefore, submit Hon. Speaker that because we are dealing with property and property does not run away, it is either money in a bank account or a house in Budiriro or Borrowdale Brooke, or a car; a Lamborghini, we have some in Parliament because those things cannot run away. The Constitution of Zimbabwe should be respected, the right to be heard in Section 68 which is codified also in Section 3 of the Administration of Justice Act. Therefore, before an enforcement agent makes an application, it must give notice to the affected individual. Moreso, when you consider that in terms of Section 37, H, at the same time that an order for unexplained wealth is being sought, the enforcement agent can make an order freezing one’s property, ex parte, without notice to other sides. I submit the more, the reason why notice should be given; so I submit that separation should be made between an order for unexplained wealth and an order freezing wealth. In all instances, notice should be given to an affected person so that he goes before the court and say “well, you think my wealth is explained, I got it through 1, 2, 3,” so we should respect the right to be heard.
Hon. Speaker, both the unexplained order for wealth and the order freezing are open ended. They have no time limit, once something becomes open ended, it becomes arbitrary. So, I submit that there should be a six month period in respect of the life of an order for unexplained wealth and an order freezing the asset of everyone. So if enforcement agency namely the police thinks that certain property is suspect, they can apply for their order in terms of Section 37 but the life of that order is 6 months. This means that the authorities then have a period of 6 months within to act, whether it is a prosecution, civil action to acquire the property but at least they have 6 months to act because the danger of a blank cheque is abuse and open ended. I submit that we should restrict.
I support the findings by the Committee on Budget and Finance that the entry value of US$10 000 is too little. At the official exchange rate today US$10 000 is possibly a ZWL100 000. You cannot buy a house in Budiriro for ZWL100 000. If you are going to buy a car, you can only buy a second hand (zitye) from Japan. So the threshold is too little. In my respectful submission, I submit that the threshold of US$200 000 is a sufficient compromise. That means we are catching the big fish that live in Borrowdale Brooke.
Next Hon. Speaker, is the issue of the Financial Investigating Unit the (FIU). Two weeks ago in this very august House, I presented on behalf of the Public accounts Committee a report on the Omissions and Commissions of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe. One of the recommendations which our Committee made was that the footprint of the RBZ was too much in the economy. The fingerprint of the RBZ was too much in the economy. They are responsible for the distribution of the USD, export surrender requirements, subsidies, issuance of Treasury Bills, lending and borrowing money and securitizing the same. So we recommended Hon. Speaker that section 6 of the Reserve Bank Act should be amended so that the RBZ’s core business remains the following functions;
- The issuance of our local currency; ii. Management of the monetary policy system; iii. Acting as a banker to the State; iv. Management of the national payment system; and
- Acting as a banker of last resort.
On the issue of housing the FI unit at the RBZ, they are a problem Hon. Speaker Sir. Firstly, they themselves are a player, they are a unit that needs investigation per se. I want to refer to an incident that happened two weeks ago. Two weeks ago, new notes of $2 and $5 units were released by the RBZ but thousands and thousands of those dollars were actually found at Fourth Street with black market traders. There was an attempt by the RBZ to say it was CBZ that distributed $45 000, Premier Bank or Ecobank that distributed $15 000 but we know Hon.
Speaker that the money that was in Fourth Street was hundreds and thousands of dollars.
So, the RBZ itself is rogue and being a rogue institution, it cannot house a unit that is investigating rogueness. So I support Hon. Speaker Sir, the recommendations of the Committee that we need to create a separate unit. There is a problem already at the RBZ now. The RBZ issues bank licences. In the past, it used to be the Ministry of Finance but the RBZ then regulates those same banks, which is a contradiction in terms of the law. You cannot issue the licence and be the overseer. In other countries, they have got a financial oversight unit. In this country Hon. Speaker, we need a financial oversight unit outside the bank that oversees bank compliance and also this independent financial unit.
So, I submit Hon. Speaker, with great respect that we need to take away the FIU from the RBZ and create a big financial oversight unit. We could probably combine it with the securities commissions. The Securities Commission is not busy, its function is just to look at 60 companies listed on the Stock Exchange, and most of them which are broke anyway and are dysfunctional. We could amend the Securities Commission Act so that we create this Financial Services Unit that will look at money-laundering issues as well as banks and companies on the Stock Exchange.
I want to conclude Hon. Speaker and say that fighting corruption is key in our country for obvious reasons but when we fight corruption, we must not forget that every individual in Zimbabwe has got human rights. He is presumed to be innocent under Section 50 of the Constitution of
Zimbabwe. Secondly, every individual has the right to own property in Section 71 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe. Thirdly, everyone has a right to due process of the law codified in Section 56 (1) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe. Finally, everyone has got the right to be heard, the audi alteram partem rule codified in Section 68 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe. With those brief remarks, I thank you very much Hon. Speaker.
HON. MISIHAIRABWI-MUSHONGA: Thank you very much
Mr. Speaker Sir. I also stand up to debate both the report by the Committee and the Bill that we do have. Mr. Speaker, I will continue to repeat the statement that I spoke to when we were at the pre-Budget Seminar because I think for me it speaks to what we are talking about now. It is unfortunate that as we discuss one of the most important issues in this country, which is the issue of corruption, we are in this space that we are in right now because we have not been able to deal with this problem. I think this particular Bill is one of the most important Bills that we have ever had to debate.
Going back to the statement that I said at the pre-Budget that I am going to repeat now both in Shona, English and Ndebele, Mr. Speaker, you do not hunt with other people’s dogs, hauvhimi nembwa dzisiri dzako or kawuzingeli ngezinja ezingayisizo zakho. All this that we are debating here is a waste of time until and unless we deal with the institutions that we are talking about. Let me just give you an example. As APNAC, we had a breakfast meeting with the Zimbabwe AntiCorruption Commission. One of the shocking things that we discovered is that while we removed that whole Commission, the Wabira Commission and said we are now replacing them with new people who we felt were going to push and drive the corruption issue; we actually have not done anything because in so doing, we have kept everything underneath that Commission intact, including the investigators who are supposed to actually do the day to day issue of running around and finding where things are supposed to be investigated, where crimes have been committed. It just does not make sense.
If that whole institution could not deliver and we publicly said that ZACC could not work on issues to do with corruption, can somebody explain to me why on earth we have kept the secretariat that is supposed to be facilitating that particular institutions? In my opinion, we can come up with Bills now and speak to those institutions and say they will deliver but they will not deliver because these are dogs that are coming from a particular establishment. You cannot carry them and say asihambe siyezingela – let us go and hunt when they are the people that have been in the past establishment and doing the kind of things that we are doing.
From both ourselves and from APNAC point of view, the proposal is if ZACC is going to work remove everybody else that was part of the establishment. We do not care where you take them. Take them to the Public Service Commission and give them some little tables to drink tea and biscuits but they cannot continue to be in ZACC because otherwise we are wasting our time. Even the ZACC Commissioners themselves are very clear that they cannot continue with the investigators who were part of the last time where things could not move. That is the first point.
The second point is the issue that the Hon. Member, Hon. Biti has been talking about. I have a completely different view and as APNAC, we have a completely different view and I know that he is speaking from a point of a very known lawyer who has to defend people’s rights, but from where we are coming from, the countries that have been able to deliver on the issue of corruption have had to use different rules for issues that are to do with corruption and for issues that are to do with any other. Whether you go to Egypt today which has done very well or Rwanda, they have had to completely change their laws as far as corruption is concerned.
I hear where he is coming from but for us to start introducing in this particular Bill other processes that will give notice to somebody so that they can go to court again and insist that they want an order is getting us to where we are right now. When you go into the street Mr. Speaker and you say to people this person was supposed to deliver at Gwanda. They were given US$% million to deliver but they did not deliver and at the end of the day the person is out in the street; he is on Facebook and displaying the number of shoes that he has. He is telling us how much he goes into the First Class. Yes, what does it say to somebody who is in the street?
Me as a small person who is being arrested for a bribe over passports, I go in; me who has thrown a stone at somebody, I am going in but this man that we are clear got some money which is taxpayers’ money, you tell us that because he has gone to court and has been able to prove that this was just a contractual problem. You did not deliver or
not ensure that I do the things that I should do, so, he disappears with US$5 million. It does not make sense, so, certain rules have to change.
We have to use different rules for dealing with corruption.
Indeed, for some of us, one of the most frightening things which the Hon. Member would know; if you go to the Northern suburbs, it does not make sense that in the type of situation and economy we have, people have the capacity to build the type of houses that are being built. You want to tell us to give them notice for them to explain to us how they are getting that money? People are driving amazing cars, which you know they could not have bought for a reasonable amount of money. Honestly, you cannot be telling us that we should sit back and say no, these are their rights, and we cannot ask them where they got the money from. For goodness’ sake, the onus is upon them to tell us where they are getting that money. We cannot allow that to continue.
An Hon. Member was saying that the majority of people who are stealing are those sitting in Government right now. One has to explain to us, at a salary of a Permanent Secretary, who is earning something like 2 to 3 thousand dollars, how does that person afford to have the kind of wealth that they have? You want us to wait and not ask them to explain where they are getting that money? I think for me, that provision is the most critical one.
The next provision which I want to agree with the Hon. Member is that around the declaration of assets as provided for in Section 198 of the Constitution. What is sad is that as Parliamentarians here, we are the ones who have violated that particular provision and yet we are the custodians of this Constitution. We were all asked to declare our assets. Some of us in this House have not declared assets, we need to declare our assets. From a point of view of African Parliamentarians Network Against Corruption (APNAC), we actually want to go beyond that. We cannot just declare those assets and put them in the Speaker’s place. When we declare, let them be public. I agree with the Hon. Member, if you walked in here with two goats, tell us why you now have 15 goats. Some of the Hon. Members who walked in here have never been to work, they have never worked their whole lives, five years down the
line, they now own industries. At what point did you get that money, tell us. If you have it, you just declare – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] – I got it from there or there.
In fact, one of the things that we need to have is that before anybody runs for office, before you say you want to be a President, the first thing is to do your declaration of your assets – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] – so that when we begin to see you with other things, we have a problem. The issue on the declaration of assets is critical and because we do not have an Act that provides for the declaration of assets, I think this is the opportunity to ensure that we make it a provision in this particular Bill. We find a provision in which we make sure that there is a declaration of assets.
The last point I want to raise is that, I want to agree with Hon. Biti to a certain extent. On the bodies which are supposed to deliver on this particular aspect; where I disagree with him in terms of how many is where ZACC is concerned. We have given arresting powers to ZACC, I think we should proceed and give them prosecuting powers – [THE HON. MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND PARLIAMENTARY
AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Inaudible interjection.] – Yes, I know that the Minister of Justice will have problems with this. However, one of the things that we are having – I want the Minister of Justice to go to Rowan Martin, sit and see what is happening with prosecution. There is no way you can get anybody prosecuted.
I had the opportunity of being attached at that particular place and I was shocked at what I saw in there, just the professionalism of sitting in an office. When you sit in that office, someone is eating eggs whilst the other is eating buns, you cannot tell what is happening – there is no delivery of a system that will happen. I said this to the Prosecutor
General, just walk from your office and see what is happening around Rowan Martin. In my mind, I had thought that the first thing I was going to do was to be a Prosecutor but after sitting at that place, I will not have anything to do with prosecution around that area because the whole environment cannot deliver. You think that place is going to catch serious people, you sit in that court and you are surprised that anything could be coming out of that process. So, until we deal with that whole department; which is why for now, I would rather; if you are going to have serious corruption issues and you want serious prosecution, let us put it elsewhere. If you are not going to put it to
ZACC, convince me that the current National Prosecution Authority (NPA) is going to work. Even the NPA itself as a body does not inspire anything in me. I do not know what they are doing; I do not know whether the body has any power in doing anything that is in the NPA.
So, for me, I think this Bill that we are talking about has so many important issues that my request to the Minister of Justice, would be that, perhaps let us get more time and work through this to ensure that when we deliver an Act, it is that which we are going to be able to use. At this stage, if we have this, it is just going to be a piece of paper, there will be nothing to it because we do not have the institutions and our laws are already problematic.
In conclusion, it is the issue that was raised by the Committee which I think is critical. It is the issue around the ‘Whistle Blowers’ Act. Mr.
Speaker Sir, if we have not dealt with the issue of whistle blowers, you can forget it. I gave an example to the Chair of ZACC the last time we met her and said; I was on a flight and one of the stewards came to me and said, ‘Hon. Member, I am hurting, I am a Zimbabwean. I sit on this flight and every day, I see people who come from Dubai, they get to the Airport, they come in, they do not use the same route that people go through, they come out holding whatever they have in terms of their monies and go and pay people. Those people give them a lot of bags containing gold.’ This is not new, it was even in the newspaper, and Eddie Cross published it. The bags of gold are brought in and go. The people are known and they do not even go into business class or first class, they make sure that they go into the Economy Class. He said, ‘I have met with Ministers in your Government, many of them,’ and he even gave me the names which I will not say now. He said, ‘I met so and so, and said look outside the window, there are the people that I am telling you about who are siphoning money from this country.’ Nothing has happened on that issue. I said, are you prepared for me to take you to ZACC and we are able to say this. He said, ‘firstly, I will lose my job, secondly, I am convinced that there are powerful people somewhere at the top where if they know I am the one who had said this, I will be dead.’ So, without whistleblowers, there is no way you are going to get the information that is there. However, there are many Zimbabweans who are holding on to critical information on the issue of corruption. Until we have a protection that allows them to be able to speak and say these things – If you are in a place like the United States of America, you will have somebody who is able to speak against their own President and say, I was sitting there when you were having a phone call with the Koreans and something like that can be taken on for impeachment. Can you imagine what it would do in this country where you are not necessarily challenging the President but other people who are in the Whistleblowers Act needs to be critical. I have not really looked at the way this one is drafted and I was wondering whether we really need a separate Whistleblowers Act because it is something that will support the Money Laundering Act, we should not be looking at creating some provision within this particular Bill that will deal with the whistleblowers, otherwise with what we have now, we do not have much to deal with the issue of corruption. Like I said, I am really sad that as a nation, we continue to talk about corruption but we have not committed ourselves to dealing with the issue that is associated with corruption. I thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.
HON. PHULU: Mr. Speaker Sir, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to debate the Money Laundering and Proceeds of Crime Act. I think it has been ably debated by the Hon. Members who have spoken before me. The report as well by the responsible Committee has been quite comprehensive. However, there are a few things that I would like to point out. I would like to underline the submission by Hon. Biti who spoke before me, to say that the entire philosophy of the Bill needs to be relooked at carefully. I know that Hon. Misihairabwi has argued that people who are clearly in possession of property that they would not be able to explain ought not to be given the opportunity to explain themselves before their assets are frozen.
I will give you an example Mr. Speaker Sir. There is an entity or a person called the receiver who can be appointed and one’s property can be frozen before they get a right to be heard. I may have a car or house in the townships because it qualifies in terms of the amounts that we have here. If someone decides they do not understand where I obtained the revenue or the money to buy the house, they may decide to freeze my assets. The fact that they do not understand where I got the money from does not necessarily mean I got the money through illegal means or I am laundering money. There may very well be another explanation which they may not be aware of. We are not serious as we move around our communities. We cannot throw bones and know where people are getting their money from. An order can then be made to have my assets frozen and this receiver can make a decision to sell off some of my assets even before I get a right to respond. If the assets are perishable, they can be sold. If I am running a business, he can appoint some other person to come and run my business and ruin it. To make it worse, a clause has been inserted to say that this receiver may not know how he conducts himself, is not liable and when it is proved after sometime that I have a valid explanation, all the State can say is that they are sorry.
There is some lip service to me being able to have compensation but the parameters of that compensation are not discussed. Who is going to compensate is not discussed. How they are going to compensate is not discussed; if indeed I am going to have power to execute and get the value, assuming I win in court is not discussed. A business is of immense value and has uniqueness. If you destroy my business, there can be no compensation that you can give me in order to get back my business. If you sell off all my cows some of which probably have my grandfather’s name, there is no way in which you are going to be able to compensate me. Certainly, the philosophy which says that the State can willy nilly come and take your property, do as they please on the basis of some hauge, I think it is quite problematic and violates Section 50 of the Constitution and even Section 68, the Right to Administrative Justice is fundamentally violated.
The person who steals eggs or oranges in the street is entitled to a right to be heard. The person who owns ownership of a property is not a crime on the face of it. This Act criminalises the ownership the ownership of property. We know that in villages, some of us we grew up in villages and this thing is not new. It has been there where people who have property or people who are doing well or if there is simply someone you do not like, you could always say muroyi. You could always say that they are a thief and people have run out of villages before. Mr. Speaker Sir, this kind of Act may even run counter.
I agree that money laundering should be tackled. I agree that crimes should be tackled but we should follow due process, especially when your entry point and I would like to point to a particular clause at page 2, paragraph 40. This is the interpretation section. It talks about an aggregate value of $50 thousand. It does not say US$50 thousand, the rest of the Act distinguishes to say US dollars but on that section it simply says you have to have $50 thousand; RTGS$50 thousand and you can be investigated and have your assets frozen. Transactions of
$10 thousand in your account, if you have consecutive transactions of RTGS$10 thousand – I transfer RTGS$10 thousand today, I transfer
RTGS$10 thousand next month and I am liable to be investigated and have my assets frozen, I submit that the Act as it stands is very dangerous.
Certainly, there must be emphasis on complying with constitutional provisions such as Section 50 and Section 68 so that people can be given a right to be heard. These freezing orders when they are given, if the freezing order was to temporarily freeze the property just like a Sheriff’s attachment where they can attach your property and tell you that you cannot dispose of the property pending the outcome of the proceedings or you cannot dispose of the property pending the outcome on investigations but you continue to use your property and there is no receiver to sell your property, it would be fair because they want to sell milk in your fridge. It says that if the property is perishable, that could even include milk in your fridge. I think that there is a way we should have some cut off.
However, one of the most important ways, I would like to support what has been said before that if we can be dealing with massive wealth and massive amounts like the US$200 thousand that has been talked about, it then makes sense. When it comes to freezing orders, we need to look at this carefully because people are innocent in terms of our Constitution until they are proven guilty.
There is also the element of retrospectivity that this Act will apply backwards to people who acquired properties in 1980, 1981, 1999 and 2000. We know that in our country and as we speak now, our country is largely an informal economy. When we compare ourselves with the United Kingdom, Kenya, Rwanda and other countries whose economy is not pervasively overwhelmingly informal – if you look at the figures that we were given in terms of the informal economy. There are people who have been selling tomatoes or doing cross border trading for many years, women and Government has been supporting them. A lot of those women, I know because I have been seeing them have been able over a period of time to purchase houses, properties and send children to school, move from business to business growing and they have been able to do amazing things. I think it is unfair for us to then turn around to say we want to seize their properties mainly because we do not understand how they have made their money. I know for a fact that if you calculate the amount a man who drinks beer every day in a year you would be surprised, you would be shocked.
So it is unfair that if someone else is guzzling down their little money they are earning and someone is heavily saving high office? So painstakingly – we can then try to seize their property and accuse them of not having receipts. Where do you get receipts from selling tomatoes? A person must have an opportunity to explain that ‘no, this is what I have been doing. I have been selling tomatoes and this is how much I have been making’, before some of these orders can be made.
There is the issue of market value Mr. Speaker Sir. The proposal is that if my assets are seized today – say I have a house in Nkulumane and it is seized today because someone suspects that I got it through unlawful means or I have been laundering, the presumption is that I bought the house at its current value today and I would like to submit that is also very unfair. It is gravely unfair because we must not pretend that we do not know our own economy and what has been happening – the vicissitudes of prices. There was a time when people were burning money and buying things lawfully. Then today we say that if I bought a house at the equivalent value of USD$500.00 or USD$10 000.00, we now want to automatically say that the value of that house if we cease it today becomes $150 000.00 when I bought it in 1980 or in 2000. I think that there is an element of unfairness again there and this is an aspect that we would need to revisit and look at very carefully because when I explain, I am supposed to explain why I have a property worth $150 000.00 when I did not buy the property at $150 000.00.
So Mr. Speaker Sir, I will move to the issue of prosecutors. There has been a submission that – I am coming to the issue of agencies because my time is running out. I submit that the Bill itself, whilst I would argue that it is necessary to have some form of law that deals with this, we know that in the Finance Act we already have a similar provision. I think that in the Companies Act again we have got similar provisions and given the fact that we already have the police, prosecutors, ZIMRA, ZACC – all these entities have the same powers to do what is being done now.
I think that our focus should be on those existing institutions to make sure that they work effectively. If those institutions are working effectively, this Bill may not even be necessary. It may simply be an overreaction. I will give an example of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA); it is an institution that has a history. Remember that it is fairly new in its current format – it is an institution that has always been embedded in other institutions until it was moved quite recently. Having been removed, it is one of the least funded State entities that we have and if you look at the budget right now, despite arguing and arguing and the Committee calling for their amounts to be increased – they have not.
They do not even have their own Head Office – you know when you talk about the prosecutors at Rotten Row or whatever magistrate’s court. They are embedded in other people’s institutions and buildings and treated like second-class citizens. So there is no way that they can be effective that way. They have had police prosecutors all this time, that means that they have not been properly equipped with staff that has sufficient skills to discharge their duties. I think that the money side as we go into discussions about money – we should first give them a fair chance and equip them.
You know Mr. Speaker Sir, a prosecutor who travels from Filabusi or from Tsholotsho to a circuit court elsewhere drives in the back of a truck. He is driven by a magistrate who has been given a car – he does not have a car. Their situation is embarrassing – it is terrible. It is the same with the police and so many other public officers and if we were to look into that, we would be able to cover a lot of the things that we are complaining about.
Lastly I will come to the issue of the receiver – I think that the issue of the receiver Mr. Speaker Sir, is something that the Hon. Minister should consider very carefully because he operates when there is an interim order and not even a final order. He has powers to sell your property, destroy your business, your life and then he is immune even if he is negligent or vindictive. I think that the issue of the receiver should either be totally removed or the receiver should have powers to merely monitor that you do not sell your property or you do not dispose of your property. Perhaps if it is money that you do not use the money without maybe an order or permission from him, he must be like a judicial manager more than someone who sits on your assets and makes sure that you cannot function.
So Mr. Speaker Sir, the purpose of this law is not to bully anyone, beat people over the heads and is not for purposes of intimidation. It should be for purposes of sniffing out those people who are corrupt and those who are laundering money. The danger with anti-money laundering legislation as well is that in an economy like ours, we should actually be worried more about illicit transfers from this country out and illicit transfers from Africa out. Money laundering if we are not careful, is really pushed by countries that have political, terrorism and imperial interests. It is very funny that we are here pushing for this kind of agenda without any safeguards or speed traps. I would urge that we put up some speed traps to ensure that we do not run into the danger of violating Section 68, the right to administrative justice and also the presumption of innocence. I thank you.
HON. MUDARIKWA: On a point of order Mr. Speaker! Mr.
Speaker Sir, the report that we are debating on is not in the pigeonholes. May we have copies to go through? It is not there – the report that was presented by the Committee Chairperson must be in the pigeonholes.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER (HON. M. KHUMALO): But
you have the Bill.
HON. MUDARIKWA: The Bill was put but the report by the Chairperson must also be in the pigeonholes in order for us to debate from an informed position. The report that was presented by the Chairperson is the report from the people of Zimbabwe when they did their public consultations. So we are negotiating in vacuum – trying to account for the wealth, how I got rich. We must also try to account on how I got poor. – [Laughter.] – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible
interjections.] -
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Order, Order Hon. Members.
I am informed that the staff is verifying whether you can get the copies.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you Hon.
Speaker. Hon. Speaker, I want to thank the Hon. Members who debated the Bill and I must say that this is a necessary piece of legislation. It is necessary in that we need to deal with issues of money laundering and corruption that are rampant in the country.
Mr. Speaker Sir, before I respond I just want to allude to the fact that as has been mentioned by Hon. Misiharabwi-Mushonga to say that if you drive around Harare, you would not even believe the wealth that is in this country – [HON. BITI: Start with Parliament!] – I am being advised that I must start from here. The kind of wealth that is there and the earnings of the people, there is a mismatch and you begin to wonder whether there is any declaration to ZIMRA on the kind of wealth that is there. You will be amazed in terms of mansions that are being built. You will find a clerk earning a thousand dollars has got three to four houses – mansions. All we are trying to say is - explain your wealth. We know that you are earning a thousand dollars and you are not like Hon. Biti who is a partner in a law firm who can get a contract maybe worth a hundred thousand dollars at some point. He can explain without even producing a receipt but we know that you do not even have a tuck shop but you have been doing amazing things. We are saying explain your wealth, you are stealing from the poor. So, that is the starting point that we are saying we need legislation that will give us enough ammunition to deal with people.
Mr. Speaker, I agree with some of the issues that have been raised by Hon. Biti. In terms of the monetary value, I think we can look into that with a view of raising the amount. I also agree that we improve the provision on the ex parte application to ensure that the court can also give a determination. I think when we go the Committee Stage, we can then look at the provisions and say how do we deal with them.
You also spoke about having a percentage rather than a fixed figure. I think that can be done when we go to the Committee Stage we can look at those technical issues. On the presumption of innocence, I think Hon. Biti, this is a civil application, it is not a criminal offence. All we are doing is we are making a civil application to the court to say can you comply with these conditions. If you are able to comply, then you do not need to worry.
So, the issue of this application being open- I think does not arise. You raised the issue that we need to harmonise, consolidate and modernise corruption laws, I agree but what we intend to do is perhaps come up with a handbook. It may not be ideal to come up with one piece of legislation, but I think we are going to work on having a handbook that will indicate how we can use the various pieces of legislations in terms of dealing with these cases. I think my Department through Mr. Dias will do that. We are in agreement with you in that regard.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Order, order. May I respond
to the issue of the report not available? I am informed that this is the first time the Chairperson has reported and it must not have gone public before you reports. I am informed that during the day, today, the report will be in your pigeon holes.
HON. ZIYAMBI: Thank you very much. In terms of enforcements agencies, our view was we wanted to make it as wide as possible so that we capture all the culprits, if you just say ZRP and perhaps ZIMRA, no, we wanted to widen it to ensure that all the agencies involved will be able to deal with these issues. However, when we get to the Committee Stage we can see how we can streamline it – [HON. BITI: Mapurisa ngaasunge vanhu.] – [HON. MISIHAIRABWI MUSHONGA: Mapurisa acho ndovari corrupt worse.] – On the value I have said we can look at it.
On the time limitation of unexplained wealth orders, the Bill already makes a provision for the discharge of an interim freezing order after compliance has been made. So, I believe it takes care of that. Once you have satisfied the requirements, it falls off and there are provisions for review and you can even appeal. However, we will see when we go to the Committee Stage.
On declaration of assets from Hon. Misihairambwi-Mushonga, she made very good points and I agree with her, particularly on people that you would wonder where they got the wealth from. This Bill is not targeting the poor and the rich people, not at all. This Bill is targeting thieves and corrupt people and the due process will be done. On the issue of declaration of assets, I agree. Let me explain this, once you declare assets, something happens and you are being investigated, you can produce that declaration and say but I had already declared this asset, why are you saying that I acquired it during my tenure as a Member of Parliament. So, it is actually good for Hon. Members to declare – [HON. MEMBERS: Publish the information.] - I think it is governed by other laws and not this one. So, we defer it and discuss it
later.
Again Hon. Misihairabwi-Mushonga, this Bill is not about prosecuting people, but obtaining information from allegedly corrupt people and on the basis of that information we can have civil assets forfeiture. So, it is not prosecution per se, we obtain information through that ex parte application. So if you do not satisfy the requirements, we forfeit. It is civil asset forfeiture, but depending on how you respond, we may actually pick some criminal elements which may lead to prosecution, but the essence of this application- it is a civil asset forfeiture application and it is not criminal in nature.
Hon. Phulu, you make a good point on the US dollar that it says 50 000, it does not indicate, I think we can correct that so that we peg it at a certain value in terms of US dollar. This Bill is not about taking wealth from people. We are just looking at people who have obtained wealth corruptly. That is the target, so if you have obtained wealth corruptly, we want to fast-track this Bill so that we can get you. We cannot say it should not be retrospective, all we are saying is prove to us where you get your wealth from, there will be a checklist, if you got it from your brother, state it, if you stole it state it. If we say it is not retrospective, it defeats the whole purpose. Iwe wanga uchiba mazuva ese aya waakuti aiwa ngazvichitanga nhasi, tirikutanga kumashure ikoko kwawakaba – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] – [HON. BITI: Muchapedzana ikoko uko.] – I think if you steal, it does not matter where you are from, you should be nabbed. If you can explain the source of your wealth, you do not have anything to fear – declare that it was prostitution. I submit that the Bill be now read a second time.
HON. HAMAUSWA: I just want to make one contribution. I am
of the view that whilst we look at the individuals, we should also consider the context of our nation which has lost a lot of revenue from unscrupulous companies. This Bill should also take into account the concept of public trust theory- where the Hon Minister was saying the law when it is passed it cannot be applying in retrospect I am also suggesting that we should empower Government to look back into the contracts that would have been made but in a way benefiting certain companies in a corrupt way so that Government can correct those wrongs possibly that were done some years back but they have deprived the public.
From what the Minister was saying, the people would have stolen from the people- like the resources of this nation, they belong to the people so there must be that principle if it is possible. It is just a suggestion that other countries that are fighting corruption, they have decided to bring in the concept of public trust to say even those who are in public offices, they are there on the basis of public trust that they are just managing the resources which do not belong to them but to the public. I am suggesting to the Hon Minister, I do not know how you will take it, but this is what other countries are doing. I thank you.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): The other issues
we can deal with them at the Committee Stage. I move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Motion put and agreed to.
Bill read a second time.
Committee Stage: With leave forthwith.
COMMITTEE STAGE
MONEY LAUNDERING AND PROCEEDS OF CRIME BILL [H. B.
4, 2019]
House in Committee.
Clause 1 put and agreed to.
On Clause 2:
HON. BITI: On Clause 2, the definition of enforcement authority.
Section 2 is the new Chapter 3A – Section 37 (a) Enforcement
Authority, I repeat my earlier submission that the enforcement authority should only mean the Commissioner General and the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority.
My submission is that the National Prosecuting Authority acts through policemen. So why would the National Prosecuting Authority need an independent power? Let them do their job of standing up in court on dockets prepared by the police. If they want to freeze, they go through the policemen.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS: Hon. Chair, on Clause 2, new
Chapter 3(a) inserted in Chapter 9:24, Chapter 3 (a) (1) Preliminary provisions, I propose that we delete the Zimbabwe Anti -Corruption Commission and the NPA and we leave the ZRP and the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority.
HON. MISIHAIRABWI-MUSHONGA: Minister, I think you
would be sending a very bad message by doing what you want to do right now. If there are any problems around ZACC and the kind of things that they can do, let us deal with the problems, but certainly I am telling you from a political message, from a message around what we are trying to do with that institution. If we as Parliament today sit and say we are taking them out for whatever reason that you are saying, the message is that you do not think that they have the capacity to deal with
this.
We can go with it, but I am telling you, you are creating a very bad message generally around that. That removal of ZACC is a bad thing to do.
HON. ZIYAMBI: This Bill is not about criminal prosecution. This Bill, ZIMRA is the revenue authority where every penny that you earn must be accounted to ZIMRA in terms of one or the other tax and the Zimbabwe Republic Police can assist ZIMRA in their work. They can also make an application and work in collaboration with any other agency. So there is no agency that is having its work taken away.
This is a civil application, not a criminal application, but should there be criminal elements that arise out of that, then it can either be referred to ZACC or the police can proceed. So there is no undermining of any authority whatsoever, unless if we are turning this into a criminal investigation, then we can say let us continue with this because the moment we turn this then it becomes bad law.
We are saying a civil application has been made, explain your wealth. On the basis of that explanation, we can close or alternatively there might be criminal elements that may come out and on the basis of that explanation, we are not going to prosecute you. You can forfeit your assets to the State and that is the end of the story or if we believe that the nature of the transactions are criminal, then ZACC can come in with their investigative prowess. So, I do not know why we would tell ourselves here that we are setting a dangerous precedence when we are dealing with a civil application. I submit Hon. Speaker Sir.
HON. MISIHAIRABWI-MUSHONGA: I think perhaps I need
education because I have never understood the ZACC institution as one that is only for purposes of criminal prosecution. That is not what I have understood it to be. You are telling me that you want to do a civil issue of ensuring that you do forfeiture of property, unexplained wealth or to begin that process, why is ZACC not a body that can do that? I certainly cannot understand where we are coming from because it is as if you are saying if you say ZAC, you are talking criminal. I am not necessarily saying that.
You are saying that the police is okay, NPA is okay and yet NPA is dealing with criminal law. So I do not understand.
HON. BITI: Mr. Speaker Sir, I think the problem which we are having, I said it already, is the philosophy of this Bill, is the philosophy that assumes that the minute a person has an asset, he or she is a criminal. We have a country that encourages entrepreneurship, business enterprise. In this august House, we have genuine, legitimate, bonafide business people. Vamwe vacho vandakatarisa avo varimunomu, mashangwiti emari dzehupfumi. We have miners and farmers here. Yes of course we have got criminals, but we must not assume that everyone is a criminal. That is the problem.
So, there is a specialised board which deals with crime. It is the police. Let us give them the powers. There is a specialised board which deals with revenue collection, it is ZIMRA. Let us give them that, but let us exclude ZACC because ZACC deals with crime, ZACC deals with corruption which is a crime. This is not a criminal Bill. The NPA should not be there because the NPA deals with crime and prosecution.
So the police and ZIMRA should be there. I thank you very much Hon.
Chair.
HON. ZIYAMBI: Hon. Chair, I believe any law, you can improve it going forward and if we get to a stage where we feel strongly, which I do not at the moment, that we can involve ZACC, we will do
that.
I will give you a good example in our laws. If I bring my vehicle through Beitbridge and I do not pay duty, the police can arrest me in conjunction with ZIMRA and ZIMRA can impound the vehicle and impose a penalty. Suppose my duty was $2000 they can say $4 000, but I do not go to jail. We have provisions like that in our law. That is the basis of having perhaps ZIMRA and the police because the police assist ZIMRA, but should there be a criminal element that arises out of it that requires further investigation, there is nothing that prevents ZACC from being engaged, but we must preserve this Bill as it is to deal with unexplained wealth in a civil manner, not a criminal manner. So I submit that we proceed, Hon. Chair, to the next section.
HON. PHULU: Thank you Hon. Chair. If the Minister could address line 40 on page 2 which talks about the aggregate value of
US$50 000, I think it was an omission, whether they meant to say US$50 000 or something of equivalent value. Thank you.
HON. ZIYAMBI: Thank you Hon. Chair. On line 40, I propose to increase the value to US$100 000 equivalent. I propose again to insert the following proviso to Section 37 (b) subsection (1) on page 3, so that it reads “provided that if the court is not so satisfied, it may dismiss the application or require the applicant to serve notice of the application on the respondent before proceeding with the application”. – [HON. MISIHAIRABWI-MUSHONGA: Kuti mumupe time yekuti
anyatsodealer nezvinhu zvake.]- No, it still remains an ex parte application but the court then makes that decision depending on the facts that have been presented by the enforcement authority that is making the application. It will take care of frivolous application that may be made.
So that is what I propose.
In the new Section 37 (b), to delete the figure “US$10 000” and substitute with “US$100 000”.
Amendment on Section 37 (e), where you spoke about US$65 000, which is paragraph 5, I want to delete “US$65 000” or the equivalent and I propose to put it so that it can read as follows: “shall be guilty of an offence and liable to a fine not exceeding 20 per centum of the value of the property that is the subject of the unexplained wealth order or if
no such value specified, not exceeding “US$20 000”. This is a fine for misleading information.
Then on 37 (e), it now becomes not exceeding 20 per centum of the value of the property that is subject or if the value is not there, not exceeding “US$20 000”. So, we have removed the “US$65 000”. I think it is now clear.
THE TEMPORARY CHAIRPERSON (HON. M.
KHUMALO): Hon. Minister, it would appear we have got 37 (b) twice here.
HON. ZIYAMBI: Yes, we are deleting the other one.
HON. MHONA: Thank you Hon. Chair. I just wanted to bring to
the attention of the Minister on the 37 (b) that it is appearing twice.
Thank you.
HON. ZIYAMBI: We will renumber.
HON. PHULU: On 37 (b) Mr. Chairman, subsection (3), related to politically exposed persons. My concern is on line 20, page 4. In order for a High Court to grant the ground for suspecting that the main sources would have been insufficient; if you are merely a politically exposed person, without saying “and” any of these other grounds simply because why should it be suspected simply because you are a politically exposed person and nothing else? I think that it should be coupled with the additional grounds that in a, b, c and d. So, you could say political
persons and semi colon or. – [HON. MISIHAIRABWI-MUSHONGA:
Mavadefender zvebasa.]-
HON. ZIYAMBI: Thank you Hon. Chair. The other 37 (b) on line
20, I am proposing to expunge or delete “the respondent is a politically exposed person” and renumber it accordingly. Sub section (ii), I would put a (ii) that says, ‘ any person subject of an order under section 37 (b)...’
Hon. Biti called to approach the Minister.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Hon. Chair, on
37 (a) any person subjected to an unexplained wealth order may at any time apply to the High Court that issues the order, to set aside the order on good cause shown.
On 37 (i), a new Subsection (2) to read as follows, any person subjected to an interim freezing order may at any time apply to the High
Court that issues the order to put it aside on good cause shown. It is 37 (a) the new addition (7), on page 4 after paragraph 5 to insert this paragraph – “Any person subjected to an unexplained wealth order may at any time apply to the High Court that issues the order to set it aside on good cause shown”.
Then on 37 (i), new Subsection (2) after line 35, to insert - “Any person subjected to an interim freezing order may at any time apply to the High Court that issues the order to set it aside on good cause shown”. Then the last one on page 13; 37 (O), I propose to add (c), that will read as follows, “the compensation must be paid within 12 months of its award”. I so submit Hon. Chair.
Amendments to Clause 2 put and agreed to.
Clause 2, as amended, put and agreed to.
House resumed.
Bill reported with amendments.
Bill referred to the Parliamentary.
ANNOUNCEMENT BY THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER
NON-ADVERSE REPORT RECEIVED FROM THE
PARLIAMENTARY LEGAL COMMITTEE
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: I have received a non-adverse
report from the Parliamentary Legal Committee on the Zimbabwe Investment Development Agency Bill [H. B. 2A, 2019].
Consideration Stage: With leave, forthwith.
CONSIDERATION STAGE
ZIMBABWE INVESTMENT DEVELOPMENT AGENCY BILL [H.
- 2A, 2019]
Clauses 2, 5, 6 now Clause 7, 9, 14, 20, 21, 23, 30, 42, 45, 47, 48, and Second Schedule put and agreed to.
Bill, as amended, adopted.
Third Reading: With leave, forthwith.
THIRD READING
ZIMBABWE INVESTMENT DEVELOPMENT AGENCY BILL [H.
- 2, 2019]
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Mr. Speaker Sir,
I now move that the Bill be read the third time.
Motion put and agreed to.
Bill read the third time.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Before I
propose the adjournment of the House, I want to thank the Hon.
Members for the robust debate and for the work that was put in today to ensure that we pass the ZIDA Bill.
The House adjourned at Twenty Seven Minutes past Five o’clock
p.m. until Tuesday, 3rd December, 2019.
PARLIAMENT OF ZIMBABWE
Wednesday, 27th November, 2019
The National Assembly met at a Quarter-past Two o’clock p.m.
PRAYERS
(THE HON. SPEAKER in the Chair)
ANNOUNCEMENTS BY THE HON. SPEAKER
PETITIONS RECEIVED FROM L. MUPASIRI JANI AND
MHONDONGORI RESOURCES COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
TRUST
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, I have the following
announcements. I have to inform the House that on Tuesday, 12th
November, 2019, Parliament of Zimbabwe received a petition from L. Mupasiri Jani, Director of the Combined Harare Residents Association requesting Parliament to investigate revenues allocated to local authorities by the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works to enact a law governing the allocation of revenues to Provincial and
Metropolitan Councils including local authorities.
The petition has since been referred to the Portfolio Committee on Local Government and Public Works.
I also have to inform the House that on Monday, 18th November 2019, Parliament of Zimbabwe received a petition from Mr. K. Zireva co-ordinator of the Mhondongori Resources Community Development Trust, beseeching Parliament to reinstate and review the indigenisation laws of Zimbabwe in order to ensure that local communities benefit from the exploitation of mineral resources as envisaged by Section 13(4) of the Constitution.
The petition has since been referred to the Portfolio Committee on Industry and Commerce and the Thematic Committee on Indigenisation and Empowerment.”
COMMEMORATION OF THE CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF
THE CHILD
THE HON. SPEAKER: I wish to inform the House that
Parliament, in conjunction with UNICEF will be hosting a High Level Forum to commemorate thirty years of the Convention on the Rights of the Child on Friday, 29 November 2019 in the Courtyard at Parliament.
The following Members are invited to the commemorations:
- All Chairpersons of Committees;
- Members of the Portfolio Committee on Primary and Secondary
Education;
- Members of the Portfolio Committee on Justice, Legal and
Parliamentary Affairs;
- Members of the Portfolio Committee on Health and Child Care; and
- Members of the Portfolio Committee on Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare.
ERROR ON TODAY’S ORDER PAPER
THE HON. SPEAKER: I wish to draw your attention to an error on today’s Order Paper where Order of the Day, Number 26 should be deleted and the rest of the Orders re-numbered accordingly.
APOLOGIES RECEIVED FROM MINISTERS
THE HON. SPEAKER: I have received apologies from the following Ministers
- Marapira – Minister of State in the Vice President’s K. C. D.
Mohadi’s Office;
- R. I. Modi – Deputy Minister of Industry and Commerce;
- M. Chombo – Deputy Minister of Local Government and
Public Works;
- V. Haritatos – Deputy Minister of Lands, Water, Climate and
Rural Resettlement;
- Prof Ncube - Minister of Finance and Economic
Development.
Hon. Sen. Chief Charumbira having presented a Notice of Motion on the Report of the Privileges Committee on allegations of corruption raised against Hon. Mliswa, Hon Chikomba, Hon. Ndebele and Hon. P. D. Sibanda.
HON. SIKHALA: Zvenyu zvekuframer vanhu here izvo –
[Laughter]-.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Hon Sikhala, can you withdraw that
statement because the Committee was duly constituted after this august House said it should be constituted. It was a decision of the august House.
HON. SIKHALA: Mr. Speaker Sir, I was a legal practitioner of the people who had been accused of having committed the crime, so I am privy to the evidence that was adduced. However, if you would like me to withdraw so that we debate the report - I withdraw Mr. Speaker but we meet on the debate of the report.
THE HON. SPEAKER: I did not want to say I was also a legal
practitioner there. The fundamental issue is, it was a decision of the august House which you must respect. The mover of the motion will read out the report and you are allowed to debate at that stage. So you cannot start to say the issues raised were concocted. As a lawyer surely you cannot say that as well before you hear the report. I want you to withdraw honourably and unconditionally.
HON SIKHALA: I withdraw Mr. Speaker Sir.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Thank you very much.
HON MARKHAM: On a point of privilege. I just like to refer
back to the issue that I raised with regards to the special report on the Airport Road. You gave a ruling that it should be presented to us by the
26th November 2019. To my knowledge, this has not been done.
THE HON. SPEAKER: I did engage the Minister of Local
Government and Public Works and gave him the two letters that were written to his office. He indicated that he would look into the matter and present the report once he has discovered it. Apparently, that report appears not to be within his office but he is looking for it for presentation here in the august House. To give comfort to you, this morning I did converse with him to remind him that he should prepare to present that report to this august House and he committed himself to do
HON. SARUWAKA: Mr. Speaker Sir, our Standing Rules, Section 76 on the decorum of Parliament in terms of dressing, I have noticed over time that during Mr. Mugabe’s time, you took offence to any dressing that replicated the national flag colours. However, since
2017, I have noticed that Mr. Mnangagwa comes in the House with the – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] - He comes in the House with the scarf. I do not see any problem with that but I was wondering whether you still maintain the position that you do not want anything with the flag colours in the House – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
I have not finished. My main point Mr. Speaker Sir is, do you still take offence with anyone dressing in the flag colours, because I was actually removed from this House for wearing my jacket which has got the same colours as the scarf that my colleague, the President of ZANU PF wears in the House. Do you still have any problems with it?
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, order. In the first place, I am not aware of someone called Mr. Mnangagwa. I am aware of President Mnangagwa. Secondly, the scarf which His Excellency the President wears is not part of attire; it is his trade mark – [HON. MEMBERS:
Inaudible interjections.] - Order, order. I urge anyone else to look at the Oxford Dictionary and see the difference between what is meant by attire in terms of Section 76 of the Standing Orders against what I said was a trade mark and then you can convince me accordingly.
HON. P. D. SIBANDA: Hon. Speaker, my point of privilege arises out of what transpired in the House yesterday, which to me and to other colleagues that are of the same mind call the shrinking of the democratic space within the theatre of democracy which is Parliament. What transpired yesterday Hon. Speaker is that Members were debating on the Zimbabwe Investment and Development Agency Bill. The Hon. Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs who happens also to be the Leader of Government in this House uttered words that conclusively mean that members of the opposition even if they were to contribute towards a Bill in this House, they will not be responded to.
His response was let us proceed, let us proceed and let us proceed.
Hon. Speaker, I do appreciate that the Hon. Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs could have his own issues either with the opposition party or certain members of the opposition party, but Hon. Speaker, his utterances come on the background of you having made a ruling just a few days ago. The ruling that you had made Hon. Speaker, was to the effect that a previous ruling that you had made, which had agreed to the application which had been made by the same Hon. Minister to gag Hon. Members from the opposition from asking questions, was unconstitutional. I think that is how you ruled it, but then Hon. Speaker, to have a Cabinet Minister, not just an ordinary Cabinet Minister, but a Leader of Government Business in the House coming literally to trample onto the ruling that you had made as the Hon. Speaker is an indication that there is conflict within the House between the Executive and the Legislature.
Hon. Speaker, our expectations as Hon. Members of Parliament is that when you make a ruling, that ruling should be respected by both sides of the House, but when the Hon. Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs walks here to oppose directly an order that you had given as the Chair, it is an indication that we are directly undermining the authority, not only of the Speaker, but also of the House.
So Hon. Speaker, I therefore desire that I hear from you today whether that is the current position of Parliament, that the so called law reform that we are making as a country is only the preserve of the ruling party as was indicated yesterday by the Leader of Government Business. We want to know and the nation wants to know whether the reform that has been referred to by the Second Republic is a reform that is only led by the ruling party without the participation of the opposition. I thank you Hon. Speaker.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, order. Your microphone is on there – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.]- Order. Can I make some correction? First, the order you referred to must be contextualised. The order was not made a few days ago. The order was made soon after our Pre-Budget Seminar at Victoria Falls and the order was very specific that in terms of the Constitution and the Standing Orders, particularly Section 107 (2) of the Constitution when read together with our Standing Orders, Wednesday is question time and by the same token, on Thursdays in the Senate it is Private Members
Business which in terms of the Constitution and Standing Orders take precedence over Government business. That was the context of the ruling.
As for what happened yesterday, I need to read the Hansard and make a decision accordingly because I want to know what exactly transpired and then will come back on the issue. Thank you.
HON. MUSHORIWA: Point of Privilege Mr. Speaker.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Today is question time. We have too many privileges.
HON. SIKHALA: I had a point of Order, Mr. Speaker, which you deferred after giving Hon. Sibanda the opportunity to give his point of privilege. Can I be given an opportunity for my point of order to be heard?
THE HON. SPEAKER: Normally a point of order rises from a
debate.
HON. SIKHALA: Yes, there is a debate that arose that followed the point of privilege by the Honourable Member of Mutasa South, Hon.
Saruwaka.
THE HON. SPEAKER: No, that cannot be a point of order after the Speaker’s ruling.
HON. SIKHALA: I just want to seek a point of clarification, Mr. Speaker Sir. Can I be given an opportunity, Mr. Speaker Sir, to ask a point of clarification?
THE HON. SPEAKER: Just take a seat please.
HON. SIKHALA: Mr. Speaker,...
THE HON. SPEAKER: Just take a seat. If you listened very carefully, I said go and check the difference between attire and trade marking.
HON. SIKHALA: No, that one is heard Mr. Speaker, but there is a clarity which is different from what you are saying.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Is there any debate arising from that?
HON. SIKHALA: No, I just want some clarification from some sticking issues arising from that.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Go to the dictionary first and then come back to me and I will give you the opportunity.
HON. MUSHORIWA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. My point of
privilege is in respect of the papers that have been laid before Parliament.
THE HON. SPEAKER: The what?
HON. MUSHORIWA: The budget papers that have been laid before Parliament by the Minister of Finance and Economic Development, namely the Blue Book, the Budget Statement and the Infrastructure Statement.
Mr. Speaker Sir, for probably the third or second year in this session, in this Parliament, the figures that are contained in those three books do not talk to each other. The Blue Book for instance carries a lot of mistakes and it is very difficult, Mr. Speaker Sir, for Members of Parliament to actually understand which is correct because you will find that the Blue Book is different from the Budget Statement and it is also different from what is contained in the Infrastructure Statement. To that extent, Mr. Speaker Sir, we would request the Chair to order the relevant Minister to bring accurate information to this House to enable us to debate those issues.
THE HON. SPEAKER: I will bring that to the attention of the Hon. Minister of Finance and Economic Development to ascertain whether your observation is correct or not.
*HON. KWARAMBA: On a point of privilege. Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.]- My point of privilege, Mr. Speaker Sir, is that we hear that those who sent their grain to GMB were given a cutoff point of October, but when we look at those who engage in farming they experience a lot of expenses and they sent their grain to GMB on time. So, what I am saying is that the farmers are the ones who took their grain to GMB before October. Those who took their grain from October until now are middlemen, they are not the farmers. It is because people knew that there would be back pay. The middlemen are now taking their grain to GMB and making more money. My request is that the back pay be given to all the farmers. Let us assist our farmers and not dishearten them. Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, Order Hon. Members. I think
there is a titivation towards abuse of points of order. Some of the points of orders can be turned into questions to the Hon. Ministers. I do not want us to revisit standing orders so that we are very pointed in our points of privilege. I am not allowing any further points of privilege.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
HON. A. MPOFU: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. My question is directed to the Minister of Environment and Tourism. What is Government policy on providing positive incentives to rural communities so that they can embark on sustained actions that mitigate climate change in their areas?
THE MINISTER OF PRIMARY AND SECONDARY
EDUCATION (HON. MATHEMA) on behalf of THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON.
ZIYAMBI): Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. There is quite a number of programmes that the Government is doing to work together with people who may be affected by climate changes particularly in those areas where there are CAMPFIRE programmes because CAMPFIRE programmes are related to the environment and the climate changes that are affecting all of us have been taken into account and we will do the best we can to work with everybody else. Thank you.
HON. MUSHORIWA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. Could the
Hon. Minister advise this House that given the fact that if you look in terms of the budget, there is no allocation of funds towards climate management. How does the Minister’s response dovetail, given that there is no proper budget which is meant to mitigate against climate change?
THE HON. SPEAKER: I am afraid that question is misdirected because it must have to relate to tourism promotion. I saw another one standing, is it Hon. Tsunga? Is that a supplementary question?
*HON. TSUNGA: Yaa, it is a supplementary question.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Hon. Member, in responding to the Chair
you do not say yaa.
HON. TSUNGA: Oh! I beg your pardon Hon. Speaker.
THE HON. SPEAKER: You must say yes Hon. Speaker. –
[Laughter]-
*HON. TSUNGA: Thank you Hon. Speaker. The question that
was posed on climate change, - I have a supplementary that there are things that are happening that are causing climate change. I wanted to find out what policy the Ministry has in place to address that - the dust that comes from the mining areas during mining? What policy is in place to address such activities because it is affecting our tourism industry?
THE MINISTER OF PRIMARY AND SECONDARY
EDUCATION (HON. MATHEMA) on behalf of THE MINISTER
OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON.
ZIYAMBI): We have a department called EMA in Government and
have laws that relate to that department. So if there are any actions that affect our environment or affect climate, it is that department that deals with them. I am sure we have enough laws and regulations that control that. Thank you.
HON. MADZIMURE: My point of clarification is that the
Minister is not well informed. There is this policy document and it is not coming from EMA. There is a department in the Ministry of Agriculture responsible for climate change. So, the issue of climate change has nothing to do with EMA and there is a policy document that the Government has produced. The Minister must actually direct his question to a fact. He must apologise for misleading the House. –[HON.
MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.]-
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, Hon. Minister, do you want to answer?
[The Hon. Speaker having been advised by the Clerks-at-the-
Table]
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, I have been advised by the Clerk of Parliament. The Hon. Minister referred to EMA in the context of pollution aspect which Hon. Tsunga raised. To that extent, the answer from the Hon. Minister who was Acting Minister of Tourism up to a few minutes ago was correct.
+HON. MATHE: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. My question is directed to – [HON. SIKHALA: Inaudible interjection.] –
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order Hon. Sikhala, I do not think your comment is fair about – [HON. SIKHALA: No, I am not talking about her.] – about the card – [Laughter.] –
HON. SIKHALA: Mr. Speaker Sir, if it was fired on the cross fire, I apologise. Myself as the National Vice Chairman of the MDC, if anybody would have gone with my card, I have got the right to follow them – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – If you look at the backside of our political card, there is a lacuna written there saying that this card remains the property of the MDC – [Laughter.] – However, I have not yet made up my mind whether to pursue my card from her or not – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] -
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order Hon. Members, I do not think this
is the place to cast some aspersions about any member’s political history. If I were someone else someone would say where is that card for MDC-99? [Laughter] –
+HON. MATHE: Thank you Mr. Speaker. Farmers received
inputs through the Presidential Inputs Scheme. What has the Ministry done to ensure those inputs are commensurate with the soil types in their area?
THE MINISTER OF HOME AFFAIRS AND CULTURAL
HERITAGE (HON. MATHEMA): Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. Yes,
Government is distributing all kinds of seeds all over the country and the Ministry of Agriculture has extension officers. Therefore, it is those extension officers and other Government officials who advise our farmers as to what grades or seed to use for a certain type of soil. So we have enough officials out there to assist everybody and every farmer anywhere in Zimbabwe. I thank you.
HON. KASHIRI: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. My question is directed to the Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement. In his absence, I will direct my question to the Acting Leader of Government Business. The Ministry has identified farms for repossession and has actually issued letters of intent to repossess. However, we need to know what is now holding the Ministry from actually repossessing those farms for reallocation.
THE MINISTER OF HOME AFFAIRS AND CULTURAL
HERITAGE (HON. MATHEMA): Mr. Speaker Sir, the issue of
farms that are to be repossessed is an issue that has been in the hands of Government for a long time. We will therefore discuss this issue and look into every possibility of how to handle the issue, hence we are still discussing and making more investigations. The hon. House will be informed as to how far we have gone and as to when we are going to implement. Thank you.
+HON. CHIDZIVA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. My question is
directed to the Minister of Health and Child Care. We heard that junior doctors are on strike and yesterday we also heard that senior doctors have joined the strike. I would like to know what the Government is doing to resolve this issue of striking doctors.
THE MINISTER OF HEALTH AND CHILD CARE (HON.
- O. MOYO): Thank you Mr. Speaker and I thank the Hon. Member for his question. Hon. Biti requested for a Ministerial Statement and I will answer all those questions today – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – Questions related to health matters will be covered by the Hon. Minister Dr. Moyo.
*HON. HAMAUSWA: I would like to find out whether when the
Minister delivers his Statement…
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, order. Hon. Hamauswa, with all
due respect, when a Ministerial Statement is made, you can then raise questions of clarification.
HON. P. ZHOU: Thank you Hon. Speaker Sir. My question is directed to the Minister of Transport and Infrastructural Development. In view of high charges demanded by the transporters, what measures has the Government put in place to cushion travelers from these unscrupulous service providers during the coming holidays?
THE HON. SPEAKER: Can the Hon. Member be heard in
silence. Hon. Member, please repeat your question.
HON. P. ZHOU: Thank you Hon. Speaker Sir. I said my question is directed to the Minister of Transport and Infrastructural Development. In view of high charges demanded by transporters, what measures has the Government put in place to cushion travelers from these scrupulous service providers during these coming holidays? – [Laughter.] - I mean the scrupulous service providers and not ZUPCO -unscrupulous service providers. Thank you.
THE MINISTER OF TRANSPORT AND
INFRASTRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT (HON. ARCH.
MATIZA): Thank you Mr. Speaker. I want to thank the Hon. Member for the question. The Government is so sensitive to the plight of the passengers that Government has put in place a programme of acquiring new buses that will ply the routes in the urban and in the rural areas. Such a programme is in progress as witnessed in Bulawayo in Matabeleland South. These programmes are going to continue to make sure that we see the plight of our passengers. I thank you.
*HON. MAMOMBE: Thank you Mr. Speaker. My
supplementary question to the Hon. Minister of Transport is that, we understand that they brought in the ZUPCO buses but the drivers are troubled by the potholes and also the breakdowns they experience from the buses because of the poor road network. We are requesting that you address the issue of poor road network than just to name streets instead of addressing the issue of potholes on the roads. I thank you.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Do not tempt the Chair to send your out. Please, observe the decorum of the House so that the Hon. Minister can be heard in silence and the questioner will then be satisfied. If you want to ask supplementary questions, you will be so directed. Thank you. *HON. ARCH MATIZA: Thank you Hon. Speaker. Government
has measures in place to address the issue of our poor road networks well known by the Members of Parliament in this House. Government has various measures to address these roads. There are four roads authorities will address the issue of roads – rural, DDF and Local
Government. Some will come from ZINARA which will send money to the local authorities upon acquittals and monitoring of transparency in the use of money.
In other areas, the road authorities have not brought in acquittals.
So the money cannot be disbursed before the acquittals are received. There is also corruption in some areas where the money is abused and that is why you find that the roads have not been reconstructed but in other areas the roads challenges have been addressed. I thank you Mr.
Speaker.
*HON. HAMAUSWA: My supplementary question to the Hon.
Minister is - what measures does he have in place in light of the rain season such that the bus terminals are well kept and conducive for commuters? If you look at the terminuses in Harare, they are a challenge. There are no benches and no sheds; you will find elderly people standing in queues. What measures have they put in place to ensure that commuters are able to wait for their transport in a well secured environment?
*HON. ARCH MATIZA: Thank you Mr. Speaker. I also want to
thank the Hon. Member who raises the question. He has looked at the urban centres. As I said there are roads authorities and the four of them, the one that he is talking about is of urban councils. They were under the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works. All I can respond to is that the authority has powers and authority to address the issue of terminuses and ensure that they are safe for commuters. So, council has the authority and it will be availed funds to ensure that they address the challenge. I thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.
HON. MPARIWA: On a point of order.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Does it arise from the debate?
HON. MPARIWA: Yes on this debate.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Which debate......
HON. MPARIWA: And I promise.
THE HON. SPEAKER: You will ask a supplementary question
and not raise a point of order.
*HON. MPARIWA: Alright. From what I heard from the question raised by Hon. P. Zhou, the reason why the question is still coming is that the question is being responded to by the wrong Minister and the question that is being responded to is the wrong question.
The question raised by Hon. P Zhou is that we have the elderly, vulnerable groups and widows who get food hand outs, after they have received the food handouts, they do not have transport to ferry them back home. What is Government policy on that or what measures does Government have in place to ensure that it assists those vulnerable groups?
*THE HON. SPEAKER: The Hansard has not yet been
published. Hon. P. Zhou is that correct?
HON. P. ZHOU: I will read the question again. In view of high charges demanded by transporters, what measures has the Government put in place to cushion travellers from these unscrupulous service providers during the coming holidays – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear,
hear.] –
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, order, order – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – Hon. Sibanda, Hon. Sibanda there, Hon. Sibanda Zenzo. I thought you were going to applaud the Hon. Minister of Transport who indicated that although the supplementary question asked by Hon. Hamauswa related to Local
Government, but he was still indulgent enough to answer that question.
HON. P. D. SIBANDA: Hon. Speaker I realise that you may not allow another supplementary question but there is an important question relating to the operations of ZUPCO which the Hon. Minister alluded to.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Why do you not ask a supplementary question straight forward?
HON. P. D. SIBANDA: I thought you would say....
THE HON. SPEAKER: You are the last one.
HON. P. D. SIBANDA: Thank you Mr. Speaker. The ZUPCO subsidies are getting almost $40 million dollars from Government every week but the country is not aware of how those subsidies are working in ZUPCO and who the actual beneficiaries of that $40 million dollars per week that is coming from Government are. Can the Hon. Minister appraise us as a House who exactly are benefiting out of that ZUPCO programme which is taking about $40 million from Government every week because there is suspicion that there are other people outside the ZUPCO itself that are benefiting...
THE HON. SPEAKER: You have asked the question, I am sure the Hon. Minister is quite clear.
THE MINISTER OF TRANSPORT AND
INFRASTRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT (HON. ARCH.
MATIZA): I would like to point out that this question relates to the Ministry of Local Government and Ministry of Finance. I would rather have them answer that question.
HON. P .D. SIBANDA: With your indulgence Hon. Speaker, the Hon. Deputy Minister of Finance is here. I am sure he can attend to that question.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Thank you for your advice.
THE HON. DEPUTY MINISTER OF FINANCE AND
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (HON. CHIDUWA): May the Hon.
Member ask the question again – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible
interjections.] –
HON. P.D. SIBANDA: I appreciate Hon. Speaker – the question was not directed to the Hon. Minister so it might have escaped him. My question is that the Ministry of Finance is spending close to $40 million or over every week on ZUPCO subsidies. We are all aware that all the transport that is contracted to do work on behalf of ZUPCO do not belong to ZUPCO. Can you explain to us who the beneficiaries are, what the policy outcomes are and how that $40 million dollars per work is being utilised and whether that is sustainable in an economy like ours?
HON. CHIDUWA: I appreciate the question that has been asked by the Hon. Member. What is critical is for Hon. Member to get a response that is going to make sense. I would urge the Hon. Member to put that question in writing and then we attend to it next week – [HON.
MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
HON. PHULU: My question is directed to the Minister of Health and Child Care. I will not be covered by the statement that he is going to make. What is Government’s policy on applying for nurses training – the background being that there has been a storm where people, particularly from Bulawayo, Matabeleland North and Matabeleland South have been unable to apply. We know that your Ministry took proactive action to try and sort out this issue and we would like to applaud that and they have centralised the application system. What is the policy now – how does it work so that people are able to apply?
THE MINISTER OF HEALTH AND CHILD CARE (HON.
- O. MOYO): Yes, we have a new policy – the new policy is that of e-recruitment. This is all because in the past there was a lot of corruption in the recruitment exercises. This is now a situation which alleviates all these issues regarding corruption activities in the recruitment process, because it is all done on computer – the candidates are not known to the computer itself. There are operators who are there to get information which comes out of the computer and the computer is not dealing in terms of names. It is fed with numbers – there are candidate numbers which are utilised. At the end of the day, it is the candidate number versus the qualifications and the grades of the particular candidate who is applying.
I want to also emphasize that during the first exercise which we carried out; naturally there will be some problems but however, these problems have been taken care of. So, the next time it is going to be done, the problems which we identified are going to be a thing of the past. The types of problems which we identified were for instance, the area from which the candidate will be coming from. We are now making sure that each candidate supplies their identify card which indicates the area where they are coming from. We want to be able to do equitable distribution of training posts right through the country.
I want also to emphasize; there is one other issue which came about as a result of this initial exercise where members from one particular area might have ended up in as a result of the choice of the computer not as a result of the choice of the individuals in another area. So our technical partner, Chinhoyi University of Technolowdge has managed to remodel the software so that we can be able to have that equitable distribution through the use of Identity Numbers which indicate the districts from where people are coming from.
That being said, we still have to realise that even when you are applying for a degree position at the University of Zimbabwe, you do not necessarily have to come from Harare, you could be from Mutare or any part of the country. It is not marginalization, there was no marginalisation because a computer does not marginalize. If it was individuals, that would be a different issue. So the situation is that all that has been taken care of and all that will be taken care of in the next intake. In the third intake which will be made, you will find that it is going to be decentralised to all the provinces. So the provincial medical directors are the ones who are going to be overseeing that exercise, so there will never be that marginalization or discrimination. I thank you.
HON. PHULU: I would like to thank the Minister for that comprehensive answer. However, I would like to ask that as we speak, this week I happen to know because I have constituency who are trying to apply and we are assisting them. The e-system is not working; meanwhile the cut off date for the applications is approaching. Is there going to be an extension so that when we cater for these issues then there is going to be an extension so they are able to apply?
HON. DR. MOYO: Definitely, wherever there are problems, it will be due to electricity shortages and we will increase the period there is no problem to that.
*HON. MUTSEYAMI: Thank you Mr. Speaker. Looking at the
health sector we have problems in the system of recruitment. However, recruitment has been centralised and these potential students are supposed to be paying US$2000. Hon. Minister, I think you should have another approach to solve these problems and look for ways of instituting a better recruitment system. You are talking of centralised recruitment, yet what is happening on the ground is a different thing.
I am going to help the Minister because there is a lot of corruption involved in recruitment. In this current recruitment system, you said it is now computerised but I am saying there is corruption. So, I am asking the Minister to craft a new system whereby if you are recruiting student nurses from Matabeleland South, we should have 60% coming from that province. If you are recruiting from Manicaland, we should take a certain quarter system so that we have a fair representation of people in the constituencies. Corruption is still involved even in the new system.
HON. DR. MOYO: I would like to thank the Hon. Member for further expounding on what the previous Hon. Member had also indicated. Definitely, the issue was to do with corruption in the recruitment system when it was all manual. It was to do with corruption when the system was all manual and people were paying up to US$2000 in order to get a place in nursing. There was no way this could be allowed to carry on. The only way was to come with the e-recruiting system. Now he is indicating to me that that system is still in place, I am very happy that he has brought it up and we would want to further tighten the system.
We also picked it up, we realised that there are some agencies that have suddenly come up on a regional basis. The agencies are now recruiting at a local level by getting as many names as possible and they feed them in the computer themselves. In the meantime, there are not even agencies; we do not have agencies as a Ministry of Health and Child Care, in the e-nurse recruitment exercise. We have come up with adverts in the paper to that effect.
So do not be cheated, do not allow those cheats to continue, we want to fight this corruption, this old fashioned system and whoever still wants to go to the old system, it is because they are corrupt. Their businesses which they were carrying out in a corrupt manner will suddenly die down. Therefore, let us be fair, we want to see an equitable distributing of posts and this will be achieved through the software changes which have been put in place by Chinhoyi University of Technology.
+HON. NYONI: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I would like to know what Government policy is, I will give an example, let us suppose that a nurse gets married and maybe she is someone who is suffering from sugar diabetes and has to inject herself but when she asks for a transfer, they refuse to transfer her and she ends up getting into marriage of convenience. When she asks for a transfer, they refuse to transfer her and she is sent maybe to a very remote place where there is no network. I would like the Minister to assist because a lot of people have been asking that question.
THE HON. SPEAKER: I am going to indulge the Hon. Member
but it is a fresh question, so we will park it for now.
Questions without notice were interrupted by THE HON. SPEAKER in
terms of standing Order Number. 64
HON. SIKHALA: Mr. Speaker, I move that time for Questions
Without Notice be extended.
HON. C. MOYO: I second.
HON. MBONDIAH: Mine is a supplementary question to the
Minister of Health. The Hon. Minister has alluded to the fact that this erecruiting system is now working and my question is how effective is it for somebody in rural Zhombe where there are no computers at all? Is this system not only for the elite and not for the children in the rural areas?
HON. DR. O. MOYO: I would like to thank the Hon. Member for
her question since it will give me a chance to be able to expound on the fact that we are all aware that we have to move with time. That is number one and this is the age of ICTs. As it is the age of ICT, you will see that the Ministry of ICT has come up with Information
Communication Centres (ICTs) and while they are still in their infancy, whoever wants to – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – You see these are the developments which we are experiencing and we want to be able to appreciate what is happening.
Therefore, even when it was manual, that same problem was still there because the candidate would still have to travel. So, the most important thing right now is that we are still advertising in the press and after advertising in the press, those candidates who feel that they want to apply for nursing through the e-recruitment exercise, they will have to go to a centre where there is adequate internet access and utilise that. That was the same thing even when it was manual. They would still go to the towns, nearest growth points and so on– [HON. SIKHALA: They were using the post office.] –. That is what used to happen and we are not going to go back just because of that. Thank you.
HON. SIKHALA: My supplementary question is that the Minister consistently emphasised corruption in the recruitment of nurses as the reason for them to change the modus operandi. Is he telling this House the honest truth because I know him very well and he has been a Chief Executive Officer of a central hospital in my constituency? When he was recruiting nurses, which he knows himself as the former CEO of a hospital. He had a panel or a recruitment committee which had
members of the CIO in that committee and he knows it – [HON.
MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – Yes!
Mr. Speaker Sir, my question is that he is misleading the House. He had a recruitment committee, – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – a patronage recruitment …
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, order! Hon. Sikhala, hold on your emotions. Stop pointing at him and address the Chair.
HON. SIKHALA: Mr. Speaker Sir, several times after realising his discriminatory behavior as a CEO, we stormed into the interview rooms when we noticed that he had a recruitment committee – [HON.
MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, order! Can you ask your supplementary question and to the point.
HON. SIKHALA: Mr. Speaker, was it as a result of corruption or as a result of a patronage system which was put in place for the recruitment of nurses because I saw him having CIOs on the recruitment panel, receiving names – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – for admissions – [AN. HON. MEMBER: Point of order Mr. Speaker Sir. That is not a supplementary question.] – from the former First Lady, Grace Mugabe for them to be admitted at Chitungwiza Hospital. So, was it through corruption or through the patronage system – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – which you put in place during that period? That is my supplementary – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible
interjections.] –
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, order! I cannot allow a situation where an Hon. Member casts aspersions. That is not permissible in terms of our Standing Orders. Hon. Member Sikhala, you cannot say the Hon.
Minister is corrupt.
HON. SIKHALA: No, Mr. Speaker, not now – [HON.
MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – but when he was the Chief
Executive. Mr. Speaker Sir, this man was a Chief Executive – [HON.
MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – of a hospital in my constituency – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – we know what he was doing – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order. Hon. Kwaramba, order. When
the Chair has ruled, you cannot persist in that respect and because of that, my punishment is that your supplementary question which was diluted shall not be answered by the Hon. Minister.
HON. DR. LABODE: Hon. Speaker, despite what was said, the new system of recruiting nurses is somehow creating a certain bias. We are not saying there is something fish which is happening, but it cannot be allowed. Out of 20 nurses that are going to Matabeleland South, we cannot have a situation where not even one comes from there. You go everywhere and cannot find local people. We know there is a technical way of dealing with these things, there is a problem. Currently, as I am talking to you, the system was blocked. Applicants cannot pay to register on the application online. I spoke to the Minister, we need, Mr.
Speaker Sir to…
THE HON. SPEAKER: Ask the question please.
HON. DR. LABODE: I am coming. We need to extent the application…
THE HON. SPEAKER: Do not come, just ask a question.
HON. DR. LABODE: Hon. Minister, what are you going to do –
[HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – My question Mr.
Speaker Sir, is that, can the Minister consider extending the deadline for applications because children in the rural areas are unable to do so?
HON. O. MOYO: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. That question was asked by another Member and an answer was given. We have said, if we can give an extension to our deadline, there is no problem with that.
HON. CHIKWINYA: Thank you Hon. Speaker. My question is a reminder to the Deputy Minister of Energy and Power Development after having asked her two weeks ago. I am happy that I had liaised with her and she is now ready with an answer. However, just to refresh her memory, the question deals with the issue of payment of the legacy debt. If you look at the structure of our billing system with regards to power purchasing, there is an element of legacy debt. So, the question sought to extract what percentage is legacy debt, which we are paying currently. Why are we also paying legacy debt when we have been using a prepayment billing system? Thank you.
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF ENERGY AND POWER
DEVELOPMENT (HON. MUDYIWA): Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.
The question on the legacy debt was started when the prepaid metres were introduced. This is meant for people who were owing some money to ZESA and have not cleared. So, that debt was carried over to the post-prepayment installation of the metres. From whatever amount that the debtors paid, 50% of it would be subtracted to settle the debt which the customers owed to ZESA. The payment would continue until the debt was cleared. I think that is what I can say concerning the legacy debt.
HON. CHIKWINYA: Thank you Hon. Speaker. I am sure the
Hon. Minister did not get me correctly on the onset. What happened
Hon. Speaker is that, around 2009, we introduced the prepayment
system and certainly people had debts. What the Hon. Member is speaking to is what then happened around that time. However, what happened now with the new tariffs is that, if I purchase power for, let us say $100, I would get about 100 units but they have factored in a national legacy debt. So, everyone of us, every time you go and pay for electricity, you pay a certain amount of legacy debt, which is devoid of my personal consumption which I had already paid for in 2010. This is a new tariff which has been introduced; it is not more than 6 months ago. This is the one which I am actually speaking to and not the one which was done earlier. Everyone is currently paying for the legacy debt.
HON. MUDYIWA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I think on that case there was a misunderstanding of the question that he is talking about. When I got the question I went and interrogated the authorities about this legacy debt and this is what I got, but if it is something different, I will have to go back again and try to find out. I think if he can write down that question so that the authorities will explain what he wants to know but the legacy debt which I got is what I have explained.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Hon. Chikwinya, your question is quite involved, I think it would be good that you put it in writing so that you can get a more detailed response to the question.
HON. SACCO: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. My question was directed towards the Minister of Justice but I will direct to the Acting Leader of Government Business. My question is, what is Government policy in regards to offer letters and A1 permits that are being overruled by the courts and our farmers are being disadvantaged where courts are overruling offer letters and A1 permits without due consultation?
THE HON. SPEAKER: When you say the matter has gone to
court and there is a ruling, there must be a due process. So, perhaps clarify the due process.
HON. SACCO: My question refers to policy inconsistency between the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement and the Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, where the Ministry of Lands is the allocating authority of land or A1 Permits and offer letters. However, these issues are taken to court and a court makes a ruling which reverses an offer letter or A1 Permit which was duly allocated by the Ministry of Lands. What is
Government policy on ensuring that our farmers are protected from the court process that dispossessing our farmers of their land?
THE HON. SPEAKER: It is clear now.
THE MINISTER OF PRIMARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION (HON. MATHEMA): Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I
hear the Hon. Member’s question. I am going to take the issue up and find out exactly what is happening. I thank him for making the observation.
Questions Without Notice were interrupted by THE HON.
SPEAKER in terms of Standing Order No. 64.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS WITH NOTICE
RELEASE OF FUNDS FOR CONSTRUCTION OF ROADS BY
ZINARA TO THE CITY OF GWERU
- HON. CHIBAYA asked the Minister of Transport and
Infrastructural Development to inform the House when the Zimbabwe
National Roads Authority (ZINARA) will release funds to the City of Gweru to enable the local authority to complete construction of the following roads in Mkoba Constituency –
(a) From Mkoba 7 Bus Stop to Mkoba 15 Turn-Off; and (b) Mkoba 12 turn-off to Mkoba 17 Turn-off.
THE MINISTER OF TRANSPORT AND
INFRASTRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT (HON. ARCH.
MATIZA): Thank you Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask for deferment of questions for the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural Development as the officials are still preparing the answers. I ask for deferment to next week Tuesday – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible
interjections.] –
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order. While I sympathise with the Hon. Minister, this question was deferred from 13th November 2019. I would want to encourage Hon. Ministers to be expeditious in preparing the questions. Thank you – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible
interjections.] –
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order Hon. Members. We are
deferring questions 1 to 6 to next week.
LIST OF ELDERLY PEOPLE REGISTERED UNDER THE SOCIAL
WELFARE PROGRAMME IN KAMBUZUMA CONSTITUENCY
- HON. MADZIMURE asked the Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare to inform the House the numbers of elderly people that are registered under the Social Welfare Programme in Kambuzuma Constituency, Wards 14 and 16 and to disaggregate them by name, age, sex and residential addresses.
THE MINISTER OF PUBLIC SERVICE, LABOUR AND
SOCIAL WELFARE (HON. PROF MAVIMA): Thank you Madam
Speaker. I wish to thank Hon. Madzimure for the question asked. May I kindly take this opportunity to inform you that the entire Harare Metropolitan Province has a total of 12 thousand households that are currently benefiting under the food deficit mitigation programme.
However, disaggregated data for Kambuzuma District will be available in due course as my office is working on the matter.
HON. CHIKWINYA: On a point of order Madam Speaker.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: What is your point of order
Hon. Chikwinya?
HON. CHIKWINYA: Thank you Madam Speaker. The fact that
the Minister has partially answered this question, it takes away the question from the Order Paper but the Minister then highlights that he is still working to provide the figures so requested. The danger now is that the Hon. Member has no recourse rather than to file a fresh question or to base on the trust of the Minister. What we would have expected as a House is that the Minister was not supposed to respond until he has the full details. I would therefore propose that the question remains on the Order Paper until it has been asked for.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: I hear you Hon. Chikwinya. The question will remain on the Order Paper until the Minister provides the full answer.
FOOD RATIONS DISTRIBUTED TO SOCIAL WELFARE
QUARTERLY SINCE JANUARY 2019
- HON. MADZIMURE asked the Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare to inform the House what food rations have been distributed through Social Welfare and quarterly since January, 2019 to date.
THE MINISTER OF PUBLIC SERVICE, LABOUR AND
SOCIAL WELFARE (HON. PROF MAVIMA): Thank you Madam
Speaker. I wish to thank Hon. Madzimure for the question. Pertaining to the food rations that have been distributed through Social Welfare and quarterly since January 2019, the grain distribution in Harare Province commenced in March 2019. In light of this, a total of 4 804.56 ...
HON. MADZIMURE: On a point of order.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: What is your point of order
Hon. Madzimure?
HON. MADZIMURE: Madam Speaker, my questions were specific to Kambuzuma, Wards 14 and 36. They were not meant for Harare. So if the Minister has no answers on Kambuzuma then the questions can be deferred.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Hon. Minister is
responding to Question Number 8. I think Hon. Madzimure, you are a bit lost because you are talking of Question Number 9.
HON. MADZIMURE: No, I was specific because my questions had to do with Kambuzuma and I had indicated that very well. Even on Question Number 7 where it says 14 and 16 – it should be 14 and 36, so
I was specific. Question Number 8 was actually coming from Question Number 7.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: But Question Number 8 is
not referring to Kambuzuma only.
HON. MADZIMURE: That one can be ignored – it is fine. The
Hon. Minister can respond to Question Number 9.
HON. MUSHORIWA: Madam Speaker, if the question is not only referring to Kambuzuma then the Hon. Minister is actually wrong to then speak of Harare because that question is open ended and is for the entire nation.
So to that extent, if we are going to get interpretation in the manner that the Hon. Chair has ruled then we expect to answer the question province by province, district by district and ward by ward for the entire country.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: We are deferring all
questions up to Question Number 11. The Hon. Minister will bring the answers next week.
ASPINDALE SUBDIVISION A AND B LOCHNIVAR STANDS
- HON. MADZIMURE asked the Minister of Local
Government and Public Works to explain to the House –
- how the Aspindale subdivision A and B of the Lochinvar Stands 48, 49 and 50 were done considering that the title deeds 1523/61 were with CARRES Limited;
- who the current holder of the title deeds is;
- to confirm or deny whether Marimba Residential Properties solely hold any Title Deeds or Deeds of Transfer No. 3928/96;
- to further elaborate how the Deed Transfer dated 11th June, 1996 was issued on 25th March, 2003, the absence of relevant documentation from the Marimba Residential Properties Limited;
- to clarify the procedure used to charge ownership in view of the fact that the affidavit used to apply the Deeds of Transfer was amended, a situation which is not legally acceptable;
- to further clarify the circumstances surrounding the remaining extent to Salisbury Park of Lochinvar measuring 80,787 5 hectares registration Number 3934/96 dated 7th June, 1996 issued on 28th March, 2003 which has been made reference to in the affidavit that was issued for the application of the Deeds of Transfer 3928/26 Stand No. 48, which is 100.313 4 hectares.
- to confirm or deny whether Marimba Industrial Properties Private Limited or Marimba Residential Properties Private or Limited are registered with the Companies and Deeds Office and if the Minister could shed more light on how the Deeds of Transfer were issued to a non-registered company; and
- assuming the land in question was industrial, to explain what procedures were followed to change it for residential purposes and if the council restoration could be produced.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Sorry Hon. Madzimure, the
Hon. Minister is not available to respond to your question. We are deferring Question Numbers 12 to 28 because the responsible Minister is not in the House.
HON. MADZIMURE: On a point of order Madam Speaker!
Madam Speaker, Section 92 (2) and (3) of the Constitution provides that members of the Cabinet are accountable collectively or individually.
Madam Speaker, this means that for Questions with Notice – if the Ministry has the answers then a Minister or Leader of the House must be favoured with the responses because they are specific and time bound. We now have a situation where the Order Paper becomes a booklet because Ministers are not coming to Parliament to respond to questions. Collectively, they are responsible. Why do Ministers who are unable to attend Parliament not provide responses and then allow the Leader of the House to come and present the responses instead of us saying the Minister who does not pitch up for 12 months will have questions being deferred yet the questions are specific and time bound?
Why can they not request one of the ministers to come and do it here instead of us waiting for a person who will never come?
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Your point of order is noted
Hon. Madzimure. – [HON. MATANGIRA: Inaudible interjection.] – Order Hon. Matangira! Order Hon. Madzimure. We are deferring
Question Numbers 29 to 31.
IMPROVEMENT OF QUALITY OF EDUCATION OF LEARNERS
IN SILOBELA CONSTITUENCY
- HON. M. M. MPOFU asked the Minister of Primary and Secondary Education to inform the House what mechanism the Ministry has put in place to improve the quality of education of learners in the
Silobela Constituency where there are only two substantive headmasters.
THE MINISTER OF PRIMARY AND SECONDARY
EDUCATION (HON. MATHEMA): Thank you Madam Speaker.
The Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education is attending to the issue of personnel who are holding posts in acting capacity and measures are being taken in order to have substantive personnel. For this reason, all our ten provinces are currently conducting interviews for heads and deputy heads to fill the existing posts including for schools in the Silobela Constituency.
However …
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, Order Hon. Minister,
Hon. Mpofu is not in, so you may …
Hon. M. M. Mpofu having stood up to confirm his presence.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Alright Hon. Minister, you
may proceed with your response.
HON. MATHEMA: However, Silobela Constituency has more
substantive heads than those alluded to by the Hon. Member. Our records indicate that we have 36 primary schools in Silobela and 14 of them have substantive heads. The constituency has 12 secondary schools and three of them have substantive heads. Vacancies for all schools that do not have substantive heads will be filled as soon as interviews are over in the two weeks. I thank you.
HON. CHIKWINYA: Thank you Madam Speaker and thank you
Hon. Minister for that response.
Hon. Minister, if you may highlight to this House. For how long should one go on acting capacity? The fact that we have seen personnel going for more than a year in acting capacity and therefore, creating a legitimate expectation of getting that job on a substantive basis, what is your policy with regards to a person who would have acted for more than a year and their chances of becoming a substantive head?
HON. MATHEMA: Thank you Madam Speaker. It is indeed not
fair for anybody to act for an unnecessarily too long period – everybody wants to be substantive. Indeed, my Ministry is working on that and we will do the best we can so that we reduce as much as possible the numbers of acting personnel. This is what we are currently working on Madam Speaker. I thank you.
USE OF APPLICATIONS FOR FORM ONE BY GRADE 7
PUPILS
- HON. MAVENYENGWA asked the Minister of Primary and Secondary Education to explain the Government policy intervention to ensure that every Grade Seven pupil applied for Form One using the application considering that some schools do not have laptops especially in rural areas.
THE MINISTER OF PRIMARY AND SECONDARY
EDUCATION (HON. MATHEMA): Thank you Madam Speaker.
The Ministry is quite aware of the plight of some of our schools especially those that lack connectivity. The situation is quite common in our rural schools. We have therefore put in place mechanisms to ensure that parents, guardians or learners who wish to apply for Form One places do so.
Over and above the use of cell phones for those who own them, parents or guardians can take advantage of our Better Schools Programme facilities that are readily available. These are the same facilities which some of our schools use for Grade Seven e-registration. I am happy to inform the House than none of our learners have failed to register for Grade 7 on account of failure to have access to the internet. It is also gratifying to note that ever since we started the Form 1 E-map Registration, no learners have failed to apply to boarding schools of their choice.
At head office level, we have established a help desk which is managed by Ministry officials to assist guardians or parents who have challenges. I thank you Madam Speaker.
HON. KASHIRI: Thank you Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker,
we have a situation of pupils who will be on BEAM in Grade 7. They go on to Form 1, some of them BEAM does not apply. We have had dropouts of children who cannot access BEAM at Form 1. What is the Ministry doing to address that gap?
HON. MATHEMA: Madam Speaker, indeed it is true that every
child in Zimbabwe has to go to school because no child is born to live forever with his or her parents. So, where there are challenges as the Hon. Member says, we do the best we can to advise. My offices are open Madam Speaker for any Member of the House to come so that we consult, work together but we do the best we can to make sure each child is prepared from as early as possible to be able to live in this fast changing world every day.
HON. JOSIAH SITHOLE: Thank you Madam Speaker. May I
know what the Ministry is doing about children who have got Grade 7 results that are being withheld by the authorities because they have not fully paid their fees? We do not want these pupils to be disadvantaged in terms of applying on time so that they get to schools of their choice?
HON. MATHEMA: Madam Speaker, we cannot continue with a
situation where pupils cannot access their exam results. Therefore, the issue of whatever the reasons why the exams are not released, maybe it is because the parents or guardians have not paid. In my opinion every child must access his or her exam results and the issue should remain between the parents or guardians and the schools. Thank you.
HON. KARENYI: Thank you Madam Speaker, my
supplementary question to the Minister is what is the Ministry doing to those schools who are taking children with five units only. Some parents are saying they are applying but they cannot get the Form 1 places. What is the policy regarding schools who are refusing to take children with six units and upwards?
HON. MATHEMA: Thank you Madam Speaker. I want to thank
the Hon. Member for that question. It is definitely unfair that children should not proceed with their education because their units may not be as good as a particular school wants them. It is an issue Madam Speaker that I am going to look into and find out exactly what is taking place. It is unfair for a child in Zimbabwe not to proceed to Form 1. I thank you.
HON. CHIKWINYA: I rise on a point of privilege Madam Speaker. My point of privilege arises at an opportunity whereby we are discussing Grade 7 pupils’ application and results. Therefore, I would request, through you Madam Chair, that may the Hon. Minister bring to this House the results for the 2019 Grade 7 performance broken down- province by province so that at least Parliament can interrogate the performance levels of our education system. Thank you.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: I hear you Hon. Chikwinya,
you can submit your question as a written question so that the Minister will bring the answer.
HON. CHIKWINYA: Madam Speaker, it is not actually a question in terms of policy but this has always been the tradition that once Grade 7, ‘O’ and ‘A’ level results are out the Minister provides
Parliament with the same and then Parliament interrogates them so that we quickly respond to either the failure or the pass rate. I am simply asking you for us to be able to uphold Parliamentary practice in terms of legislative oversight. I am sure the Minister may actually be able to indulge on that.
THE MINISTER OF PRIMARY AND SECONDARY
EDUCATION (HON. MATHEMA): Thank you Madam Speaker.
Yes, the Grade 7 results are already out, we are in the middle of analysing them province by province. If the august House wants me to come and give a statement on the issue, broken down results and statistics, I am prepared to inform the august House. Thank you.
POLICY ON SWITCHING OFF OF LIGHTS IN GOVERNMENT
OFFICES
- HON. TSUURA asked the Minister of Energy and Power Development to inform the House on the Government Policy regarding switching off of lights in Government offices after working hours in view of power shortages experienced countrywide.
THE HON. DEPUTY MINISTER OF ENERGY AND
POWER DEVELOPMENT (HON. MUDYIWA): Thank you Madam
Speaker. I would like to firstly thank the Hon. Member for the question. Surely, the country is facing critical power shortages. To the fact in question, my Ministry has since written to all Ministries emphasising on the need to save energy and switching off the lights after hours.
As a Demand Side Management, (DSM) strategy the Government is encouraging the use of occupancy census and related gadgets to save power. All institutions are encouraged to retrofit inefficient lighting and use efficient lighting. A good example is at our offices (Joyn Boyne Building) which were retrofitted with energy efficiency lighting (LEDs) and other DSM strategies, including switching off of lights which are being demonstrated. We expect other Government Ministries or complexes to follow suit and that will go a long way in motivating the rest of public to implement the DSM strategies like the one in question.
Awareness exercises are currently going through the media by the
Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission (ZETDC) to that effect.
Madam Speaker, the House should take note that DSM is one of the critical tools that can be used to significantly save energy. The
Ministry is encouraging all citizens to be energy savers. Currently, the
Ministry in partnership with various organisations is developing Minimum Performance Standards and practices for electrical equipment and looking forward to an Energy Efficiency Policy in 2020. That policy will address all the DSM strategies in totality.
MEASURES TO CONTROL SALE OF GOODS IN FOREIGN
CURRENCY
- HON. TSUURA asked the Minister of Finance and Economic Development to apprise the House on measures being taken to control the sale of goods in foreign currency by the foreign owned business entities.
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT (HON. CHIDUWA): The country made deliberate
and gradual steps to migrate from the multi currency system towards the use of the mono currency in the form of ZW$. This process started by the separation nostro foreign currency accounts and RTGS accounts in September 2018. This was done in order to ensure that the correct balances of local and foreign currency are established and accounted for. In order to facilitate foreign currency trading through authorised and official channels and to facilitate international payments, the RBZ introduced the interbank foreign currency trading on 22 February 2019 through the willing buyer willing seller concept. This was followed by the introduction of the RBZ regulation Statutory Instrument 142 of 2019 on 24 June 2019 which effectively removed the multi currency system and made the ZW$ the sole currency for legal tender purposes.
On 27 September 2019, Statutory Instrument 149 was buttressed by the introduction of the exchange control regulations Statutory Instrument 212 of 2019 which defined domestic transactions and criminalised the use of any currency other than the ZW$ for domestic transactions. Further to Statutory Instrument 212 of 2019 defined transactions excluded from the scope of domestic transactions and such transactions shall be continued to be settled in foreign currency by guests of the state for goods and services in Zimbabwe.
In order to ensure compliance with the exclusive use of the ZW$ for domestic transactions, Statutory Instrument 212 of 2019 further introduced civil penalties for its contravention. The civil penalties are further amplified in Presidential Powers Regulations and Statutory Instrument 212 and 213 of 2019. The civil penalties are a tool to whip errant market players into line. Further to this, there has been a deliberate move by RBZ to licence bureau-de-change so that individuals in possession of free funds are conveniently allowed to convert the foreign currency through selling at bureau-de-change.
All the above measure were meant to ensure that the country uses the ZW$ for local transactions. It is important to highlight that the move from multi currency to mono currency is not a process which is easy and the currency is going through a transactional phase where there are pockets of non compliance market players. Where there are identified violations corrective actions are being taken by the RBZ and law enforcement agencies.
*HON. MADZIMURE: My supplementary question to the
Minister is that Government has outlawed the use of US dollars in the payment of goods and services but there are companies like Chicken Inn which are trading using the American dollar. Chicken Inn sells chicken and chips which are produced locally here in Zimbabwe. There are no raw materials which are imported from outside the country but Government is allowing them to trade in American dollars. In view of this development, how is Government going to enforce the use of mono currency when we have such companies that are trading in American dollar?
*HON. CHIDUWA: When the policy was mooted, there were
sectors that were classified under tourism and were allowed to trade in US dollars. So if they are classified under tourism they are allowed to charge in forex.
Questions With Notice were interrupted by THE HON DEPUTY
SPEAKER in terms of Standing Order No. 64
MINISTERIAL STATEMENT STATUS OF HEALTH CARE DELIVERY SYSTEM
THE MINISTER OF HEALTH AND CHILD CARE (HON.
- O. MOYO): Madam Speaker, I want to take this opportunity to thank you for giving me an opportunity to present the status of health care delivery in the country as at present. Allow me, Madam Speaker, to first give a background of the situation prior to the new Government taking office. The following problems were perennial and they still persist albeit an improvement in some quarters.
- Shortfall of medicines and surgical.
- Shortage of equipment.
- Poor infrastructure.
- Shortage of manpower.
- Industrial action by health care workers.
From inception, Government is seized with these problems and has been working tirelessly to try and address them. It must be acknowledged, Madam Speaker, that these problems have existed for a number of decades and their solution is not going to be an overnight thing.
Coming to the current situation, Madam Speaker, I want to start by highlighting the most visible and talked about challenge currently faced by the Ministry and Government. It is no secret, Madam Speaker, that the withdrawal of labour by initially our junior doctors and subsequently joined by senior doctors has had a negative impact on the health delivery system. In this situation, our major referral institutions, the central hospitals are the most affected as they are operating below capacity with
Chitungwiza Central Hospital being the only one operating at above 39% capacity.
It is therefore no doubt that most of our patients are having to go elsewhere and seek assistance elsewhere and they cannot go to the private hospitals, all of them, where exorbitant prices are charged. There is minimal health care provision in our public health institutions being rendered by the various health care workers who themselves did not participate in the withdrawal of labour as with the doctors.
Government is thankful to these other workers including those doctors who are still offering these services.
Reasons for the withdrawal of labour by doctors
The main reason of withdrawal of labour as claimed by some doctors is financial incapacitation while other problems such as inadequate availability of medicines and equipment are cited. They claim that the financial incapacitation is a deal breaker if it is solved.
The issue to improve the conditions of service for Government employees is not done per line Ministry but rather the whole civil service. To that effect, Government has awarded cost of living adjustments to its employees including health workers three times.
Over and above the cost of living adjustment awarded to all civil servants, Government has increased health specific allowances for health workers by 30%, 60% and then by 100%. This however though welcomed by all other health workers, doctors refuse to take up the offer as they claim that it is still inadequate.
Government engaged striking doctors to report for work and allow dialogue to continue without risking the lives of the patients. Madam Speaker, we are not denying the existence of challenges in health care delivery, but it is also important to put it on record that the Government has made an effort irrespective of shortage of foreign currency to buy some basic essential tools.
The security sector has also seconded their doctors to offer services in the five central and provincial hospitals.
Provincial health services delivery status
Health care service delivery system in our provinces is better as compared to our central hospitals. The challenge being experienced is that of accessibility due to high costs of travel. There are a few provinces where doctors have withdrawn labour. Government is working to ensure that minimum service delivery is made available through the deployment of clinical officers who are stationed in the provinces.
Ongoing efforts to normalise the situation
There are ongoing efforts to normalise the situation. The labour courts ruled the incapacitation by the doctors as unlawful. It went further to order that the doctors go back to their work within two days which if they did not, would allow for disciplinary action. Even after that, Government continued encouraging the doctors to come back to work but they did not. There was no alternative but to start the disciplinary action.
Disciplinary hearings for the doctors
- 508 disciplinary cases on doctors that have not been coming to work have so far been heard of which 498 were found guilty.
- 448 doctors have been discharged from service and since then, an additional 13 doctors were found guilty and discharged. Penalties were mated on all of them making a cumulative total of 448 discharged doctors.
- In addition to the 508 disciplinary cases heard by 25th November, an additional 43 doctors from the provinces are waiting hearing. Serving of charge letters for 57 senior doctors at central hospitals commenced on 25th November, 2019.
Recruitment of doctors
The Ministry of Health and Child Care will publish an advert in the press of all the posts that have become vacant as a result of the disciplinary processes before the end of this week. Contracts of employment have been reviewed to cover Government’s interest and better personnel control.
Engagement of partners including the Global Fund
A proposal for an upward review of health worker retention allowance for a period of two years will be further discussed at a high level technical dialogue with donors on 29th November 2019.
The World Bank is also looking at giving assistance to health care personnel.
Medicines and medical sundries
The procurement processes are proceeding and Treasury has availed some foreign currency, although it is not enough.
Institutional accommodation
The Ministry is currently revisiting the allocation of institutional accommodation and making efforts to secure additional off site accommodation in the short term. To this effect, Government is in discussion with NSSA for use of their flats which are in Eastlea.
The construction of institutional accommodation for health workers in the medium to long term is proceeding through the Ministry of National Housing.
Harare City Council Situation
Service provision
- All the 17 City Council doctors have been attending to duty.
- An average of 95 out of an expected 179 nurses turned up for duty at 6 Municipal Clinics as of 25th November, 2019 and an average of 70 out of an expected 138 nurses on 20th November and an average of 99 out of 179 on 26th
- Services within the Harare City health facilities remains rationalised to six polyclinics – Mabvuku, Hatcliffe, Kuwadzana, Mufakose, Hatfield and Edith Opperman and one hospital with the majority of services being concentrated to Outpatients Department. An audit of Harare City Health delivery situation was done. Most workers remain on strike with a skeleton staff found at the clinics. Most clinics remain closed including maternity wards thereby increasing home based deliveries.
The Ministry of Health and Child Care, working in conjunction with Harare City Council Health Department has enabled the opening of Edith Opperman Clinic and this has eased the problem of home based deliveries. Staff from Harare Hospital has been seconded to open Edith Opperman Maternity Clinic. They will be working with three sisters in charge withdrawn from other city council clinics. The clinic is open for 24 hours. This has seen a rapid move of patients from the traditional midwife in Mbare to the functional Edith Opperman Clinic.
Medical Equipment
One of the Ministry’s key objectives is to achieve patient satisfaction by providing efficient and effective diagnosis and treatment of patients through the availability of appropriate and functional medical equipment. Our health facilities are faced with a serious shortage of critical medical equipment as a result of failure to provide a replacement budget over the years. Most of the equipment is now obsolete and others require major service and support with consumables, expendables and spares. Although Government is making considerable effort to address the situation by making substantial investment in new health care technology, there is need to focus even more on ways to sustain the existing equipment.
Identified Gaps
Gap analysis of medical equipment for critical departments in
Central Hospitals such as Theatres, Intensive Care Units (ICU), High Dependant Units (HDU), Maternity, Neonatal Units (NNU, Paeds Units, Radiology and Radiotherapy requires at least US$35 million.
Requirement for provincial and district hospitals attracts a further US$18 million.
Strategies and Interventions
- Procure medical equipment using the GOZ and Health Levy Account funds. The Ministry of Finance has provided US$1 million towards the purchase of some equipment. The Ministry through partners has also provided US$3.5 million worth of equipment.
- Capacitate equipment management systems within the Ministry and engage participation of the private sector through outsourcing.
Activities and Implementation Plan
We have received and commissioned medical equipment for our 5 Central Hospitals procured from India under a special initiative. We have also received medical equipment as a donation by the Government of the United Arab Emirates and this has benefited mostly Harare Central Hospital. More equipment is expected under the same UAE
initiative.
- The tenders of equipment worth US$11.5 million for high impact intervention have been concluded and finalised at
Natpharm and are awaiting allocation of foreign currency.
- Tenders are being processed for the remaining balance of equipment for both Central and Provincial Hospitals and this should be concluded within the next financial year.
- We are finalising an equipment management policy framework to strengthen the equipments management capabilities in the MoHCC. The Ministry outsourced service contracts for 55 Autoclave machines, 11 X-Ray machines, and laboratory machines. We are working on a comprehensive service contract for our radiotherapy equipment which requires of US$2 million and other subcontracts for ICU life support and anesthetic equipment.
HIV/AIDS Updates
Currently the Ministry has enough first line medicines for Art and we are issuing three months supplies to each patient. Second line medicines are a challenge because there is a global shortage on some of them. Efforts have been initiated to order from the supplies that have the stock. Third line medicines are available and are being issued without any limitations for stable patients.
Government Long-Term Commitment and Leadership Despite the current economic challenges, the Government of Zimbabwe is committed to improving the conditions of service for all health care workers.
- Over the past few years, Government has made various attempts to cushion all civil servants with general and sector specific allowances such as specific allowances.
- However, the current harsh economic environment has presented a major challenge to sustaining the cushion effect of these allowance increments.
- Government is committed to continuously undertaking review and evaluation of various incentives in line with its ability to meet commitments.
-Bipartite negotiation forums
-Other discussions and engagements
-Health Institution engaging with their workers.
- Outcome of the Bipartite Negotiations (Monetary incentives):
-COLA (30%; 60% increases)
-Health specific allowances increased by 100%
-Bonus reinstated
- Outcome of the Bipartite and Other Negotiations (non-Monetary):
-Car loan scheme with duty free component
-Housing loan scheme
-Fuel provision of Health Institutions
-Meals and refreshments at work place
-ZUPCO/Public Service bus service – Transport to work Provision of Tools of Trade:
-Improved availability of medicines and sundries
-New Board with a strong Board Chair
-Medicines availability stable
-Sourcing of new equipment and putting in place maintenance contracts for existing equipment is in progress.
-Private Public Partnerships being vigorously pursued.
I thank you Madam Speaker Ma’am.
HON. MADZIMURE: Madam Speaker, my clarification from the
Minister is that we already have a shortage of doctors and from the
Minister’s figures, they have actually fired 90% of the doctors. Can the Minister clarify if –[AN HON. MEMBER: Inaudible interjections]- Iwe uri murungu ini ndiri munhu mutema, chienda nechirungu chako. Can the Minister clarify out of the 90% and above of doctors that he has fired, what mitigatory measures are in place considering that our people are dying like flies in hospitals? Did he look into the needs of the people? He has to clarify what mitigatory measures are in place and he has to make sure that health provision is made available.
HON. DR. O. MOYO: Madam Speaker...
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Minister, let them ask
maybe 4 to 5 questions then you respond.
HON. KWARAMBA: I might be seen to be repeating what my
other friend said but it is more or less a question to say if I heard you well Hon. Minister, you said 448 doctors were fired and 13 were found guilty. My question Hon. Minister is, I would like to know the way forward since hospitals are severely crippled. I thank you.
HON. KARENYI: Thank you Madam Speaker. My point of
clarification is to do with the good samaritan which the Minister is talking about, that is a lady who is doing the service in Mbare. Did the Minister take into consideration the issue of water, health hazards in a nutshell? Some women have complications and others even lose babies during birth. Are we now resorting to the old system where ana mbuya nyamukuta will deliver babies? I just want him to tell this august House whether he has done his homework well and whether we are resorting to the old system whereby we are not providing service in the hospital and rather the mbuya nyamukutas are now taking over.
Secondly, I hear he is talking about the loan schemes. How are these doctors and nurses going to pay back the loans because right now they cannot afford even to buy their meals or to pay for their bus fares? The other issue is - are we now saying the doctors must go and get transport from ZUPCO because in cases of emergency, that doctor is required to rush to the hospital to save life? Are we now saying that our doctors must use public transport? When I was young I used to know that doctors own cars or are supposed to have cars to make their work easy. I thank you.
HON. DR. LABODE: Madam Speaker, I want to know from the
Minister if he has taken time to calculate the number of people who have died because doctors were not on ground. It is important because this is the first time immemorial that doctors have been fired. The Minister has actually gotten a first record in his life. By talking about ZUPCO you demean a profession but most importantly, one needs to sit down and calculate the cost of training a doctor. I went to Tanzania, I found doctors who were five months on strike; Magufuli never fired them because he knows the cost of training one doctor. So, I really believe the negotiations were like in a military camp. This is a labour dispute; people should have continued talking until we get somewhere. We know that permanent secretaries are earning RTGS15 000, why do doctors not also earn the same? Yes, we should actually look at that, we cannot sit here and think Global Fund will give us this money. I am telling you I will come back here a year later; there is no donor who will pay our workers. Even the doctors, before their allowance was US$200. There is no donor who will pay us especially knowing what we are doing. I thank you.
HON. MPARIWA: Thank you Madam Speaker. I want to thank
the Minister for the presentation on the state of health in Zimbabwe. We have heard of the fired and those that still have pending disciplinary action. I wanted to find out Madam Speaker, how many doctors are we talking of, of the 448 plus 13? What is the total number in terms of the doctors? On negotiations, it has taken long in terms of negotiations and I would want to believe if Government was sincere enough in terms of negotiations, they would have honestly reached an agreement. I want to find out from the Minister; we heard rumours that Government was secretly recruiting doctors from outside. If so, how much would it cost the Government in terms of paying already existing doctors than actually hiring new doctors who would require plane tickets, accommodation and more money in terms of our own trained doctors? I did not hear the Minister talk about vehicles, I am sorry if he mentioned it quietly in terms of ambulances when one falls sick and they are in urgent need of transport. Due to lack of fuel, at the moment the only reliable transport would be an ambulance. How many ambulances are also part of the negotiations in terms of the United Arab Emirates pending the discussion that the Minister has also mentioned about?
He has mentioned 39% in terms of Chitungwiza being in operation but I thought the Minister would actually bring a whole list of hospitals that are operational and not operational so that we will be able to compare in provinces and also in the urban areas because everyone else is affected in terms of health. I thank you Madam Speaker.
HON. MUSHAYI: Thank you Madam Speaker. I want to thank
the Minister for his Ministerial Statement. My first point of clarity Hon. Speaker is that the Minister has told us that there are 448 doctors that have been discharged. What he is not making an indication to us is what the gap was first before we even went on to fire these doctors.
Secondly, what the Minister has not told us is the patient to doctor ratio. How are we going to be able to cover that given the fact that it takes us 7 years to train only one doctor?
On the third issue Madam Speaker, I also want clarity in terms of what is it that we are doing to make sure that instead of us focusing on doing disciplinary hearings we focus on negotiations to make sure that we get the doctors back to the hospitals and we make sure that as Government we are not presiding over a genocide because currently people are dying and are suffering.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order Hon. Sikhala.
THE MINISTER O FHEALTH AND CHILD CARE (HON.
- O. MOYO): Madam Speaker Ma’am, the first question regarding the numbers, Hon. Madzimure indicated 90% as having been fired –
[HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, order. May the
Minister be heard in silence please?
HON. DR. O. MOYO: It is not that much, it is less than that. I am sorry to say I do not have the exact figure but it is less than that.
Then, you are asking whether ...
HON. SIKHALA: On a point of order Madam Speaker. The Minister is chewing his words, we want to hear him loudly. He must speak aloud so that we hear him.
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: But you are also making
noise, order.
HON. SIKHALA: Speak aloud.
HON. DR. O. MOYO: Madam Speaker Ma’am, I also want to
indicate that nobody is above the law and the doctors defied the court orders. What happened was that the labour court ruled the incapacitation/the industrial action as being unlawful and it was the doctors who decided not to attend to work after two days which they had been given. So, the people who caused the problem are the people who were not at work and the people who had not come to work. These are people especially doctors who live within the hospital grounds. They should have been attending to the patients but they did not attend to the patients. They were not incapacitated in terms of transport, they were within a walking distance to the patients and they neglected their duty by not attending to the patients. That is why we ended up in that type of situation. I am particularly concerned about those doctors who were living within the institutional accommodation who did not attend to the patients. That is why the numbers continue to increase and that is where we start with the problem.
On the second issue, on the lady from Mbare on the issues regarding cleanliness/hygiene around the working area; yes, it was an emergency situation and that is why we quickly moved and opened
Edith Opperman Maternity Clinic in order to avoid that situation and
that is a thing of the past. That is something that has been overcome already.
An Hon. Member asked about the car loans schemes. Yes, we are planning to ensure that in the next budget. We got a budget of $6.4 billion and we are looking at the possibility of improving the transport system for our doctors so that they can be able to independently travel from work to the health institutions if they are not living within. But, the main issue when we talk about the ZUPCOs, this is a temporary issue with regards to those doctors who were trying to create accommodation outside the health institutions. So that will be improved in time and with the budget improvement as we saw.
Hon. Labode asked about the number of patients who have died, yes the number of patients who died was as a result of the doctors who stayed away. – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
I am not going to repeat again. The doctors have signed a hippocratic oath and they should have been staying at their places of work. Those who are staying at the places of work should have been attending to their patients. That, we cannot doubt and at the same time they defied the labour laws which were passed by this august House. They went against the laws of this very august House. So, we cannot say anybody is above the law. There is no one who is above the law especially when it comes to people dying, that is not the way it is done.
Then on the issue of the doctors recruiting from outside, Hon.
Mpariwa’s question. There will always be arrangements within our system to be able to recruit through our Government to Government arrangements and this happens at the end of each year and that is what is happening. We have a contract with our outside partners and that will always happen, like for instance right now we have the Cuban doctors, we have the Chinese doctors and so those are on-going contractual Government to Government arrangements.
On the issue regarding negotiations via disciplinary hearing, definitely that is what we have been doing. We have been calling for meetings. I personally have been having meetings with the senior doctors. I have been having meetings with the junior doctors and these meetings have been actually very fruitful and that is why we started. Initially there was no discussion and not because they were being kept away through some other subversive actions; however, we managed to get to talking. So, what is very critical at the moment is the fact that the doctors – we have advised everyone that there will be adverts in the paper. Those adverts will allow for anyone who is qualified and registered to be able to apply for a job. There is absolutely no way that we would say we want everyone to go away. What we want to happen is that the due processes must be followed. The Labour Court ruled and gave an instruction through the Attorney General’s Office. That is where the law is going through and we as a Ministry of Health and Child Care, we have now gone forward and we are now in the recruitment exercise. So there is nothing lost. I thank you Madam Speaker.
MOTION
SUSPENSION OF PROVISIONS OF STANDING ORDER NOS. 51,
62 (2), 135, 136 AND 139.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Madam
Speaker…
After the Minister of Justice had risen to present Notice of Motion No. 1, Hon. Members on the left side of the House rose in protest since they wanted to ask questions to the Minister of Health and Child Care pertaining to the Ministerial Statement he had just presented..
The Minister of Health and Child Care walked out.
Hon. Members on the left side of the House continued protesting that the Minister of Health and Child Care should come back and address their questions.
- [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections] –
THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, order, Hon. Members take your seats. – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible
interjections.] –
Hon. Members having continued to behave in a disorderly manner,
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND PARLIAMENTARY
AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI), adjourned the House at Twenty Two
Minutes past Six o’clock p.m.
PARLIAMENT OF ZIMBABWE
Tuesday, 26th November, 2019
The National Assembly met at a Quarter-past Two o’clock p.m.
PRAYERS
(THE HON. SPEAKER in the Chair)
ANNOUNCEMENTS BY THE HON. SPEAKER
TREE PLANTING EVENTS
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, order. I have to inform the House that the Ministry of Environment, Tourism and Hospitality Industry through the Forestry Commission, has proposed to involve Members of Parliament in efforts to curb deforestation, by organising tree planting events in all parts of the country.
Every Member of Parliament is encouraged to establish two woodlots of 1 600 trees each. Hon. Members are requested to check in their pigeon holes for more information on this noble initiative. For any clarifications, Hon. Members are kindly requested to contact the Director, Public Relations, Rtd. Major E. Mbewe, in Office No. 312, Third Floor, Parliament Building.
APPOINTMENT TO THE STANDING RULES AND ORDERS
COMMITTEE
THE HON. SPEAKER: Following the appointment of Hon. M. Chombo as Deputy Minister of Local Government and Public Works, the ZANU PF party has nominated Hon. Matsikenyere to replace her on the Committee on Standing Rules and Orders – [HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear.] – I believe that is accepted by acclamation
MOTION
LEAVE TO MOVE FOR SUSPENSION OF STANDING ORDER
NOS. 51, 62 (2) AND 139
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Mr. Speaker
Sir, I seek leave of the House to move that the provisions of Standing
Orders No. 51, 62 (2), 135, 136 and 139 regarding the automatic adjournment of the House at Five Minutes to Seven o’clock p.m. on
sitting days other than a Friday and at Twenty-five Minutes past One o’clock p.m. on a Friday, Private Members’ Motions taking
precedence on Wednesdays after Question Time and that Question
Time shall be on Wednesday, the referral of Bills to portfolio committees, procedures in connection with the Parliamentary Legal Committee and stages of Bills respectively, be suspended for today and for the remaining series of sittings in respect of the following:-
- Business relating to the Budget and the Committee of Supply;
- The Finance Bill;
- The Appropriation Bill;
- Zimbabwe Investment Development Agency Bill [H.B. 2,
2019];
- Money Laundering and Proceeds of Crime Bill [H. B. 4, 2019];
- Coroner’s Office Bill [H. B. 5, 2019]
HON. MUSHORIWA: I object.
The above motion having been objected to, was moved to
Wednesday, 27th November, 2019.
MOTION
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you Mr.
Speaker Sir. I move that Orders of the Day Nos. 1 to 4 be stood over until Order of the Day No. 5 has been disposed of.
Hon. Mliswa having stood up on a point of privilege
THE HON. SPEAKER: No, that should have been done after notices of motions. I cannot move backwards and forward.
COMMITTEE STAGE:
ZIMBABWE INVESTMENT DEVELOPMENT AGENCY BILL [H.
- 2, 2019]
Fifth Order read: Committee Stage: Zimbabwe Investment Development Agency Bill [H. B. 2, 2019].
House in Committee
Clause 1, put and agreed to.
On Clause 2;
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you Hon.
Chair, I had discussions with the Chairperson of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, as well as Industry and we agreed that we are dropping the amendments that they proposed and we adopt mine. So, in line with that Hon. Chair, on Clause 2, which is the interpretation Clause, I propose that on page 3 of the Bill, which is lines 19 to 20, we delete the definition of board and substitute the following definition.
“Board means the Zimbabwe Investment Development Agency
Advisory Board established by section 6”. On page 6 of the Bill, lines 27 to 28, delete the definition of Minister and substitute the following definition; “Minister means (a) Any Minister or Vice President to whom the President may assign the administration of this Act. (b) Where the President has reserved the administration of the Act to himself or herself”. I so submit Hon. Chair.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: Hon. Minister, can you
confirm whether you are dropping all the amendments by the Chairperson.
HON. ZIYAMBI: That is what I am saying.
HON. MUSHORIWA: The amendments in this Order Paper on
ZIDA are amendments of the Joint Committee on Industry and International Trade. We are shocked to hear that the two Chairpersons outside the – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: Hon. Members, can we have
order in the House please.
HON. MUSHORIWA: That the two Chairs outside the Committee could actually make – HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible
interjections.] –
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: Which Clause are you
debating?
HON. MUSHORIWA: Remember Chair, you asked him whether
it refers to all the amendments and I am responding to that to simply say, it cannot be all amendments because the amendments that are on the
Order Paper are amendments of the Committee and not of individual Members. it is so wrong to then come here and say, the Chair has agreed outside the Committees for the Minister to drop all the amendments. That is procedurally incorrect because the Committee worked on these amendments.
HON. K. PARADZA: Excuse me Mr. Chairman. Can the Hon.
Member debate or cite the sections?
HON. P. D. SIBANDA: On a point of order Hon. Chair. Sorry, I did not hear your response to the Hon. Member’s concern. I think that his concern basically relates to issues of procedure; No. 1, because he is saying if the Hon. Minister and the Hon. Chairperson of one of the
Committees that were responsible for looking into this Bill are agreed on their own, can it be put on record that the amendment that has been agreed to by the Hon. Minister is a private arrangement between the Hon. Chairperson of the Foreign Affairs and International Trade Committee and the Hon. Minister but that there was no involvement of the whole Committee. I think it is important that it be stated and put on record because you cannot leave it like that. You cannot brush it like
that.
Amendment to Clause 2 put and agreed to.
Clause 2, as amended, put and agreed to.
HON. P. D. SIBANDA: I have an objection to make Hon. Chair. When we are talking about investment, it is a very critical area of interest to us as citizens of Zimbabwe and it is my view that ...
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: Order, order Hon. Member.
Are you now debating the amendment?
HON. P. D. SIBANDA: No, I am not debating the amendment.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: So, what are you debating?
HON. P. D. SIBANDA: I am debating the procedure that has been used to amend through a private bilateral engagement between one individual Member of a Committee. I believe with the importance ....
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: Hon. Sibanda, we are going
clause by clause. So if there is an area that you feel not happy with, you are going to be given the floor for you to put your own input.
HON. P. D. SIBANDA: But Hon. Chair, let me tell you something. Was it not supposed to be that the Committees should have sat down and looked at those amendments, instead of having an individual bringing an amendment and saying this is the amendment that I need.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: But, that question has already
been overtaken by events. I am saying that we are going to debate clause by clause, meaning that the point that you are raising is now immaterial.
HON. P. D. SIBANDA: So are we saying that you are now substituting the role of the Committee by ensuring that Members debate individually here? Is it what you are stating Hon. Chair?
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: No, that is not what I am
saying. What I said is what I said and for me to be repeating does not make any sense. You must have heard what I told you that we are going to debate Clause by Clause. So, the statement that you are raising at the moment, I told you that it has been overtaken by events and it is immaterial at the moment.
HON. P. D. SIBANDA: Hon. Chair, are you saying that the debate, the close scrutiny by a Committee of a Bill is immaterial? Is it what you are saying and can we put that on record?
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: I am not referring to the Committee at the moment. I am referring to the statement that you are saying.
HON. P. D. SIBANDA: May I ask Hon. Chair that, what will this House lose if this matter were to be referred back to the Committee so that the Committees can then have a look at it?
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: Hon. Sibanda, what will we
lose if the Committee has some issues to debate? I am going to give them the floor, the opportunity to raise whatever issues they would want to input here in the House and that is why I am here.
HON. P. D. SIBANDA: We do not need the bigger Committee.
HON. MUSHORIWA: Mr. Chairman, I seek your guidance. Can it be recorded here that all the amendments that have been put on the
Order Paper have not been withdrawn by the Committee of Industry and Commerce. To that extent Hon. Chair, when you go clause by clause as you are saying, you should actually call us to raise these points of the amendments that the Committee did and it should never have a situation where a work that was done by Parliament and money poured and citizens and stakeholders’ contributions cannot be washed away by a bilateral arrangement between two people. It cannot happen.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Hon. Chair, the
proposal by the Chair is there. It is my prerogative as the mover of the Bill to accept or to reject. Let us proceed.
HON. P. D. SIBANDA: What do you mean when you say it is your prerogative? Is it your prerogative to suspend the due processes of Parliament? Is it your prerogative Hon. Minister, to suspend the due processes of Committees of Parliament just because you are the one that is moving the Bill?
HON. ZIYAMBI: Hon. Chair, when we are debating a clause, after the debate, the Minister responds. It is either you accept or you reject. If I reject we divide the House. I am not sure why the Hon.
Member is so ignorant of basic House rules.
HON. P. D. SIBANDA: It is unfortunate that my brothers want to use very unparliamentary kind of language. The issue of ignorance cannot be measured. I do not think it is easy for us to measure who is more ignorant between myself and the Hon. Minister, but what I want to indicate is that a Chairperson of a Committee cannot raise his own personal opinion and then you want to take it as if it is the position of a Committee. The Committee should be allowed to sit down, deliberate on those issues and bring a report here and not an individual opinion.
On Clause 2:
HON. K. PARADZA: I move that on page 6 of the Bill, delete the definition of “Minister” on lines 27-28 and substitute – “Minister” means the Minister of Finance or any other Minister to whom the
President may from time to time assign the administration of this Act”.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI: Hon. Chair, as I indicated, I am proposing amendments in my name – [HON.
MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON (HON. MUTOMBA): Can we
have less noise in the House Hon. Members.
HON. ZIYAMBI: And substituting what Hon. Paradza had proposed.
Amendment to Clause 2 put and agreed to.
Clause 2, as amended, put and agreed to.
Clause 3 put and agreed to.
On Clause 4:
HON. K. PARADZA: On page 8 of the Bill, after line 6, insert the following paragraphs –
- to have investment officers in provinces and districts representing the agency;
- to support the devolution programme by having provincial representation and offices in every province of the country;
- to promote investments across the country especially for marginalised groups such as women and youth and providing crosslinkages with mainstream investors.
HON. MUSHORIWA: I thought the Hon. Chair was going to discuss and make the reason why we actually believe that these amendments are on Clause 4 as they appear on the Order Paper so that the Minister would understand the basis behind the Committee’s position.
HON. K PARADZA: It is already here and it would be wasting time.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: It is clearly stated and you
have got the Bill with you.
HON. ZIYAMBI: Having considered what they are proposing, it is already covered. I put it to the House that we maintain it as it is under Clause 4. It covers what they want covered by these amendments.
HON. MUSHORIWA: It is not true Hon. Minister that Clause 4 covers the amendments that the Hon. Committees of this House are proposing. It is my view that on page 8 of the Bill on line 6 – the investment officers in provinces and districts representing the agency and the quest for devolution...
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: Sorry Hon. Member, initially
you said these are not the views of the Committee but now you seem to be saying it is your personal opinion. I cannot understand which is which now.
HON. MUSHORIWA: Chair, you did not hear me well. The amendments that you are seeing on this Order Paper are the amendments of the Committee. What we objected is the narration that we had got from the Hon. Minister that they had a private agreement with the Chair to remove these amendments that were done by the Committee.
My point is to simply say as a country, we are crying and saying devolution is the new revolution and in anything – all the statements that have been said – devolution takes centre stage and it is to that regard that we believe that in all provinces, ZIDA should be represented so that we promote investments across the country especially in the marginalised areas.
If you look into the clause as it currently stands, there is no provision and it is for this reason that we ask the Minister to consider these amendments because these amendments were well thought of after the Committees had gone across the whole country. These are the views of the people – by the way, these views dovetail with all Government policies that the Hon. Minister is representing in this House.
HON. ZIYAMBI: Thank you Hon. Chair. Let us proceed.
HON. MUSHORIWA: Is what the Hon. Minister doing fair?
How does he simply say let us proceed when we are raising issues here? Is the Hon. Minister trying to say that the views raised by the Committee and by the stakeholders are of no consequence? He should actually persuade us if his point is of no consequence, he should actually persuade us if his point is correct rather than to simply say let us proceed.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: The Minister has already
responded to it.
Clause 4 put and agreed to.
On Clause 5:
HON. MUSHORIWA: I raised a point and I am waiting for a
ruling. After having raised an issue we expect you to then make a ruling.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: The Minister has already
responded to that.
HON. MUSHORIWA: At what stage? If you want this House to
continue to make laws then I think it is only fair that we do things procedurally. If you simply want them to just reload this Bill, it will be
okay…
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: That is not the issue and that
is not why I am here. We are supposed to be procedural. The Minister has already responded to that.
HON. MUSHORIWA: What did he say?
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: He said the issues are
covered.
HON. MUSHORIWA: We then brought to him to say that they are not covered. Can he show us where they are covered?
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: Which issues are you talking about now?
HON. MUSHORIWA: The amendments that we have put as a
Committee; the issue of devolution and the other specifications. His argument is to say that they are covered in Clause 4 and we are saying they are not covered.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Hon. Chair, I
have already responded and my response it that let us proceed as it is. Let us follow the procedures because that is a position that is not going to change. I thank you.
HON. MADZIMURE: I have got fresh points that the Hon.
Minister may consider. As we travel the road towards devolution, we must make sure that any law that we pass in this House now, has a bearing that we are moving towards devolution. As a result, it will be meaningless and pointless for us to just pass laws when we are fully aware that they will eventually contradict the spirit of devolution.
Therefore whatever law that we make from now on must ensure that it takes on board the issue of devolution. Hence, if we want investment in those areas that we are going to give that responsibility to promote investment to grow their economies, then we must allow them to have offices that will be able to deliver economic development. So this is the argument and if the Minister does not see sense in that, then it means that we are not sincere as far as the issue of devolution is concerned.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: The Minister is saying that he
has already responded to that and the areas that you are talking about are covered within…
HON. MADZIMURE: Allow the Minister to respond; I am not debating with the Chair but with the Minister.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: I am just confirming that the Minister has said he has already responded and everything that you are talking about is covered– [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjection.] –
HON. MADZIMURE: After I raised my first point what did the Minister say? We are not debating with the Chair; we are debating with the Minister. The Chair is there to facilitate debate not for the Chair to debate with us.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Hon. Chair, can we divide the House and proceed – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible
interjections.]-
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: Order, order in the House! We
cannot continue debating same issues which have already been responded to.
HON. P. D. SIBANDA: My understanding is that the Hon. Minister has asked you to divide the House but my point of clarification that I am seeking from you is on what point are we dividing the House.
Are we dividing the House on the point that ZIDA should not be devolved to provinces so that as we approach the division we are exactly aware on what it is that you want us to divide. Is he saying he does not want devolution in terms of this particular Act or not?
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: The Minister said he is not taking the amendment on Clause 4.
HON. P. D. SIBANDA: The last point that the Minister raised was that let us divide the House. So, my question is on what point are dividing the House? Are we voting on whether devolution in terms of this Bill should be implemented or not or what point are we dividing the House on?
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: Hon. Sibanda, we are
proceeding.
HON. P. D. SIBANDA: The Hon. Minister asked you to divide the House.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: I said we are to proceed, did
you not hear me saying that.
HON. P. D. SIBANDA: On what point are we dividing the House on? Hon. Chair do not be emotional about these things, there is no need to be emotional.
On Clause 4;
HON. P. D. SIBANDA: You see, when we are talking about
Parliament, Parliament is supposed to be the doorway of democracy. …
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: Hon. Member, you are out of
order. I am ruling you out of order.
HON. P. D. SIBANDA: What exactly are you ruling me out of order for Hon. Chair?
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: I put the question on the amendment of Clause 4, is there any debate. No debate.
HON. P. D. SIBANDA: I am debating. Why are you ruling me out of order when I am debating?
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: Are you debating?
HON. P. D. SIBANDA: Yes!
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: He is debating – [HON.
MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – Okay, he is debating.
HON. P. D. SIBANDA: Hon. Chair, I am quite sure that when the people of Zimbabwe in 2013 contributed to the Constitution and demanded that there should be devolution, they were highlighting a certain aspect of their aspirations. Now, the Hon. Member has raised a very important point. I come from Binga and that is over 1 200 km away from Harare. If the point of devolution that the Hon. Member has raised is not captured in this Bill, do you know what it means Hon. Chair? It means that ZIDA, like all other agencies of Government will be stationed in Harare and what does it mean? It means that all decisions pertaining to investment will be taken here in Harare but the people of Zimbabwe when they contributed towards the formulation of the Constitution; they indicated that they want decisions to be made at a local level.
Therefore, what the Hon. Member is raising is not a political point.
It is a pertinent point that is saying this Bill should capture the spirit of devolution. Why is the Hon. Minister not justifying why he is refusing devolution to be encompassed in this Bill? We believe that is important unless he has got a very good reason why he is refusing. We do not want investment to continue to be around and surrounding Harare. We want devolution to be in each and every part of this country. People in Mukumbura and in Beitbridge where the Vice President comes from want to have access to ZIDA. Therefore, why should devolution not be taken into this Bill? That is what we want the Hon. Minister to explain.
HON. MADZIMURE: Hon. Chair, whenever you make a
decision you are setting a precedent. So in this case we are setting a precedent where we are allowing laws to pass through this House without the laws taking into consideration …
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: Are you contributing to the amendment?
HON. MADZIMURE: I am saying we are setting a precedent by allowing this law to pass through this House without taking the issue of devolution seriously. Mr. Speaker, why we have investments failing to take off is because the majority of the people, who make those decisions, make those decisions on behalf of the people not by the people. Decisions are centralised here in Harare when people in Mutare want certain developments. They want their minerals to be mined in a certain way and with people that they trust. They do not make those decisions. They are made on their behalf by the people in Harare and this is why we have got a lot of corruption because power is centralised.
People who have got no interest in what is happening at local level make those decisions and their decisions are purely oiled by corruption. They are influenced by issues of corruption and that is why we have a lot of people being given contracts that never take off. The majority of those people who have been given contracts are getting away scot free. Those people who we have given contracts are not accountable to the people. So Mr. Speaker, the issue is very simple. As we travel towards devolution, we must make sure that the laws that we pass in this House reflect the spirit of devolution.
This is a simple amendment. Why can we not allow the people at local level to make their decisions? This is the starting point. Let us start from this Bill and make sure that whenever a province fails to perform, we know it has everything at its disposal. It has the offices responsible for investment at local level. So if they fail, then you can say such a province is failing but not to have a province that has nothing to do with investment and expect it to attract investment. They cannot negotiate. Let them negotiate on their own behalf not to allow Harare to continuously dominate the whole country. It is not good Mr. Speaker.
This is our plea that Hon. Minister, this is very simple. Allow the people at local level to make their decisions. Right now we have got Tokwe-Mukorsi completed years ago but the people of Masvingo are hungry. There is no irrigation or master plan because the decision was made in Harare whilst it should have been made in Masvingo. Allow the people at local level to make their decisions. This is a simple plea Hon.
Minister.
HON. HAMAUSWA: I also want to concur with the last Speaker that indeed, we need to make sure that this Bill embraces the principles of devolution, especially to ensure that local people have a stake in terms of the exploitation of resources found in their areas. I will give an example of my constituency, Warren Park. You find that the people
there just woke up one day and found Warren Hills being excavated and they do not even have a share of what is happening. They found wetlands being transformed into other investment without them giving an input.
So, if the ZIDA is going to embrace the concept of devolution, it also ensures that our laws in terms of investment will also be linked to the principles of public trust whereby we say those who are making decision are making those decisions on behalf of the people. So if we reject this clause which ensures devolution is embraced in terms of our investment laws, then we are removing the power from the people. We always say the resources are God-given resources to the people, so the local people should actually have a share of their resources.
If we look at the mining communities in Zimbabwe, most people do not have anything to show. I will give an example of Chiadzwa. If you go there, the people are living in serious poverty because they do not have a stake in terms of the developments which are taking place in their areas. So, Hon. Chair, I request the Hon. Minister to explain why devolution should be excluded. He should give us strong reasons why devolution should not be part of this Bill. Thank you.
HON. T. MLISWA: Mr. Chair, what we must realise is that, the former Minister of Industry and Commerce, Hon. Mangaliso Ndlovu had conceded to devolution. It is unfortunate that the current Minister of Industry and Commerce is not here, who really should be pushing this forward. I think because of the reshuffling which happened, there are a number of mistakes which are there. I think what would be important would be that the Minister who is responsible for this Bill drives it because for as long as the Minister responsible for the Bill is not here, it becomes a problem.
I am glad that the Hon. Vice President is here. Hon. Vice President, the ministers you appoint never attend these sessions. You can see that the Minister of Industry and Commerce and the Deputy
Minister is equally not here to drive something that belongs to them. Hon. Ziyambi, in terms of contribution, Hon. Mangaliso Ndlovu, had conceded to the aspect of devolution – so in the handover and takeover, he could have told the other Minister how far we had gone with this Bill so that we do not waste much time. There are now contradictions because the Minister who was driving it then, who is seated next to you can concede to that point that yes, devolution had been accepted – [THE
HON. MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND PARLIAMENTARY
AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): It is there, sit down and I will tell you.] – but Hon. Minister, you are not telling us where it is exactly. Hon. Ziyambi has been saying it is there, so tell us where it is and then we move, that is all he needs to do.
However, my point to the Hon. Vice President is that the Ministers never attend. The Speaker wrote a letter to Ministers who do not attend, the Deputy Ministers are not here and the Cabinet Ministers are not here, they are behaving like others who also boycott this Parliament, they are not different from others. So, it is important Hon. Minister that you really talk to the President about this. Parliament is being handicapped because Ministers…
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: Hon. Member…
HON. T. MLISWA: I am addressing the Hon. Vice President on a very important issue which he must take note of.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: May you debate the clause.
HON. T. MLISWA: No, but my point is that it is difficult for us to debate when the Ministers who are responsible for those portfolios are not here and we see this Mr. Chair. They are given Portfolios by the Presidium but they are not here to conduct their duties. We are hoping that in the reshuffle, some of them will really get to be farmers for life. We were shocked to see that they were back again and we wonder what message is going because the country is looking forward to ministers to be driving this. They sit in Cabinet and make decisions on behalf of the nation so that they can be implemented. So, my plea is that they never come at all. ZANU PF has got a lot of young people who are intelligent who can be ministers. May you please relook into that Hon. Vice
President, thank you.
HON. ZIYAMBI: Hon. Chair, I will respond to Hon. Mliswa, not the others because they do not recognise me – [HON.
MEMBERS:Inaudible interjections.] – HON. P. D SIBANDA: Point of order.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: Do you want the Minister to respond?
HON. P. D. SIBANDA: No, no, point of order. He cannot respond if he thinks that in this House he can only respond to a section of this House when he is supposed to be the Minister of Justice. He seems not even to appreciate that this is supposed to be a doyen of democracy. He also seems not to appreciate that if he thinks that he can speak to a section of this House, let him go to Jongwe House not here, we will not allow him to speak here unless he withdraws that – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – he will not speak unless he withdraws that. This is not a ZANU PF House, this is Parliament of
Zimbabwe and the Minister is supposed to answer everyone. The Hon.
Speaker made a ruling on that issue. This Hon. Minister is wrong to think that he can influence this House to speak only on one side of the House and not on the rest of it. We will not allow him to speak unless he withdraws that because he is actually being contemptuous of the ruling that was made by the Speaker. We then tend to believe that maybe the Hon. Minister might have an internal political agenda against the Speaker of Parliament, otherwise why does he oppose what the Speaker said. He has his own agenda against the Speaker of Parliament, that is why he is saying things that are opposite what the Hon. Speaker indicated.
HON. ZIYAMBI: Thank you Hon. Chair – [HON. MEMBERS:
Inaudible interjections.] –
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: Hon. Sibanda, do not force me
to send you out of the House. I have given the floor to the House and you are challenging – [HON. P.D. SIBANDA: Hon. Chair, he must withdraw.] - I have given him the floor. You want him to withdraw without uttering a word – [HON. P.D. SIBANDA: Yes, he has to withdraw.] – How can he withdraw if you do not want to listen to what he is saying. You do not want the Minister to speak, how can he respond to your issues? – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
HON. ZIYAMBI: Hon. Chair, as I indicated, I will respond to
Hon. Mliswa – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
– [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – [HON. P. D. SIBANDA: Minister ngaa withdrawe speech yake, because kana achiti haaterere zvatinotaura isusu, then we will not listen to him. We will not give him audience here.] –
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: But he is not the one talking.
Arikutaura ndini. Amuri kuramba ndini – [HON. P. D. SIBANDA: Ayehwa isusu hatisi kuramba imimi. Tiri kuti isusu Speaker ruled vachiti maMembers eoposition haafaniri kutererwa nemaMinisters. Speaker reversed that position. Who is he to come to the House and change that position given by the Speaker? Arikudherera Speaker because Speaker comes from Matabeleland.] –
HON. P. D. SIBANDA: Hon. Chair, we want to put it on record...
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: I have not recognised you.
HON. P. D. SIBANDA: We want to put it on record that the Hon.
Minister must withdraw his sentiments that he will not respond to Members of the Opposition. Unless he does that, then the business of this House should be suspended. I am telling you. The Hon. Speaker ruled in this House last time to the effect that Members of the
Opposition should be given audience in this House and if the Hon. Minister is coming here to oppose the Hon. Speaker, then we do not know what internal political fights that you have in ZANU PF and we will not be part and parcel of that – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: Order Hon. Members. May I
take this opportunity to recognise our Vice President, the Vice President of the Republic of Zimbabwe, Hon. Mohadi who is in the House –
[HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] –
HON. MUSHORIWA: On a point of order.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: No point of order. Would
you give the Minister time to respond?
HON. MUSHORIWA: No, he cannot. It is a point of order. Mr.
Chairman, the Speaker made a ruling in this House...
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: And he has not uttered a word.
He has not said a word.
HON. MUSHORIWA: If he is not going to respond then he should report to the Speaker and report back to Parliament. This Committee cannot proceed. Report to the Speaker that he is violating the Speaker’s ruling.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: The Minister has stood up.
You want to take words out of his mouth.
HON. ZIYAMBI: Mr. Chair, the Clause that we are dealing with pertains to the functions of the agency and then there will be an organisational structure that will go down to the provinces and it is provided for in Clause 5 but the problem is the Hon. Members are not reading the Bill – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – Can we proceed because it is already covered – [HON. P. D. SIBANDA: Point of order, point of order.] – If we go to Clause 5, Hon. Mliswa,
Clause 5 (8) you will find out that the agencies shall be allowed to –
[HON. P. D. SIBANDA: Point of order, point of order.] – HON. P. D. SIBANDA: Point of order Mr. Chairman.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: No more debate on this issue – [HON. P. D. SIBANDA: Point of order, point of order. I have got a point of order.] – I cannot unrule my ruling – [HON. P. D. SIBANDA: I have got a point of order. The Minister should withdraw. Hazvishande izvo ndezvako izvo.] – I have made a ruling – [HON. P. D. SIBANDA:
No, I am opposing you. He needs to withdraw.] –
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): I will withdraw
on one condition – [HON. P. D. SIBANDA: There is no condition.] –
[HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – – [HON. P. D.
SIBANDA: Hapasisina, there is no more business to be done in this
House.] –
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: You must have heard what the Minister is saying – [HON. MUSHORIWA: Mr. Chairman...] – Hon. Mushoriwa, I have made a ruling on this issue and I cannot unrule my ruling – [HON. MUSHORIWA: But he is refusing to withdraw. Chair, can you guide him?] - Out of the House Hon. Mushoriwa! Out Hon. Mushoriwa! I cannot unrule myself. Out of the House Hon.
Mushoriwa. Hon. Mushoriwa, I have commanded you to go out of the House – [HON. MUSHORIWA: You know Chair, you can only eject me from the House not from the Committee.] – [HON. MEMBERS:
Inaudible interjections.] –
On Clause 5:
HON. SACCO: I move the amendments standing in my name
that:
Clause 5 of the Bill is amended as follows –
- On Page 8 of the Bill, after line 42 by the insertion of the following paragraph –
“(p) a desk for the health sector”.
- On page 9 of the Bill, by the deletion of sub-clause (4) on lines 3 to 5 and substitute –
“(4) Persons manning the desk referred to in subsections (1)
(d) to (p) should be senior employees, officers or representatives who are capable and fully empowered to make decisions by their Agency, Departments or Ministry”.
- On page 9 of the Bill, by the deletion of sub-clause (9) on lines 24 to 27 and substitute –
“(9) Every person, including every Minister, statutory corporation and local authority, whose duty it is to consider requests made by the Agency for purposes of this Act, shall ensure that, as far as possible, priority is given to the consideration of every application and request made by the Agency on behalf of a person carrying on or proposing to carry on an approved activity in a special economic zone or elsewhere”.
- On page 9 of the Bill, by deletion of sub-clause (10) on lines
28 to 31.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank
you Chair, on Clause 5, page 9 of the Bill, line 5 – I propose that we delete the words, ‘For not less than 12 months at any time’, then the officers can stay as long as they are needed. I thank you.
HON. MADZIMURE: On a point of order Mr. Speaker, as a matter of procedure, you cannot proceed. The Hon. Minister is already talking of Section 5 – you cannot proceed without …
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: Order, order Hon. Madzimure, I have not recognised you. – [HON. MADZIMURE: But I stated that it is a point of order!] – Order, order, I have not recognised you Hon. Madzimure whether, it is on a point of order or time to debate.
– [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – Order, order Hon.
Members, may I have order in the House! – [HON. MEMBERS:
Inaudible interjections.] – Less noise in the House Hon. Members!
HON. ZIYAMBI: Hon. Chair, I am rejecting the amendments proposed by Hon. Sacco and in place of that, I am proposing that we maintain it as it is, save for the deletion that I indicated on page 9 where
I want to delete the words, ‘For that duration of time’, to delete, ‘For not less than 12 months at any time of the agency’ as indicated in my amendment. I thank you.
HON. MUSHORIWA: Mr. Chair, – [HON. MEMBERS:
Inaudible interjections.] – It is the view of the joint Committees –
[HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: Order, order Hon. Members!
You may proceed Hon. Member.
HON. MUSHORIWA: Hon. Chair, the amendments that are in the name of Hon. Sacco are amendments that were brought forward by the two Committees of Parliament, i.e. the Committee on Industry and Commerce and Committee on Foreign Trade.
Mr. Chair, if we look at the proposed amendments on Clause 5, after line 42 – we wanted a desk for the health sector to be added and there is a reason to that. The Bill speaks to the One Stop Investment – it states that there will be a desk for economic zones for immigration, revenue, environment, NSSA, mines and minerals, local authorities, tourism, authority and labour.
Mr. Chair, a desk for health is actually crucial and has to be there because there are several requirements by the Ministry of Health and Child Care that need to be – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – Mr. Chair, there is a reason why a desk for health has to be on the One Stop Investment Service Centre. It is primarily to do with the fact that there are several requirements that an investor needs to get some licencing from the Ministry of Health and Child Care. I do not understand why the Hon. Minister can simply decide to say, ‘No, he does not want to understand the rationale behind the inclusion of this desk’. I do not even understand what effect it would have in including it because if you are including the desks of labour and all the other desks then why are you failing to include the health desk?
Secondly, on lines three to five – we had proposed that …
+HON. R. MPOFU: On a point of order Mr. Speaker! Mr.
Speaker, we are tired of people who boycott Parliament whenever the
President comes here. They are wasting our time every time – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – You can go! You are not even ashamed of yourselves as adults! – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – Pack yours and go! Stupid! – [HON. MEMBERS:
Inaudible interjections.] –
Hon. P. D. Sibanda having sat on the desk and shouting, ‘This is Parliament and not Jongwe House, the Minister should withdraw his statement first!’ – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – Hon. P. D. Sibanda was escorted out of the House by the SerjeantAt-Arms
HON. T. MLISWA: Hon. Chair, I sat down not because I do not have the energy to argue like others. I am probably more physical and talkative than them but I was just totally ashamed that we have the Hon. Vice President of this nation in this House. Hon. Chair, we continued behaving in a manner which is making us a laughing stock. My heart bleeds to imagine that we have the time to argue, wasting time yet people are suffering out there. We have the responsibility in this House to be able to unite for the common goal of the ordinary person.
I do not belong to any political party right now but I think it is important that we now look into a way of addressing this impasse. The Chair of this House is the Speaker. This House is becoming political every day. There are issues where the Opposition does not recognise the
President and Hon. Minister Ziyambi was of the opinion that, ‘listen because you do not recognise the President, I will not respond to you’.
Equally the opposition belongs to a party where there is leadership and they are all told what to do.
At the end of the day, we have a Constitution that we must follow in this country. These political parties are a shame; this House cannot be a political ground to fight your differences. Fight your differences out there, not in here. This House must be respected and if you do not respect this House, I will stand alone and defend the interests of this country and tell you that this is not a political ground. The elections came and went. As a result, we must be able to deliver to the people. I expect maturity. You might be insane and I am not insane. There will be somebody who is required to stand up and speak on behalf of the people. I am saying the politics finished after elections. When we are here, we must debate issues of national interest and follow the Constitution of this country.
Hon. Chair, it cannot be a political issue anymore. It is important that the Speaker takes this matter seriously and address the impasse that exists in the political parties. Without the Speaker and Parliament being involved, we shall not go anywhere at the end of the day. At the same time, this Parliament is run by rules. Hon. Chair, whenever I make noise you always tell me to get out. I was watching to see how many people were making noise, Hon. Paradza was doing whatever he wanted, you did not send him out Hon. P. D. Sibanda was also doing what he wanted but when it is me, you tell me to go out and I go out. Why is it that the same rules do not apply to other people out of order? Is it because I am on my own or what? We must be consistent in the application of the rules and laws in this Parliament. We can equally join in many things but let me conclude by saying, it has been this Parliament. We can equally join in many things but let me conclude by saying it has been a sad day. In fact I was actually going to propose that it was becoming a security issue. You cannot have the Hon Vice President having people around there, it is a security concern. When the people come here to protect him then we say that they have come in here. They must protect the Hon Vice President. When he is in this House he must feel safe but I do not think the prevailing environment made him feel safe. I was even going to propose that it is better for him to leave because the atmosphere in here is not conducive for the leadership of this country.
Finally we must be able to respect each other when we are here. This institution that we are failing to respect, if people are shouting at you outside you deserve to be shouted at because you behave like hooligans in here and you are not supposed to be hooligans – you are supposed to behave like people. I will mobilise the people of Zimbabwe to stand out there and attack you guys because you are a waste of time, taxpayers money and resources. You are as good as dead. Thank you very much.
HON. ZIYAMBI: Hon Mliswa, let us proceed. You have stated your point. The amendment that was proposed by Hon Sacco is already covered in the Bill. If you go to sub clause (o), it says the minister may appoint as many as he can. So, if there is need for a health desk it will be put there. It is already covered. I think we want to make the Bill so huge for nothing when the material facts are already there and they are covered. So I request that we proceed.
HON. PHULU: I do not understand why- if we do not agree on a particular point, we do not divide the House and vote on it and move on to the next point because we do not have to reason until we agree. We divide the House and vote. My point of order is how do we refuse to vote because there is a request that let us divide the House on the issue and then we move on.
The proposal here was that if we do not agree, let us vote and we still have not voted. It is unprocedural. If Members do not agree we must vote on the issue. As it is the record says I agree with that point. We move and I have voted for something which is counter devolution. We still have not voted. How did the point pass before I got my right to vote on the Clause that is counter devolution. On Section 5. Ngativoteyi ka.
HON. T. MLISWA: On a point of order. Hon. Members must be familiar with Standing Rule 125 and I would urge them to open it now so that they understand the rules when it comes to the division of the House. Standing Rule 125 talks about Speaker or Chairperson decision challenged. “(1) If the opinion of the Chair, a decision of a question is challenged, he or she may direct that a division must take place. (2) If, however the Chair is of the opinion that a division is unnecessarily claimed or is an abuse of the rules or a misuse of the forms of the House he or she must decline to direct that a division takes place and must immediately declare the resolution of the House or the Committee, as the case maybe. (3) When the Chair has directed that a division must take place, the division bells must be rung, and the doors must be secured soon after the lapse of the seven minutes as the Chair must direct, and no Member must thereafter enter or leave the Chamber until the division has been taken. (4) Whenever more than one division is required to bring to a decision any question already proposed from the Chair, on the first such division the division bells must be rung for seven minutes and on any subsequent division the division bell must be rung for three minutes. (5) A Member calling for a division must not leave the Chamber until after the division has taken place and must vote with those who, in the opinion of the Speaker or the Chairperson were the minority; and every Member present in the Chamber when the question is put with the doors secured must be required to vote”.
Just in case you do not read Standing Rules, this is what regulates
Parliament. I put it before you Chair. I thank you.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: I am entirely lost on the
request for the division of the House that was raised on Clause 4. What we are debating now is Clause 5. We cannot move forwards by going backwards. There is no division of the House. I have made a ruling.
HON. MADZIMURE: On a point of order. You were supposed to ask “those of that opinion” and you did not say so on Clause 4. You did not say so. It is unprocedural.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: I did.
HON. MADZIMURE: I wanted to raise that point and you did
not. The records are there. You did not. It is unprocedural. The rules are clear.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: Do you want to leave the
House –[HON MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.]-
HON MUSHORIWA: The minister did not answer. He only answered the question of “O” where the Minister may in his discretion choose which agent to come. We believe from the Committee’s perspective that the Ministry of Health is a key player when it comes to investment. In addition to that we also believe strongly that on page 9 of the Bill subclause 4 on lines 3 to 5 should actually be deleted and be replaced by the amendment that we proposed. That person manning the desk referred above should be senior employees and officers.
We are not coming from point zero. We have had the Zimbabwe Investment Centre before coming to this ZIDA, when people in the export processing zone came here they raised a fundamental issue to simply say why did ZIA fail? ZIA failed specifically because of this issue where the Ministry was sending junior employees to go there. This is the reason why the Committee believes that senior employees should actually sit on that board so that there are people that are in a position to make decisions. In our view, we believe that needs to be factored in.
Again on the same page 9, we also propose that on subclause 9, lines 24 and 27, be deleted and substituted with the following “that every person including every Minister and local authority whose duty is to consider requests by the agents for purposes of this Act, shall ensure priority is given to the consideration of every application made by the agenvy.” Why did we insist on this Chair? We insisted on this because we got representation from ZIA board that we are going to destroy when we come up with ZIDA.
We received representation from the people in the EPZ. We received feedback from the people in the export processing zone and even the people in the joint venture under the Ministry of Finance also narrated this issue. So, it important that the Minister should actually consider a well thought out recommendation and amendments by the Committee. Thank you Chair.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you Hon.
Chair. I have already stated my case and I move that we proceed accordingly.
HON. MUSHORIWA: We are back to square one.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): We cannot
continue debating the same issue. Hon. Phuti was correct that we cannot continue debating the same issue. I have put my position and he has put his position...
HON. MUSHORIWA: Have you answered what I have actually
on the debate? Chair, we are risking a situation – if the Minister wants to simply say that his word carries the day, it means there is no reason for us to debate. The reason for debating...
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): On a point of
order Hon. Chair. The procedure if there is a stalemate you rule and we proceed. We cannot continuously debate. So, I have already stated that that is the position that I have. Whatever debate we are doing, it is a debate that does not lead us anywhere.
HON. MUSHORIWA: In other words Chair, what the Minister is simply saying is that everything that we want to debate and say which is not in agreement with his views is of no consequence. What it means is that what we are doing in this House at this particular moment is that we are wasting our time. The Minister thinks it is his Parliament and believes that his position should save-carry the day –[HON.
MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections]-
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Chair, you were
supposed to rule on what I said. If what I said was wrong you were supposed to rule on that rather than to allow him to continue whilst he debates. Rule on what I have said not to continuously allow him to debate. Chair, you must make a decision.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: I make a ruling that we
proceed accordingly.
HON. MUSHORIWA: I call for the division of the House.
[Bells rung]
House divide.
AYES 26: Hon. Chihururu, C; Hon. Chikwinya S; Hon. Dube G;
Hon. Dube P; Hon. Gonese I.T; Hon. Houghton J.R; Hon. Karenyi L;
Hon. Mago N; Hon. Majaya B; Hon. Markham A. M; Hon. Masuku P; Hon. Mutewu C; Hon. Muchenje S. M; Hon. Mpariwa P; Hon. Mugidho M; Hon. Mukapiko D. L; Hon. Mushoriwa E; Hon. Ndlovu S; Hon.
Nyokanhere J; Hon Phulu K. L; Hon. Sithole J; Hon. Tekeshe D; Hon.
Toffa J; Hon. Tsunga J; Hon. Watson N. J;
Tellers: Hon. N. Ndlovu and Hon. E. Mushoriwa.
NOES 83: Hon. Bushu B; Hon. Chadzamira R.E; Hon. Chibagu G; Hon. Chidakwa P; Hon. Chikukwa M.R; Hon. Chikuni E; Hon. Chikwama B; Hon. Chingosho C. P; Hon. Chinotimba J; Hon. Chitura L; Hon. Dzepasi G; Hon. Dzuma S; Hon. Gumbo J.M; Hon. Gwanongodza E; Hon. Chiduwa C; Hon. Mguni H; Hon. Kashiri C; Hon. Khumalo M; Hon. Khumalo S. S; Hon. Kwaramba G; Hon.
Maboyi R. M; Hon. Madhuku J; Hon. Madziva S; Hon. Makoni R. R;
Hon. Maronge C; Hon. Masango C. P; Hon. Masuku E; Hon. Matangira
- R; Hon. Mathe S; Hon. Matsikenyere N; Hon. Mavenyengwa R; Hon. Mguni S. K; Hon. Mhona F. T; Hon. Dube M; Hon. Mkandla M; Hon. Mliswa M. T; Hon. Moyo R; Hon. Moyo T; Hon. Mpofu A; Hon. Mpofu M. M; Hon. Mpofu R; Hon. Muchimwe P. T; Hon. Mudarikwa S; Hon.
Mudyiwa M; Hon. Munetsi J; Hon. Murambiwa O; Hon. Murire J; Hon.
Musiyiwa R; Hon. Mutambisi C; Hon. Ncube A; Hon. Ncube E; Hon.
Ncube E; Hon. Ndiweni D; Hon. Nguluvhe A; Hon. Mhambo F; Hon.
Nhari V; Hon. Nkani A; Hon. Nkomo M; Hon. Nyabani T; Hon.
Nyashanu M; Hon. Nyere C; Hon. Paradza J; Hon. Paradza K; Hon.
Raidza M; Hon. Rwodzi B; Hon. Samson A; Hon. Seremwe B; Hon.
Sewera J. N; Hon. Shirichena E; Hon. Shongedza E; Hon. Sibanda M; Hon. Sibanda Z; Hon. Singo L; Hon. Sithole G. K; Hon. Sithole S; Hon.
Svuure D; Hon. Tapera S; Hon. Taruvinga F; Hon. Tsuura N; Hon.
Tungamirai T; Hon. Zemura L; Hon. Zivhu K; Hon. Nyabote R.
Tellers: Hon. Togarepi and Hon. Mutambisi
After announcement of the results of the division
HON. T. MLISWA: Handina kuvhota. What do the rules say? Hon. Chair, I did not vote so how come I was not announced? What does the law say? I object to the results because I did not vote, I abstained.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: Hon. Mliswa! – [HON.
MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
HON. GONESE: I rise on a point of order Mr. Chairman. My point of order relates to the announcement of the results which you have just pronounced. I understand that an Hon. Member who was in this august House did not vote either yes or no. my point of clarification as the Hon. Member has raised the issue is that can the Chair please clarify for us why that was done.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: That information I am not even aware. I cannot guess who voted and who did not – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – [HON. T. MLISWA: I was sitting here. I can demand a recount.] –
HON. GONESE: It is important Mr. Chairman, you must have indicated that someone did not vote or if they do not want to vote they should be told to leave the House.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: I have already announced the
results of those who have voted, not those who did not vote – [HON.
GONESE: Those who did not vote also need to be announced.] – No, no
– [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – I do not have that – [HON. T. MLISWA: Itondinyengererai, ndinozvidira jecha.] – [HON.
MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: Order in the House, Hon.
Members! – On Clause 5;
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Hon. Chair, I
have already proposed amendments to Clause 5, on page 9 that we delete on line 5 the following words, “for not less than 12 months at a time”. I thank you.
Amendment to Clause 5 put and agreed to.
Clause 5, as amended, put and agreed to.
On New Clause 6:
HON. ZIYAMBI: Thank you Hon. Chair. I propose to insert a new Clause 6 on page 9 of the Bill, insert the following Clause after line
31 and the subsequent clauses will be numbered accordingly –
“(6) Prioritisation of consideration by third party Agencies of certain applications, secondary to the granting of investment licences. It will read: “Every officer, organ or arm of the State and every Statutory Body and local authority whose duty is to consider any application for the grant of any permit, licence, permission, concession or other authorisation required in connection with any activity or the provision of service, shall ensure that as far as possible, priority is given to the consideration of any application thereof by an applicant, whose activity is permitted or approved in terms of an investment licence issued under this Act. I so submit Hon. Chair.
New Clause 6 inserted put and agreed to.
On Clause 6 (New Clause 7):
HON. ZIYAMBI: Thank you Hon. Chair. I propose the now
Clause 7 to be substituted as follows –
(a) On page 9 of the Bill, to delete Clause 6 between lines 32 and 37 and substitute the following Clause-
“(6) Zimbabwe Investment and Development Agency Advisory Board. That there shall be an advisory board of the agency known as the ZIDA Advisory Board which has the following functions;
- a) On its own initiative or at the request of the CEO, to investigate and make recommendations to the CEO on any matter affecting investment facilitation, development, promotion and protection;
- To assist the CEO in the discharge of his/her functions in terms of Section 9 by making appropriate recommendations or giving appropriate advice to the CEO and;
- Making appropriate recommendations or giving appropriate advice on the formulation and implementation of strategies for the facilitation, development, promotion and protection of investments;
- At the request of the President or the Minister as the case may be, to evaluate the performance by the CEO of his functions and responsibilities under this Act, when he/she is being considered for reappointment;
- To consider any matter referred to it by the President or the
Minister;
- To perform any other function assigned to it by or in terms of this Act;
- The CEO is not bound by any recommendations made or advice given by the board in terms of sub-section 1(a) but at the request of the board, he/she shall in any annual or special report made in terms of Section 42 as directed by the board, make a report on the substance of any such recommendations or advice he/she
has chosen not to follow in whole or in part together with the reasons for not doing so.
I so submit Hon. Chair.
HON. T. MLISWA: Mr. Chair, I think it is important for Hon. Members of Parliament to realise that we are always giving powers to the ministers as Parliament. There is nothing that talks about a Parliamentary Report to Parliament, there is nothing that talks about the board coming through Parliament. For as long as boards do not come through Parliament, we will always have problems. What is important is that, if it is the Office of the President and Cabinet that is running ZIDA, they must send recommendations of board members to Parliament and then Parliament approves and it goes to the President. That is how it should work.
Ministers are being reshuffled and being fired and what we see is that each Minister that comes in comes in with his own board. We have to follow the South African Parliament model that no board member of any parastatal goes to sit before Parliament does that. Hon. Members, I am reminding you, we are the ones who put the laws. Instead of Parliament playing the oversight role, we must also have oversight over board members who are painted. The CEO must also come through us, but the President has the final say. Why are we continuously giving powers to the ministers and they are reshuffled. It is about time we wake up and smell the coffee and start changing these things now. We have seen boards changing left, right and centre when ministers come. Where are we in our role of oversight? Why are we not bringing board members before us from the Office of the President and Cabinet, they come through us and then the President has a final say.
So I am saying there must be a Clause moving forward in any Act that empowers Parliament to be able to have oversight of all board members and then the President has the final say. The Chief Executive Officer is of a parastatal, we are responsible for oversight over parastatals. Why are we sitting here not saying the CEO must come through us? We are now complaining about the Executive Chairman of ZESA, it is because we are allowing ministers to have so much power.
If we had the power to appoint CEOs or boards, there would not be an
Executive Chairman of ZESA who has a rotten past but because the
Minister has got power, he does that. We cannot allow that to happen. It is about time we wake up and you support me for us being empowered to move this country forward. This institution is for the people and not for individuals, let us empower ourselves, wake up and smell the coffee. That is my contribution.
HON. ZIYAMBI: Thank you Hon. Chair. In terms of reporting to Parliament, there is a Clause that we will come to. Clause 42 makes provision for those reports to come. So, I believe the Hon. Member should have waited for that Clause and we debate on it. The office of the Minister is not an individual office - so the issue of reshuffling does not arise, it has no bearing. In fact, in all the Acts, you refer to the Minister who is assigned that particular Act. So it is standard. You cannot have an Act that does not have a Minister who administers it. It refers to the office of that particular line Minister who is assigned that particular Act. So in terms ...
HON. T. MLISWA: On a point of order. The Minister must realise that we make the laws here and the Minister is defending the position when he is a Minister but we make laws here. Ministers do not make laws. We make laws and they comply with the laws. To us we are saying that the Minister must not appoint the board. The board must be recommended to Parliament then Parliament, after it has vetted that, it goes to the President. That is what we want. To me, the Minister cannot say that it is because it is the way things are done. We are allowed to change the law and what I am saying is the word Minister must be removed from the Act and Parliament must come in. That is how we make laws. We change them like that.
HON. ZIYAMBI: Thank you very much Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, if you notice, we believe we are at a stage where we need to vigorously promote investment in the country. So at this particular juncture, we decided that we should have an advisory board. I agree with him in terms of other boards, what he is asserting but for this board, it is not desirable for it to be subjected to that process because it is an advisory board. We are envisaging a board that will advise the CEO who reports to the President. We want this board as of now to be an agency in the Office of the President because we want to ensure that it is given the priority and the urgency that it deserves in so far as it takes seriously our agenda of investment into the country. I agree with him but for this particular Bill, we couched it in such a manner that it may not be desirable to have an advisory board being subjected to the parliamentary process. If you want to consider the reporting structure, it is there. We will come to the Clause. Clause 42 talks about the reports that have to be submitted to Parliament. I thank you.
HON. T. MLISWA: We are very clear that the investment which is not coming to this country is a result of Ministers being corrupt.
Today I am going to speak the truth and Hon. Ziyambi and Minister Hon. Ziyambi you will be with me here. The reason is that Ministers are given money in their pockets because there is not much scrutiny and nothing happens. The mere fact that Parliament is in charge, people have confidence because it is people’s Parliament. We do not go for individuals. You see how these Committees are run. Despite different political parties but we are able to conduct our duties professionally. Why have the word advisory board? Any board by its nature is advisory. So why have a nice word like advisory. If that is the case, we must understand the role of the advisory board and the role of any other board then we can see how special it is because investment is not coming into the country because Ministers are being corrupt. The only way to curb that corruption is to have a multifaceted approach. You cannot doubt Parliament anywhere in the world. We might differ here but our interests are for the nation. We are voted in by the people to push the agenda here. The Minister is on his own. Why are the ministers so much wanting to clamour to have power?
This country has suffered because of corruption. Investment is not coming in because it is said that the Ministers have all the authority to do that. Let us look at indigenisation, when the Minister responsible is the sole custodian of indigenisation, many companies were given individually to people instead of it being a broad based approach. How many communities were empowered through indigenisation but there were companies which were given that power because the Minister had the power. It is about time we curtail the powers of the Ministers and this must start now not tomorrow; otherwise we will keep on having corruption, sitting here wasting taxpayers’ money. People have confidence in us. That is why they vote for us to be here. In fact some countries do not allow a Member of Parliament to be a Minister because the Member of Parliament has oversight over a Minister. In Nigeria, for example, all Ministers in Cabinet are not Members of Parliament because Parliament watches over them. Why are we not also following that? Why are we not also following that trend?
Hon. Ziyambi knows what I am talking about at the end of the day and he must support this in the new dispensation which His Excellency is pushing for at the end of the day. Zero tolerance to corruption means more eyes watching those who steal and take the pie from them and allowing Parliament to do our job. May God hear my prayer today while those who are quiet, may ministers’ powers be curtailed from today. Ndakuma chero kana mukasaombera.
HON. TOGAREPI: On a point of order. Mr. Chairman, I think what the Hon. Member is debating now is not relevant to this Clause. My view is his views are very important. They can come maybe as an amendment to the Constitution or as a motion. He can bring those forward but at the moment, let us proceed.
HON. T. MLISWA: This is an Act of Parliament which comes through us. It is not a constitutional motion. I am debating nenyaya yeAct yatiri kutaura munomu. Kana ukati handigone kudebheta Act, ndochienda hangu. We are debating an Act nezvatinoda muAct. Ini ndiri kutaura zvatinoda muAct not kuti mangwana Act yozopfuura tozoti mangwana takapotsa. Ngazvitange nhasi kuti zvinhu zvitange kuchinja. Saka iAct yandiri kudhibheta on Constitution. It is about time we nip it in the bud. Taneta nemaMinisters anongouya achiba. Taneta nazvo
izvi.
HON. ZIYAMBI: Thank you Mr. Chair. In our constitutional democracy, we have three arms of the State. We have the Executive, Parliament and Judiciary. The Executive cannot abrogate its responsibility to Parliament. If we have weak institutions, we deal with that but we do not abrogate to an organ that is not vested with that particular power. As regards an advisory board and an actual board, they are very different. An advisory is advisory in nature and a board that is not advisory has power to make certain decisions. What we are saying is as of now, because of the urgency and the need to be aggressive in promoting investment, the ZIDA Agency will be housed in the Office of the President. That way, we believe that we will also be able to deal with some of the corruption that has been happening because the President will have direct oversight on it but in legislative drafting, you indicate either the President or the Minister in the Bill. If you go into this Bill, it says either the President will assign this Bill to himself or whoever the Minister is. It is standard but if you look at the way it is, we had designed it in such a manner that as of now, maybe progressively going forward, we may amend it so that it will suite the necessities or the needs of the time at that particular time. So I propose that we move forward on this point. His argument is well taken but that is my submission Mr. Chair.
HON. T. MLISWA: Mr. Chair, I am contributing, if you do not
have the intellectual capacity or the gift to talk it is not my fault – pray to God, you must understand that.
Mr. Chair, I know my rights and the reason I am saying this is because the Hon. Minister is very correct in saying that there are three pillars of the State - the Judiciary which is independent; the Executive which is independent and Parliament which makes the laws that you ministers follow. So why are you now trying to make the ministers more powerful than this institution? This is the problem we have had in this country because when ministers come here, they think that they are more powerful than us and we know it all.
We are meant to have oversight and representation. What does oversight mean? It is oversight over the Executive, so that they report to us. So the laws that we are pushing are the laws that we think are better for us moving forward. So at no point should ministers think that they are more superior to Parliament – we must understand that. There are many Sections in the Constitution that I can quote that give us the powers – that is the reason why the President, in Section 116 of the Constitution, is part of this Parliament. It is because he comes and reads things sitting there and the Executive then goes and implements.
So Mr. Chairman Sir, the issue of the Advisory Board – it is important for the Minister, moving forward in that Act, to tell us the role of the Advisory Board because we do not know what the Advisory Board will do. We do not know what powers they have. So if he can point to us the role of the Advisory Board, then we would understand that it is superior from any other board – that I do not see. I do not know if you can direct us to that and to me, he was right to say that because of corruption this will be under the President.
So if the President is responsible for it, why does he need a minister? The Office of the President and Cabinet is broken anyway it does nothing and that is where all the money is going yet it is doing nothing. This will be under the Office of the President and Cabinet in monitoring this but they have been monitoring many things that have gone astray. Hon. Members, how many things are under the Office of the President and Cabinet zvafa? It is a bunch of bureaucrats who are saboteurs to the current President and I will say it. The reason why this country is not moving forward is because of the bureaucrats sitting in that Office of the President and Cabinet busy patronizing and not working for this country. It is about time they leave. We cannot give anymore work because they have sold. They are saboteurs to the President E. D. Mnangagwa – they are from the old school and old regime. They continue with their policies dzekuda kuita zvinhu zvisina basa, they must go and rest kuma farms kwavo kwavakapihwa, what are they still doing being in office since 1980?
This country is not moving forward because of those bureaucrats and why are we giving them a lot of work Hon. Ziyambi Ziyambi? Yes, ngava zorore, iretirement village iya – Ambassador aretire arikuuya, uyu aretire Permanent Secretary ariko. So it is a retirement village and not a workhorse. The President must understand that we are supporting him through this Parliament moving forward. – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] –
HON. ZIYAMBI: Hon. Chair, when I rose to propose the amendments, I clearly read out what the Advisory Board will be doing and I hear Hon. Mliswa. In my previous submission I said, ‘The
Executive cannot abrogate its function’. Clearly what he is proposing violates the separation of powers principle. The boards are appointed by the Executive – he should not confuse and conflate Constitutional Independent Commission appointments with boards that fall under the purview of the Executive.
So in saying that the boards must come through Parliament – it violates our constitutional provisions, which is the reason why perhaps
Hon. Togarepi was saying, ‘His points are correct and if he wants us to amend the Constitution, he is very right. We are the law makers and we can do that but as of now, we are following what the Constitution says.
So, I propose Hon. Chair that we cannot debate forever. We are going in circles – can we then now proceed? I thank you. - [HON. MEMBERS:
Inaudible interjections.] - Hon. Mliswa shouting at some Hon. Members.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: Order, order, Hon. Mliswa!
Hon. Mliswa!
HON. CHIKWINYA: Thank you Hon. Chair, allow me to
submit my contributions as such with regards to the proposed amendments on Clause 6, which effectively takes out Clauses 8 and 9 as was stated in the Bill.
Hon. Chair, the concern by Hon. Members is that year in and year out – the Minister of Finance and Economic Development comes to seek condonation over funds that would have been given to parastatals – where parastatals would have performed badly and are in debt. This Bill does not give Parliament the relevant interface between Parliament and the respective leadership of those parastatals. So you are rendering Parliament a rubber stamp where we begin to condone funds that have been used but at the detriment of those parastatals when they are running at a loss, yet we have no direct interface or leadership of that parastatal.
An example has been given of other jurisdictions – South Africa for example where Parliament has direct interface …
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: Order, order, sorry Hon.
Chikwinya, are you debating Clause 6? You seem to be debating Clause
7.
HON. CHIKWINYA: Clause 6 about the Board – the proposal is
to repeal Clause 6 in the Bill and amend it with the now Clause 6 as stated. Clause 6 seeks to establish the Board of the agency.
I am motivating that Parliament should be given the correct interface to relate to the leadership of such parastatals like this agency that we are trying to setup. I clearly understand the importance of this agency as stated by the Hon. Minister that Zimbabwe now seeks to have investors and the President has taken so much interest that he wants to make sure that there is enough sanity with regards to making sure that there is ‘Ease of Doing Business’. Parliament comes at a stage whereby we need to oversee because these are public funds that are in use.
I will refer to other boards, under parastatal boards because this is also a parastatal to the extent that we have seen these parastatals being mismanaged and recording losses and the Minister of Finance and Economic Development coming to Parliament to seek condonation. We are failing to give that vehicle where Parliament and the leadership of these boards can interface. This is the call whereby, what are we then supposed to put in this particular Bill which then gives Parliament the right to be able to interface with the leadership of these parastatals and in this case the board?
HON. CHIKWINYA: I understand the Hon. Minister’s point that
this is only an advisory board but if you look at its functions it is a board like any other parastatal board. It has been regarded as an advisory board because it has got a direct corerelation with the President. The
President cannot operate the board because the President operates the Cabinet but because the President has got a direct interest in this particular parastatal he wants to have more interface with it. Therefore, he is calling it an advisory board but literally it is a board. This is where we are saying as Parliament, we now need to have a mechanism of having an interface with these boards. What I would have wanted to hear from you is a commitment that you are going to have a look at the State Enterprise and Corporate Act where the majority of the powers of these boards are actually vested in. Therefore, we begin to have an engagement over how Parliament can have an interface with these boards.
Hon. Chair, the majority of the Members here present, we suffer because there is no parastatal which is recording even breaking even but as Parliament we are giving them money year in and year out and this is where we are saying we now need to create a vehicle where we interface with the leadership of these parastatals. Therefore the call is, can you hear us Hon. Minister.
HON. MOLOKELA-TSIYE: I rise in support of Hon.
Chikwinya. I think this Parliament must be responsible to the people of Zimbabwe. Our State owned enterprises and parastatals, every one of them is always loss making annually and they get bail out from the fiscus. If we are a Parliament that is accountable to the people of Zimbabwe, we need to make sure that when you are electing a new law, we learn from previous experiences. This is the responsibility of Parliament to ensure that it has an oversight role so that it protects our national resources. It is the responsibility of Cabinet and the President to make sure that the new laws that we enact as Parliament, support them in making sure that the boards that are appointed play their role.
Almost every major parastatal in this country is making losses.
So, I think the Minister should reconsider his position. If you go to South Africa, look at how the boards are appointed. State owned enterprises are not as bad as those in Zimbabwe. There are some who are as bad as those in Zimbabwe but there have been some mechanisms that have been put in place to ensure that Parliament plays its role in terms of oversight role. You cannot talk about Zimbabwe being serious for open business, being serious about Zimbabwe fighting against corruption when we are electing new laws that repeat the same old mistakes. So the Minister should reconsider his position. Thank you. *HON. CHINOTIMBA: On a point of order Hon. Chair.
Personally, I am not happy when MPs are called witches. As we are here, we are live on television, radio et cetera. For MPs to be referred as witches and we just keep quiet it is not fair. Hon. Mliswa is my friend, he is my younger brother but I cannot be happy when an Hon. Member is said to be engaged in witchcraft. Tomorrow someone can say that and you expel them from the House. Recently, we chased away another Hon. Member because of the bad behaviour but we are here leaving one
MP in this House after calling MPs witches. Hon. Chair, the Hon.
Member should withdraw that statement – [HON. T. MLISWA: Usandichichidzire! Kupfeka chi hat che land invasion hakusi kuenda ku hondo, hapana hondo yawakaenda iwewe. Tibvire, taakukuudza chokwadi. Waida kuita Minister of War Veterans ikapiwa Mr. Tshinga. Dube, Hwee!...
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: Order, order, Hon. Mliswa – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections] – [HON. T. MLISWA: Uri ani iwewe, ndebvu chena] –
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): I took my time
to read the new clause – [HON. T. MLISWA: Inaudible intejection] ….
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: Hon. Mliswa,
ndaakuzokuburitsa manje.
HON. ZIYAMBI: I submit that we proceed because everything
that has been said, I read about them.
Amendment to Clause 6 put and agreed to.
Clause 6, as amended, put and agreed to.
On Clause 7.
HON. K. PARADZA: I move the motion standing in my name
that,
1) There shall be a board to be known as the Zimbabwe Investment and Development Agency Board which shall consist of-
- the Chairperson appointed by the President after consultation with the Committee on Standing Rules and Orders;
- Eight other members appointed by the President from a list of not fewer than twelve nominees submitted by the Committee on Standing Rules and Orders.
2) In appointing the eight members referred to in subsection (1) (b)-
- five shall be chosen from the private sector;
- three shall be chosen from the public sector at director level and above in line with the Public Entities and Corporate Governance Act.
- The Chief Executive Officer shall be an ex officio member of the board and the Secretary to the board.
- In appointing the board members, the President shall have regard for the provisions of Sections 17 and 18 of the Constitution.
- The board shall, at its first meeting, elect a Vice-Chairperson of the board from among its members:
Provided that the Chairperson and Vice-Chairperson shall be different genders.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Hon. Chair, my
proposal is that it can stand as it is.
HON. CHIKWINYA: I am referring to amendment in Clause 6
whilst bringing in Clause 7. Functions of Boards in Clause 6 it must make recommendations and investigate. What if they do not agree?
THE DEPUTY CHAIRPERSON: We have already passed
Clause 6. Can you refer to Clause 7 please?
HON. CHIKWINYA: Clause 7 establishes a board that has got eight members and the Hon Minister says because it is an advisory board, it does not have to vote. But if you look at its functions as enshrined in Clause 6, it investigates and makes recommendations and what if they do not agree. How do they carry forward their recommendation to the President? This is why I am saying it must have an uneven number or else the chairperson must have a casting vote. It is simply a housekeeping issue on the board itself.
HON. ZIYAMBI: I have already submitted that it can stand as is.
Clause 7 put and agreed to.
On Clause 8:
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PALIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): On Clauses 8 and
9, they become Clauses 9 and 10 substituted by the following; On pages 10 to 11 of the Bill, I am proposing that we delete Clauses 8 and 9 and substitute the following Clauses, 9 Chief Executive Officer and staff of agency. There shall be a Chief Executive Officer of the Agency who shall be appointed by the President at his own authority if the President is responsible for administering this Act or after consultation with the Minister responsible for administering this Act.
- the Chief Executive Officer shall hold office for such period not exceeding three years and on such terms and conditions of service as the President or Minister as the case may be, shall fix on his or her appointment and shall be eligible for reappointment subject to satisfactory valuation of performance referred to in Section 6 (1) (b) for the same period as the period for which he or she was originally appointed and on the same or on different terms and conditions of service.
- the following provisions of the Second Schedule relating to the appointment of members of the board, their vacation of office, disqualification from appointment, dismissal and refilling of their vacancies shall also apply to the CEO.
Paragraphs 2, 3 and 4 (1) subject to the reference in sub paragraph (b) to paragraph (1) (2) of the Second Schedule be construed as a reference to sub section (2) of this Section 3 and 5.
- the CEO shall on behalf and in the name of the agency employ upon such terms and conditions as he or she may think fit, whether as permanent employees or on pensionable conditions of service or on contract or otherwise, such staff as unnecessary for conducting the agency’s affairs.
- assign and promote members of staff to offices, posts and grades in agency and fix their conditions of service.
- supervise and control the activities of the staff of the agency in the course of their employment.
- discipline, suspend or discharge any such staff.
(5) the staff of the agency shall carry out their functions under the direction and control of the CEO.
Amendment to Clause 8 put and agreed to.
Clause 8, as amended, put and agreed to.
On Clause 9:
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIR (HON. ZIYAMBI): Because we have
adopted Clause 9, I indicated that I am proposing that it be repealed and substituted by what I have indicated. His proposed amendment has been superseded by what we have adopted. I thank you.
Amendment to Clause 9 put and agreed to.
Clause 9, as amended, put and agreed to.
Clause 10 put and agreed to.
On Clause 11:
HON. CHIKWINYA: Clause 11 is about freedom of investment and it refers to First Schedule of the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act [Chapter 14:13]. In my view, this Act has been repealed. How do we refer to it?
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON ZIYAMBI): It is not.
Clause 11 put and agreed to.
Clauses 12 and 13 put and agreed to.
On Clause 14:
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): On page 12 of
the Bill, delete the following words from line 35 and ending on line 40,
“Provided that there is no person domiciled within Zimbabwe with the same qualifications, skills and knowledge as they are required of their senior manager, technical and operational experts or advisor with respect to the investment in question”. So I am proposing that we delete that.
Amendment to Clause 14 put and agreed to.
Clause 14, as amended, put and agreed to.
Clauses 15 to Clause 19 put and agreed to.
On Clause 20:
HON. CHIKWINYA: Thank you Hon. Chair. On Clause 20,
social responsibility of the investor and the Hon. Minister may advise if my interpretation is wrong that with regards to the diamond and the platinum sector, the laws are compulsory with regards to corporate social responsibility, but are voluntary with regards to investment in any other mineral. I thought that Clause 20 gives us an opportunity to be able to direct our investors as to how we intend to have them perform corporate social responsibilities within our communities.
As we speak Hon. Chair and in the event of voluntary corporate social responsibility, we leave our communities exposed, yet we seek this investment for it to be able to benefit our communities. There is currently a discourse going on within our communities whereby investors are not willing to participate in corporate social responsibilities in our communities because we do not have a compulsory law that tells them to do so.
Therefore, the issue of social licence is breaking down resulting in both the communities engaging in illegal activities, which is consequently going to affect the investors. I therefore seek that the Hon. Minister inserts a clause that directs investors to be able to channel a particular resource or amount of resource towards community social responsibility. I will give an example Hon. Chair - the Mines and Mineral Development Committee visited Mimosa. They dedicate 3% of their gross revenue towards corporate social responsibility and I believe that is the direction which you need to take.
Therefore, I propose that a particular clause which shows the investor how he has to relate with the communities be inserted under Clause 20, otherwise we would have lost the opportunity. As it stands, currently only subsection (a) and subsection (d) speak to social responsibility. Otherwise subsection (b) and (c) have nothing to do with social responsibility.
The issues to do with how to relate the environment are only covered in Section A, but our communities when they see an investor, expect so much direct corporate social responsibility rather than the same coming through taxes. I propose that this clause be given that opportunity Hon. Minister.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Hon. Chair, I am
proposing to the heading to change to responsibility of the investor.
HON. CHIKWINYA: Hon. Chair, the Hon. Minister proposed
that we remove social responsibility and leave only responsibility on the investor but Hon. Chair, the expectation of our people in our communities is that an investor should be able to deal directly in terms of corporate social responsibility between the investor and the community and they are now taking away the responsibility of the investor from being responsible to the community We are doing nothing Hon. Minister by deleting social. What our communities are saying is that if an investor comes into a particular community and our Constitution supports that natural resources must benefit the local community – I do not see your amendment fitting in that constitutional provision. You were correct that there must be social responsibility but let us have the wording and the text that directs how the investor should actually relate to those communities and you are running away from the very correct position that should be undertaken. So, I disagree with the Minister in terms of removing social responsibility.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you Hon.
Chair, can we proceed by the proposal to remove social and having responsibility of the investor. It will speak to what is there. I thank you.
Amendment to Clause 20 put and agreed to.
Clause 20, as amended, put and agreed to.
On Clause 21:
HON. K. PARADZA: Thank you Chairman. On Clause 21, I want
to stress on the point that we need a timeframe of three days to approve or refuse an application and also the timeframe of 14 days for an aggrieved person to make an appeal, and also for the board to confirm or refuse within a reasonable time as captured in my amendment. Thank you.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you Hon.
Chair. Consistent with what we have been doing – we have changed the board to become advisory and we have now the Chief CEO being the main operating officer, I propose Clause 21 which now becomes our new Clause 22 and is amended as follows; on page 15 of the Bill., delete sub clause 4 on lines 39 and 40 and substitute – 4, “the Chief Executive Officer may (a) at his or her discretion refer any application for an investment licence to the board for its advise or recommendation thereon. (b) Impose such conditions on the issuance of an investment licence as he or she considers fit whether or not on the basis of any advice or recommendation tendered by the board in terms of paragraph (a).” I submit Hon. Chair – [HON. K. PARADZA: Ngatiise time frame.] - Hon. Chair, I believe we will address it in regulations.
HON. K. PARADZA: But we will not have solved anything without a timeline – [HON. MEMBER: Inaudible interjections.]-
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): The reason why
I said we put it in regulation is where they went to learn about the experiences of other countries they did not start with three days. We are saying when we start we do not want to have a false start. So, we put regulations that will allow us to have a smooth take off. If we start by fixing it at 3 days, we will have a still birth. So, the reason why we are saying that is it is very easy to change regulations – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – So, I propose that we remain silent in the Act but in regulations we will do that, so that is how we are going to do it.
HON. CHINYANGANYA: Mr. Chair, we need to have
atimeframe, the reason why things are not moving in this country is because there is no time limit.
Clause 22 put and agreed to.
Clause 22 as amended put and agreed to.
On Clause 23;
HON. K. PARADZA: Mr. Chair, I move the amendment
standing in my name that on page 16 insert the following sub-clause after line 12-
(2) The Agency may also issue an indefinite licence upon the investor meeting set criteria by the Agency, and paying any fee, if any, as may be prescribed.” The preceding sub-clause will accordingly be numbered (1).
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you Hon.
Chair, I am not proposing any amendment to this, it is a very dangerous proposition, I think renewing a licence will keep those investors on their toes.
Clause 23 put and agreed to.
Clause 24 put and agreed to.
On Clause 25:
HON. K. PARADZA: Mr. Chair, I move the amendment standing
in my name that on page 16 insert the following sub-clause after line 33-
(3) Every licensed investor shall submit to the Agency at such intervals as the Agency may direct such statistical data and such information and returns as respects his or her sales and purchases and other operations as the Authority may require.
I hope the Minister will shoot it down so we scrap it.
Clause 25 put and agreed to.
Clauses 26 to 29 put and agreed to.
On Clause 30:
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Hon. Chair, I
just propose a small amendment on page 17 of the Bill by deleting subClause 1 in line 44, we delete the words, ‘the area of which ‘, then substitute, ‘ the geographical area of which’.
Amendment to Clause 30 put and agreed to.
Clause 30, as amended, put and agreed to.
Clauses 31 to 41 put and agreed to.
On Clause 42:
HON. K. PARADZA on behalf of HON. SACCO: On page 21,
insert “within sixty (60) days” after “shall” on line 34.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): I am proposing a
slightly different amendment to what Hon. Paradza is proposing on Clause 42.
I propose that on page 21 of the Bill, we delete “Clause 42” and substitute with the following, “reports of the CEO”.
- The CEO shall, as soon as possible after the end of each financial year, submit an annual report on the operations of the agency to the Minister.
- In addition to the report referred to in sub-section 1, the CEO shall submit to the Minister any report and provide him or her with any other information that the Minister may require in regard to the operation of the agency and b) may submit to the Minister any other report that the CEO considers desirable.
- The Minister shall table before parliament, every annual report submitted to him or her by the CEO in terms of sub-section 1 and b) may table before Parliament any report submitted to him or her by the CEO in terms of sub-section 2.
HON. TSUNGA: Just one point of clarification. I think it is fine that the CEO must submit a report to the Minister who in turn will table the report to Parliament but, my point of clarification relates to the role of the Board in this whole exercise; whether the Board has a role in the production or compilation of the report and if the Board is going to endorse that report prior to submission to the Minister because it looks like the Board is sidelined outright in this whole process.
HON. ZIYAMBI: Hon. Chair, I move that you report progress
and seek leave to sit again tomorrow. Let us finish Clause 44.
HON. CHIKWINYA: I am on Clause 42. You were consulting each other; you did not give Hon. Members an opportunity because he had moved that we are sitting tomorrow. So, there was no way I could
rise up.
On Clause 42, the Clause suggests that the CEO reports annually and my argument is, why can they not report quarterly so that at least we track the performance of these parastatals? Why should we come at the end of the year and discover that a parastatal is not functioning well and then they begin to seek condonation of funds from the fiscus after the harm has been done? Why can they not report quarterly like any other provisions of the Public Finance Management System? So, I propose quarterly so that at least we can track them and then correct where necessary.
Hon. Members having suggested that Committee Stage proceeds.
HON. ZIYAMBI: Let us proceed; Hon. Chair.
Clauses 43 and 44 put and agreed to.
On Clause 45, now New Clause 46
HON CHIKWINYA: On a point of order. How can we pass....
HON. ZIYAMBI: Thank you Hon. Chair. I move that you report progress and seek leave that we sit again tomorrow.
HON. PHULU: That leave was already sought and granted. It cannot be sought again. The leave was already sought and granted so we
are still on 42.
HON. CHIKWINYA: You need to answer me. Why are you denying important reports? – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible
interjections.] –
It being Five Minutes to Seven o’clock p.m. the Deputy
Chairperson left the Chair to report progress and ask leave to sit again.
House resumed.
Progress reported.
Committee Stage to resume: Wednesday, 27th November, 2019.
In terms of Standing Order Number 51 (1) (a) THE HON. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House at Five Minutes to Seven
o’clock p.m.
PARLIAMENT OF ZIMBABWE
Tuesday 12th November, 2019
The Senate met at Half-past Two o’clock p.m.
PRAYERS
(THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE in the Chair)
MOTION
PRESIDENTIAL SPEECH: DEBATE ON ADRESS
First Order read: Adjourned debate on motion in reply to the
Presidential Speech.
Question again proposed.
HON. SEN. MATHUTHU: Thank you Madam President for
giving me this opportunity to add a few words on the Presidential
Speech which was delivered by His Excellency the President Hon. E. D.
Mnangagwa to the nation. Most of the issues that were touched by the
President concern the plight of the people of Zimbabwe.
The Government has embarked on a journey to improve our economy, we are also faced with a lot of challenges that include corruption, drought, Cyclone Idai more so the sanctions and shortage of cash. The President has promised the nation that corruption will be fought from all angles and there is going to be no sacred cow. So let us, as a nation fight corruption together and not to point fingers at each other.
On Cyclone Idai Madam President, the nation was caught by surprise. The nation was not prepared for such a big disaster. I would like to commend those that are responsible for civil protection, be it national, provincial even district, for taking the necessary steps possible in assisting those that were that time victims of this disaster.
Madam President, I would also like to thank the international community for coming up with a massive aid programme to assist Zimbabwe.
An Hon. Senator having passed between the Chair and the
Member speaking.
THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Order Hon. Senator,
you may not cross between the speaker and the Chair. Hon. Mathuthu you may proceed.
HON. SEN. MATHUTHU: Thank you Madam President. On our
own, we were not going to be able to contain the effects of Cyclone Idai and we were going to experience more deaths.
On shortage of cash, measures were being taken by Government to assist the population by injecting more cash into circulation and also coming up with a legislation to curb money laundering.
On the drought situation, the only way out, the President emphasized the need to increase the irrigated land in the country and encouraged farmers to go solar because of the shortage of electricity in the country. All solar products coming into the country are now duty free. We would like to thank the President for that.
The President also talked about the effects of climate change. In would also like to thank the SADC for extending and speaking with one voice with Zimbabwe on the call of the unconditional removal of the illegal sanctions. The sanctions are weapons of mass destruction used by one super power and its allies to destabilize other nations and effect regime change. I therefore call upon this august House to join the nation and SADC in calling upon the removal of these so called sanctions and allow this beautiful country called Zimbabwe to recover and grow its economy. I also call upon this august House to support the reforms that the Government has embarked on. Let us support…
THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Order Hon. Senator.
Maybe I have to advise you that we have a motion on sanctions. You are not supposed to concentrate on that unless the President mentioned something concerning the sanctions.
HON. SEN. MATHUTHU: I was through on that one, thank you Madam President. I would like to end by commending the President on the issue of dialogue and also thank those political leaders that are involved in the political parties’ dialogue. The President is always calling upon those that think they have a role to play in building the Zimbabwe we want to join him and other leaders in coming up with solutions to our problems. He is always saying his doors are open, so I urge fellow Zimbabweans to take heed of this call and join hands to build a better Zimbabwe. I thank you.
HON. SEN. MUZENDA: I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. SEN. MKHEBU: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Wednesday, 13th November, 2019
MOTION
REMOVAL OF ILLEGAL SANCTIONS IMPOSED ON ZIMBABWE
Second Order read: Adjourned debate on motion on the unconditional and immediate removal of the illegal economic sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe.
Question again proposed.
HON. SEN. MBOHWA: Madam President, I move that the
debate do now adjourn.
HON. SEN. CHIMBUDZI: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Wednesday, 13th November, 2019.
THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Why is it that our
Hon. Senators are reluctant to debate today?
On the motion of THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR MIDLANDS PROVINCE (HON. L. MAVIMA), the Senate
adjourned at Seventeen Minutes to Three o’clock p.m.
PARLIAMENT OF ZIMBABWE
Thursday 14th November, 2019
The Senate met at Half-past Two o’clock p.m.
PRAYERS
(THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE in the Chair)
ANNOUNCEMENTS BY THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE
PRESENTATION OF THE 2020 BUDGET STATEMENT
THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE: I wish to inform the
Senate that today at 1445 hours, the Minister of Finance and Economic
Development will present the 2020 National Budget in the National Assembly. Hon. Senators are free to follow the presentation from the monitors in the Senate Chamber.
POST-BUDGET SEMINAR
THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE: I wish to advise the Senate that all Members of Parliament are invited to a Post-Budget seminar to be held on Monday 18th November, 2019 at the Rainbow Towers Hotel starting at 0830 hours. Buses will leave Parliament at 0745 hours.
POST-BUDGET CONSULTATIONS
THE HON. PRESIDENT OF SENATE: I also wish to advise
Hon. Senators that the Post-Budget seminar will be followed by PostBudget consultations which will be convened by Portfolio Committees starting from Tuesday 19th to Friday 22nd November, 2019. Senators may attend meetings of Portfolio Committees of their choice. A sitting schedule will be circulated to all Members through pigeon holes. .
On the motion of THE MINISTER OF HOME AFFAIRS AND CULTURAL HERITAGE (HON. MATHEMA), the Senate
adjourned at Twenty Five Minutes to Three o’clock p.m. until Tuesday 3rd December, 2019.
PARLIAMENT OF ZIMBABWE
Wednesday 13th November, 2019
The Senate met at Half-past Two o’clock p.m.
PRAYERS
(THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE in the Chair)
ANNOUNCEMENTS BY THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF
SENATE
ZWPC STRATEGIC PLAN VALIDATION MEETING
THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: I have to
inform the Senate that all members of the Zimbabwe Women Parliamentary Caucus are requested to attend the ZWPC strategic plan validation meeting on Thursday 14th November, 2019 at 0830 hours in the Senate Chamber.
ACCESS TO PARLIAMENT WI-FI INTERNET
THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: I also have
to inform all Hon. Senators that access to Parliament Wi-Fi internet is now restricted to users with current login credentials. In this regard, all Hon. Members are advised to obtain their login credentials from ICT officers who are stationed at the Members’ Dining Hall.
MOTION
PRESIDENTIAL SPEECH
First Order read: Adjourned debate on motion in reply to the
Presidential Speech.
Question again proposed.
+HON. SEN. HUNGWE: Thank you Mr. President for affording
me the opportunity to support the Speech by His Excellency the
President of Zimbabwe and Chief-in-Command. In his speech the President alluded that he understands the cash crisis and to address this, the Government has introduced new currency, the Zimbabwean dollar to phase out the bond. We have realise that money changers already have the money in the streets. The scrupulous money changers will engage in activities to cripple the economy like burning the money. We need to find ways to deal with such people. Our request is that money be acquired from the banks.
The President also mentioned the issue of growing crops that were grown long back. Maize is causing diseases such as high blood pressure hence the encouragement to grow small grains. We were availed land so people should utilise the land to grow small grains. These grains are healthy and will result in a healthy nation.
The President also spoke about Cyclone Idai – something never seen in Zimbabwe. We want to applaud the Government and other stakeholders for their support. As Zimbabwe, this disaster united the people but we also need to be pro-active and be prepared for disasters such as these. Let us educate our constituents to avoid building in low lying areas as these were the most affected.
He also talked about mining - there is need for organised mining activities for artisanal miners. This reflected that the Government has people at heart though sometimes we walk out when His Excellency the President comes to Parliament. Even if we walk out, we will still debate on his Presidential Speech and Bills that come to Parliament. Members of this august House are full of wisdom, hence let us behave likewise.
The President also talked of support to irrigation for agriculture because of climate change, rainfall seasons are changing. Let us encourage our people to build dams for irrigation purposes. With these few words, I would like to thank the President.
*HON. SEN. MATIIRIRA: Thank you Mr. President for
affording me this opportunity to add my voice to this important debate in support of the His Excellency the President’s speech. I also want to thank Hon. Sen. Tsitsi Muzenda, the mover of this motion. These were wise words by our President for the enhanced living of Zimbabweans.
His Excellency the President mentioned a lot of things in his State of the Nation Address speech in line with the manner that he is fighting to achieve this in his manifesto. Roads are currently being rehabilitated and the President also highlighted the fact that no one will die of hunger as food is currently being rolled out. On the issue of water, the President of the country said no one will die of hunger or thirst. He keeps on persevering that food is provided and boreholes are being drilled. He is a leader with the people at heart. On the issue which has been presented in this House by the previous Senator that spoke, I want us to be united that if the Bills are now law, everything will move perfectly. It is important that if something is law, everything will come into place. We want to appreciate that also.
I want to say I am very happy and celebrating that we have a road named Matete Road which connects Uzumba-Maramba-Pfungwe coming from Murehwa, connecting with Mashonaland Central and passing through Matana on the border with Mozambique. That road was supposed to reach that area in 1984 but nothing was moving. Now it is moving as the President directed and people are so happy. That road is in perfect condition which makes people very happy.
If we could put our heads together and work very hard to fulfill what the President has said, this country would move forward very well. The President emphasized that we should work together and be united so that our country progresses. I want to conclude by saying we want to emphasise and talk strongly against corruption as the President has said corruption is a disease.
We wish that corruption is dealt with for example on the issue of money - which has been talked about that this money is not flooding the streets for those money changers. It is very painful that the commitment which the President and the Government has in trying to fulfill that the country progresses is being affected by money changers. With those few words, if we would put our heads together and build Zimbabwe - it is our country and our future as the President said. Thank you Mr.
President.
HON. SEN. TSOMONDO: Thank you Mr. President for giving
me the opportunity to debate this motion. I would like to thank His Excellency the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe, President Mnangagwa for the speech which he presented to this august House. In support of the motion which was raised by Hon. Sen. Muzenda, His Excellency in his speech touched on several macro and micro economic issues in our country. This is a topical issue as we speak today – the Transitional Stabilisation Programme (TSP) as he said is the key building block being persuaded systematically.
Mr. President, in his speech, His Excellency spoke positively about currency reforms which the Government has embarked on. The exchange rate stability remains our major concern for this has been a major loophole in price distortions, subsequently driving inflation high. As His Excellency rightly put across, rate manipulation remains an economic sabotage tool and I bring forth to this august House’s attention the pricking tire model namely cash, ecocash and transfer which are a recipe for our economic down turn. As the President alluded to in his speech, the Zimbabwean economy took a centre stage - a sign that this indeed is a priority for our country and he also spoke of the ongoing fiscal consolidation measures.
The existence of a budget surplus is a welcome development in our economy. We want to applaud the way this has enabled the Government to help in social service delivery - notable is the cyclone Idai victims and the provision of various social services as alluded to by the President. Zimbabwe is generally an agro-based economy, whereby the demise in agriculture sector spells doom to all supply chain elements in the economy. His Excellency indicated that substantial amounts have been set aside for the production of crops. We want to applaud the Government for taking definitive steps to ensure the country has food security.
I urge the ministries responsible to swiftly and quickly carry out the exercise before the onset of the rains. Our farmers need to have adequate inputs on time. The President also spoke about the rehabilitation of the machinery under Command Agriculture. It is encouraging to note that this once tried and tested programme which was a brain child of our President has had good results. May I urge the responsible Ministries to fast-track it with limited red tape, the availing of inputs as alluded to by the President?
Allow me to applaud His Excellency for mentioning the issue of availing dipping chemicals as well as supporting researchers on manufacturing of vaccines. Our people in the communal and resettlement areas have lost substantial amounts of livestock due to the infamous January disease due to unavailability of dipping chemicals. It is sad to note that some families have had their entire herd wiped out by this notorious disease.
Besides agriculture, mining is another major foreign currency earner in our country. It is encouraging, according to the President’s speech to note that this sector is on a growth trajectory, with the availing of comprehensive strategy and road map towards the attainment of
US$12 billion in the mining industry. The reduction of Zimbabwe’s import bill remains a major challenge in a quest to revive the economy.
The need to export more than we import is a recipe for economic growth. It is quite refreshing to note that His Excellency in his speech looked at how the Government is scaling up its support to the sector through duty exemption of raw materials and capital equipment. Also, the introduction of mono-currency will bring confidence in our own currency. However Mr. President, we are concerned by the pegging of prices in US dollar then charging the existing parallel market exchange rate prices to evade the long arm of the law.
Mr. President, His Excellency the President of the country, in his address spoke of the establishment of a one- stop- border- post at Beitbridge and Victoria Falls. Beitbridge Border Post which is by far the busiest border post in Southern Africa would enable quick movement of goods and services in the country. Our economic growth is hinged on quick movement of exports and imports. Most of our
SME’s make use of those entry points in the country. His Excellency the President of the country should be applauded for calling for the provision of state of the art machinery for our SME’s and use of modern technology. The sector employs most of our people and supporting its technological advancement is a step in the right direction. We continue to urge, as said by His Excellency, financial institutions to relax requirements for loan applications such that our people get loans to make their business blossom.
Mr. President, it is common knowledge that our people have endured long hours of darkness due to electricity blackouts. His
Excellency the President clearly stated out the reasons and pointed out climate change as the main reason for reduced generation due to unsustainable water levels at Kariba Dam. It is prudent to note that His Excellency the President, in his speech, spoke about mitigatory measures being taken by the State while State enterprises like ZESA are trying to avail electricity. He spoke of the need to involve communities in curbing criminal elements that are stealing electricity cables. Electricity provision must be looked at while other sources of electricity like solar at commercial and household level must be looked at and supported.
Mr. President, His Excellency spoke of modernisation and rehabilitation of infrastructure, road networks, energy and other infrastructural projects that are being carried out under this new dispensation. We are so grateful for the development taking place in our country, and we appreciate His Excellency for bringing about tangible development. However, the rate at which we are implementing these projects needs to be looked at with the time frames being adhered to. The fact that His Excellency spoke about recapitalisation of State enterprises as well as reforming them is a step in the right direction. I urge the State to employ competent individuals in these areas to ensure that Government plans are put in place.
Mr. President, His Excellency spoke of the need to groom proactive and patriotic young citizens capable of protecting their heritage. We are so much encouraged that there are ongoing Government programmes that are there to ensure the youths are empowered.
Mr. President, it is quite refreshing that we have heard from His
Excellency the President’s speech to this august Senate of the legislative programme of the 9th Parliament. The alignment of our laws to the
Constitution will strengthen our democracy in this new dispensation. His Excellency spoke of laws that the Parliament want to enact. It is our responsibility to enact laws that are in-tandem with our norms and values. I thank you Mr. President.
HON. SEN. S. MPOFU: Mr. President, I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. SEN. HUNGWE: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Thursday, 13th November, 2019.
MOTION
REMOVAL OF ILLEGAL SANCTIONS IMPOSED ON
ZIMBABWE
Second Order read: Adjourned debate on motion on the unconditional and immediate removal of the illegal economic sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe.
Question again proposed.
*HON. SEN. FEMAI: Firstly, I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to give my opinion on sanctions. I want to thank Hon. Sen. Mbohwa the mover of the motion for presenting such an important motion that unites us. I say so because there was freedom and tolerant of various opinions, we respected each other’s views and that reflects maturity. I applaud this House for showing maturity. I am not an enemy to anyone. I am a citizen of Zimbabwe with rights to say no to what is wrong and yes to what is right. I want to thank those who debated on the motion, I agree with them. As I said, I am a citizen of this country; it may not augur well with others if I seem to be opposing you, but I am a citizen. In Parliament there is the ruling and the opposition parties. Opposition is there to expose loopholes and keep the ruling party on their toes. You will also become opposition one day and you will also do the same.
I will now delve on my debate. I think sanctions are an inheritance. When you inherit your father’s house, it means that house is yours. Even when you inherit a goblin from your father, you cannot then run to the people and say my father’s goblin is troubling me; it is your inheritance. The ruling party inherited sanctions, it is your inheritance. The erstwhile President used to say “Blair, keep your England and I will keep my Zimbabwe.” So the West took their USD as you told them that they should keep their things and we kept our bond notes. This is something we deserved because we provoked them. On the issue of ZIDERA, it is like the Bible. Whoever reads the Bible gets salvation. The Bible has 10 commandments and ZIDERA is a Bible against the abuse of human rights. For good relations, one needs to adhere to that Bible.
I want to talk about corruption, it is a cancer that has destroyed Zimbabwe. In my view, if a child takes eggs and the mother realises there is one missing, the mother leaves no stone unturned to catch the culprit. The egg could have hatched and this could have led to more chickens looking at the whole family. Corrupt people are named in circles, but they are not brought to book. If a person is raped and Hon. Femai is suspected, before end of day, I will be behind bars, but that is not the case with corruption.
As Senate, we need to speak against corruption and if we speak out, they will be arrested unless they are in this House. I know the
President is against corruption. On the issue of sanctions, how can one complain about being on the sanctions list because it means you did something, so do not make noise.
The amount we earn and on the issue of sanctions such as ecocash, we earn ecocash hearing the echoing sounds. That is what we are earning, there is no cash. We are smartly dressed to earn ecocash. One Minister said they were giving business letters to import things. That was contradictory because others were singing sanctions yet they are getting letters to import. So when the President says something we should support him and speak with one voice. I thank you for the opportunity and I hope I have not offended anyone.
*HON. SEN. MURONZI: Thank you Mr. President. I want to add my voice to the motion moved by Hon. Sen. Mbohwa seconded by Hon. Sen. Chimbudzi. It is a very good and important motion as noted by Hon. Sen. Femai.
I want to thank Hon. Sen. Mbohwa for moving this motion. This motion enables us as Zimbabweans to see what is being done wrong.
Firstly, I think as Zimbabweans we should love one another. The British are interfering because there is no unity. Opposition, if I oppose – I was a member of ZANU PF but something happened to me and I joined opposition MDC. After realising the wrong, I was under attack.
When people fought the liberation war, it was to free the country and not to free a political party. I joined the MDC in Mashonaland
Central which was regarded as a ‘no go area’. My house was burnt in 2001. I was distressed to an extent which I cannot really explain. No one came to sympathise with me, even the Member of Parliament for that constituency. Even if you are a witch and have bewitched someone’s child, if death occurs you still grieve with the bereaved family. The case was brought to the courts and I won the case. They were asked to pay damages but they did not comply, however is now past news.
When we talk of ruling it is not really ruling, it should be called leadership – [HON. SENATORS: Hear, hear.] – If you want to rule, that is where problems begin. Do not rule but lead the people – [HON.
SENATORS: Hear, hear.] – because if you talk of ruling the people, everything goes haywire because you begin to say no one should rule you. If my husband intends to rule me, I will show him that I am of the
Chihera totem, I hate being ruled, just lead me and we live in harmony –
[HON. SENATORS: Hear, hear.] –
Mr. President, to date we are still under distress as opposition and if we talk about it no one accepts it, they point everything to sanctions. During elections, as people living in the rural areas village heads run around and are told what to do…
THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Hon.
Muronzi, can you stick to the subject at hand, you are straying a bit.
Stick to the motion which you stood up to debate.
HON. SEN. MURONZI: Thank you Mr. President, I thought I should clearly elaborate so that it is understood well. Even if we talk about it here and they refuse, elsewhere it will be visible that people are in conflict. I want to wind up by saying the issue of hurting each other is on-going. I wish we could stop hurting each other so that we stop hearing about these sanctions. Today my husband was appointed a village head after his brother had passed on and the chief conferred on him the crown of village headmanship. The District Administrator refused and said, no village headmanship is conferred on an MDC member - that is distressing others – [HON. SENATORS: Hear, hear.] – but it will be exposed. As I speak right now, my husband has been refused the onus of being a village head.
Mr. President, let us iron out our differences as people of Zimbabwe. I was appointed a Senator not because I have education but my party conferred me with this post because of the distress that I was going through, I was hurt. Thank you Mr. President.
**HON. SEN. R. NYATHI: Thank you Mr. President for giving me this opportunity to contribute to this motion. I would like to thank Hon. Sen. Mbohwa who brought this motion about sanctions. Mr. President, I would like to say when I started school during the Smith regime, the country was under sanctions. Everything was good in this country, we were getting everything. People were getting their money and the National Railways of Zimbabwe was functioning; industries were functioning.
So let us look at the causes of these sanctions which are being talked about. Let us look at what really caused them to be imposed on us to discuss about them as elders in front of children. If we say the whites imposed sanctions on us - we got our independence in 1980 and we told the whites to go back to their countries, they did not take anything with them but they left everything.
So what is stopping us as a country from going back to a functioning economy where our mines and industry can start functioning again? There is corruption, theft and threatening of each other in this country. If you expose any wrong doing you will disappear. When we fought the liberation struggle, it was because of the intention to bring good life to our people not because we wanted to rule so that we can merely narrate to them stories that, once upon a time we were oppressed. Nobody knows the white person, nobody has a payslip and nobody is able to buy anything. We are the ones taking care of our children. I
have to buy panties for my daughter in law as well as for my son; there are no jobs.
We are sending our children to school but you are saying sanctions. Now, there was an announcement on the injection of cash into the banks. Today I went to a bank Mr. President and asked for a cash withdrawal and I was told that cash was only available yesterday. However, during the rule of the whites in Rhodesia, there were no restrictions on cash withdrawals and there were no days meant for cash withdrawal. Any day and any time you could withdraw cash, but you argue that it is because of sanctions. What sanction is that? We are lying to our children when it is our fault where Government officials continuously lie and engage in corruption. Why do we not talk about corruption that is destroying the country?
Look at the rural areas, there are no roads that are accessible. There are no buses. When people get sick, even ambulances cannot get to hospitals because the roads are bad. I live in Matebeleland North, there was a road that was constructed last year and I think it is 10 kms towards Gwai. To date, it is not finished; it has been a year. What more of a road from Bulawayo to Victoria Falls - how many years will it take to complete it? Riversand and water is locally available in Zimbabwe, so what is the problem that is hindering progress? We continuously cry that it is because of sanctions. Let us rectify things as mature people in this House and analyse what is really causing the sanctions. We are the sanctions as we sit in here. We cannot cry about someone seated pretty at their home because they are not affected by these problems. Let us self-introspect and figure out so that we stop insulting each other and stop lying. We cannot wake up every day and shout towards our neighbours to say, ‘you the Ngwenyas over there, you are doing such a thing.’ You will not be a good person; everyone will neglect you because of that. They will say you are a bad person then you start crying foul that you have been sanctioned. Mr. President, we are the sanctions. We brought this upon ourselves, so let us correct that. Stop lying, stop stealing and stop corruption. If only as we speak here we could talk more on corruption, Zimbabwe has been destroyed by corruption.
Nothing is functioning Mr. President, I thank you.
HON. SEN. MKWEBU: Thank you Mr. President for the opportunity that you have given me to say a few words on sanctions. I thank Hon. Sen. Mbohwa for bringing this important motion on sanctions.
Mr. President, why do we fight against sanctions?
- They affect and distort our international credit worthiness and our projected development trajectory.
2.They have even affected our – [HON. SENATORS: Inaudible
interjections.] –
THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Order, order.
Hon. Members, I have already warned you. When a member is debating, can you please listen? People were listening to you when you debated and nobody interjected or whispered. May you just have tolerance. We are supposed to be mature. May you please continue debating Hon. Sen. Mkwebu.
HON. SEN. MKWEBU: 2.They have even affected our efforts into the needy areas of climate change mitigation measures in as far as funding and retrieval of proceeds from our natural resources like wildlife sales (CITES) –[HON. SENATORS: Inaudible interjections.]-
THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Order, order!
HON. SEN. TIMVEOS: Mr. President, Hon Sen. Mkwebu has been debating in this House for a very long time. She is reading and she never asked for permission.
THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Can you say
it is a point of order – you just stood up and said Mr. President.
HON. SEN. TIMVEOS: It is a point of order Mr. President –
[HON. SENATORS: Inaudible interjections.] –
THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Order, order
- what is your point of order? Address the Chair.
HON. SEN. TIMVEOS: My point of order is that she is reading
- [HON. SENATORS: Inaudible interjections.] –
THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: You may
take your seat. Order, order. May you proceed with your debate, I can see you are referring to your notes.
HON. SEN. MKWEBU: 3. Our health system is bogged down such that we cannot replace absolute technical equipment to offer even simple surgical practices locally.
HON. SEN. B. MPOFU: On a point of order, are we setting a precedence so that at least next time I also come with notes despite the fact that I would have contributed my first speech, I would be allowed to do exactly what she is doing?
THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: I have
already ruled that I can see that she is referring to her notes. May you proceed.
HON. SEN. B. MPOFU: I am just asking if it is a precedence that you are setting?
THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: Hon.
Mpofu, I have already responded to that. Debate.
HON. SEN. MKWEBU: 4. The sanctions lobbying countries have some keen investors from their countries who are afraid to invest or inject funds in Zimbabwe lest they will be censored – [HON.
SENATORS: Inaudible interjections.] –
THE HON. DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF SENATE: May you
proceed.
HON. SEN. MKWEBU: 5. Sanctions have had terrible side effects like unwanted fuel queues, non supply of medication retention and freezing of our international proceeds from sales for example diamond sales money (2011-13) were frozen as blood diamond monies.
Mr. President, I support the removal of sanctions in Zimbabwe. Enough is enough –[HON. SENATORS: Hear, hear.] - Whosoever says there are no sanctions should know that sanctions are there in Zimbabwe. Our President of Zimbabwe always preaches about unity in
Zimbabwe. In this House, we are not united Mr. President –[HON.
SENATORS: Hear, hear.] - When somebody is debating, people make a lot of noise but when they debate, we just keep quiet and listen to them. Why? Zimbabweans must be united please –[ HON.
SENATORS: Hear, hear.] - I thank you Mr. President.
*HON. SEN. CHIEF NGEZI: Thank you Mr. President for giving me the opportunity to debate. I also want to thank Hon. Sen. Mbohwa for moving this motion on sanctions. I have a few things that I want to add. Sanctions are real and our challenge is the need to unite.
Where you have it wrong, rope in traditional leaders in these issues. One Hon. Senator said she was not given an opportunity to be headman because of her political party. As traditional leaders, we do not do that. You need to take advantage of traditional leaders and mediate if there is conflict rather than to write us off.
Sanctions are real and we feel it in rural areas. If a driver loses his keys or the cars are taken away, the car will not move. If there is conflict between parties, engage us as chiefs. We are despised as chiefs.
As the Upper House, let us realise that sanctions are real and we unite to address these sanctions.
HON. SEN. MBOHWA: I move that the debate do now adjourn.
HON. SEN. CHIMBUDZI: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Thursday, 14th November, 2019.
On the motion of HON. SEN. S. MPOFU, seconded by HON. SEN. MKWEBU, the Senate adjourned at Twelve Minutes to Four o’clock p.m.
PARLIAMENT OF ZIMBABWE
Wednesday, 13th November, 2019.
The National Assembly met at a Quarter-past Two O’clock p.m.
PRAYERS
(THE HON. SPEAKER in the Chair)
ANNOUNCEMENTS BY THE HON. SPEAKER
RULING BY THE HON. SPEAKER ON THE IMPORTANCE OF
PRIVATE MEMBERS’ BUSINESS IN THE HOUSE
THE HON. SPEAKER: Following my ruling in the National
Assembly on the 23rd of October 2019 regarding the eligibility of MDC-
A Members of Parliament to question Vice Presidents, Ministers and Deputy Ministers on policy issues and the subsequent point of order raised by Hon. Mliswa on the same on Thursday 24th of October 2019, I have reconsidered my ruling taking into consideration the role of Parliament as augmented in Section 119 of the Constitution. It is the role of Parliament to protect and uphold the provisions of the Constitution.
The Chair has subsequently reflected on the matter and makes the following ruling:
Subject to the provisions of Standing Orders 62 (2) and 64,
National Assembly private members’ business takes precedence over Government business on Wednesdays and Fridays. As part of their oversight and representative roles, Hon. Members are obliged to pose questions with or without notice to Vice Presidents, Ministers and
Deputy Ministers. This happens every Wednesday afternoon during Private Members Business in the National Assembly and on Thursdays in the Senate. They also raise issues for debate in the House by way of Motions on particular issues which invariably have to be responded to by appropriate Ministers under whose Portfolios such issues may be applicable.
Hon Ministers must respond comprehensively to such questions as required of them by Section 107 (2) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe which states that:
“Every Vice President, Minister and Deputy Minister must attend Parliament and its Committees in order to answer questions concerning matters for which he or she is collectively or individually responsible.”
This is a constitutional obligation imposed by the Constitution on both the Members of Parliament and the Ministers. It is for this reason that our Standing Orders create a charge of contempt for Ministers who fail to adhere to this constitutional obligation. Failure to adhere to these Standing Orders may result in contempt charges being raised against
Ministers in terms of Standing Order 63 (2) of the National Assembly.
In addition, in terms of Standing Order Number 26 of the National
Assembly, Ministers are expected to respond to issues raised in Committee Reports within a period of ten sitting days.
Accordingly, my ruling of 23rd October, 2019 is hereby suspended sine die to avoid a paralysis of Parliamentary processes, I so rule.
RULING ON POINT OF PRIVILEGES BY HON. MEMBERS
THE HON. SPEAKER: Yesterday, there was a point of privilege raised by Hon. Markham concerning a forensic audit report and I have indicated that I would engage the Hon. Minister responsible. I have
done that. The Hon. Minister obliges and he will make sure that at the next sitting, I think after next week when we will have gone through the committee undertakings in terms of the scrutiny of the budget, he will table that forensic report.
As for the Hon. Minister of Health, he is out of town. However, I have made some communication that the House wants him to give a Ministerial Statement on the state of affairs as far as our health is concerned. I hope he will come back soon. If there is time tomorrow, we might slot him in.
As regards to Hon. Hamauswa, I followed up your request on national statement on water by the Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Water and Rural Resettlement. The statement is ready and it shall be tabled any time when there is a window to do so.
Finally, it was a request for Hon. Minister Coventry to make a statement on the state of affairs of our football vis-a-vis the operations of ZIFA. She has obliged and hopefully if there is room tomorrow, she will make that statement accordingly.
ZWPC STRATEGIC PLAN VALIDATION
THE HON. SPEAKER: I have to inform the House that all members of the Zimbabwe Women’s Parliamentary Caucus are requested to attend the ZWPC Strategic Plan validation meeting on Thursday, 14th November, 2019 at 0830 hours in the morning in the Senate Chamber.
ACCESS TO PARLIAMENT WI-FI INTERNET
THE HON. SPEAKER: I also have to inform all Hon. Members
that access to Parliament Wi-Fi internet is now restricted to users with current log in credentials. In this regard, all Hon. Members are advised to obtain their log in credentials from ICT officers stationed at the Members dining room.
APOLOGIES RECEIVED FROM CABINET MINISTERS
THE HON. SPEAKER: The following Hon. Ministers have
tendered their apologies for today’s session: Hon. F. Chasi, Minister of
Energy and Power Development; Hon. Dr. O. Moyo, Minister of Health and Child Care; Hon. J.G. Moyo, Minister of Local Government and
Public works; Hon. W. Chitando, Minister of Mines and Mining
Development; Hon. E. Moyo, Deputy Minister of Primary and Secondary Education: Hon. Madiro, Deputy Minister of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage: Hon. Coventry, Minister of Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation and Hon. Mangwiro, Deputy Minister of Health and Child Care.
HON. GONESE: Mr. Speaker Sir, I rise on a point of privilege relating to the apologies. I note that previously in this august House, we have a situation where there are some Hon. Ministers who will not have sought leave of absence in terms of Standing Order Number 63. The Chair made a ruling that the provisions of Standing Order Number 63 would be invoked. Today Mr. Speaker, you have read out the names of those Hon. Ministers who have sought leave of absence from the Chair and conspicuous by their absence, I know you have missed some of the names.
I think Hon. Matiza is not among the list of Members who have sought leave of absence and it is actually a permanent fixture that he is neither in the House and he does not even seek the leave of absence which is provided for in terms of Standing Order Number 63. I think the Minister of Mines, Hon. Chitando and other Ministers are in that category Hon. Speaker. Hon. Minister Coventry is never on the list of those who have sought leave of absence and she will not be present in the House. My point Mr. Speaker is that even if they are out of the country on official business, it is incumbent upon them to inform the Chair through the Clerk that they are seeking leave of absence.
Mr. Speaker, you actually promised that you would invoke the provisions of the Standing Orders of this august House and that has not been done. I believe that it is not appropriate for this institution not to use the powers vested in it in terms of the Standing Orders which are actually supposed to guide our operations.
I therefore implore your office to ensure that those provisions are actually invoked, and not to have a situation where undertakings and promises are made which are never implemented. I submit that previously in the First Session you actually undertook to do so and up to now it has not happened. Mr. Speaker, I submit that the time has now come for you and this institution to use the teeth to bite those errant Ministers who do not take the business of this House and the people of this country seriously and I so move Mr. Speaker.
THE HON. SPEAKER: I thank the Hon. Member for bringing
the matter to my attention. As a fatherly Chair – [Laughter.] – I opted to write to His Excellency the President a very strong letter which was read in Cabinet and a reminder in support to that letter was done. So as of now there is no excuse because after that letter I think I should follow what the Standing Orders have indicated and act accordingly.
Hon. P. Chidakwa having been making a phone call was asked to leave the House by the Hon. Speaker.
HON. T. MLISWA: Thank you very much Mr. Speaker Sir, good
afternoon to you. First of all, let me thank you for the ruling that you made in having to rescind a decision that you had made. It talks about the leadership qualities that you have. I think it is important that when a leader is approached and there is a plea to look into a matter to review it they do that and come up with a very progressive decision. I want to thank you wholeheartedly for that decision. It talks about the humility that you have. It does also teach us as leaders that we must do the same. Mr. Speaker Sir, let me take this opportunity to congratulate the
Ministers and Deputy Ministers who were appointed by the President, Hon. Garwe who is here and others, already not here despite being given that portfolio. I really want to speak from my heart, I think it is important that moving forward, we come up with a law that ensures that board members of every parastatal come through Parliament because each Minister who comes is always coming in with their new board. So there has got to be continuity at the end of the day as an institution.
Equally, the same applies to the Ministers. It is the prerogative of the President and it shall remain the prerogative of the President but there must be a better vetting system. There are some who were appointed who have never even spoken in Parliament, let alone in Cabinet, or been asked questions. So, it is important that there be a system like in any other country where people who are supposed to be ministers come through Parliament and the President has the final say. I think it is something that will make this country move forward. It is a suggestion and the President still has power and it is his prerogative but from an oversight point of view, it would be good for Parliament to be involved and I hope that you, as the Speaker, are also consulted on some of these people because you know how we perform, who speaks and who has the capacity and so forth. Whether you are consulted or not is a different thing altogether but the law must be able to cover that moving forward.
Thank you very much Mr. Speaker Sir.
*HON. CHINOTIMBA: On a point of privilege Mr. Speaker Sir. Hon. Members here – some of them have drivers but there is a danger as our security is compromised. You discover that when you go to the car park, you find some people seated on cars. Some of these people will be dirty and some of them will be putting on hats and it is not clear where they will be coming from. I would like to implore you that if these people sitting around the car park are security people, then it should be made clear. We need to know who they are. Some will be in our open trucks and some will be seated outside and because of that, I think the security situation should be reviewed. These people are neither
Members of Parliament nor are they members of the security forces. They are not even drivers, so I implore those with guards or relatives who remain behind in the cars not to come to this place but can remain behind at either Harvest House or ZANU PF HQ if they belong to these
political parties.
THE HON. SPEAKER: I think the Hon. Member raises a very
important question. In other jurisdictions, no one just comes into the boundaries of Parliament without authority. So I take that point of privilege very seriously. We do not want any hangers around. So, we will make sure that those that just wonder around will not be allowed to do so.
HON. KASHIRI: Thank you Mr. Speaker. I would like to applaud the Minister of Finance and Economic Development and the
Governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe on the timely injection of cash into the economy which will go a long way in easing the prevailing cash shortages. This move has been received positively as reflected by the fall in the parallel market rates as of today.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
+HON. MATHE: My question is directed to the Minister of
Lands, Agriculture, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement. What is the
Ministry’s plans towards solving the challenge that is faced by farmers, particularly the issue of cattle that are dying.
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF LANDS, AGRICULTURE,
WATER AND RURAL RESETTLEMENT (HON. HARITATOS):
Indeed Hon. Speaker Sir, the drought has affected much of the country which has certainly affected the amount of livestock as well as human beings. What we are doing is drilling boreholes in areas that do not have water. In addition to that, we have been having regular meetings with the livestock industry in order to develop 200 000 metric tonnes of survivor feed which will be sold to communities affected at a reduced price. These things are ongoing but the major challenge is, going forward as a nation, we need to take a bold decision to ensure that some farmers in our country grow enough feed, specifically for cattle. If that happens, we will be able to stock the feed (fodder) over the years that we do have drought. This is very much required so that when we have droughts, we are able to mitigate against climate change. Thank you Sir.
+HON. MATHE: My supplementary question is - I was asking if his Ministry has the information from the ground. I realised we are having challenges when it comes to livestock. They are always dying all over. We just want to know more about the system being used, especially when we are looking at different communities. The cattle are dying four or five in each and every family.
HON. HARITATOS: It cannot be overlooked that there is dire need to look into the situation. Unfortunately, I do not believe our Ministry is the ministry that does declare national disasters. I believe that falls within the mandate of Local Government. Thank you Mr.
Speaker Sir.
HON. MUTSEYAMI: Thank you Mr. Speaker. My
supplementary question to do with this challenge is we have seen this happening two years ago in places like Manicaland, part of Masvingo, the Midlands part and mostly part of the Matabeleland. We lost thousands of these beasts. Now, two years down the line, we have the same problem. What is the policy that we have as a Government so that we do not have this problem year in, year out without any solution? As we speak today Mr. Speaker Sir, we have already lost thousands of beasts but now the Government is coming in wanting to bring fodder and all that. It is a process that is happening but as we speak today, beasts are dying. What is the solution? What do you have in mind as a Government so that we do not have this problem coming in?
THE HON. SPEAKER: Address the Chair.
HON. HARITATOS: Thank you Mr. Speaker. I will respond in two parts to this question. Firstly, we have been encouraging our farmers to destock slightly. I believe and we strongly believe as a
Ministry that it is better to have nine health mombes out of 10 than have 10 dead mombes. Therefore, we have been encouraging our farmers to destock in areas that are in grave need of feed.
Secondly, as I mentioned in my previous statement Mr. Speaker Sir, as a nation, we have to look at the future. What is not in our hands is given by God. The fact that we have climatic changes it is not a cause of this Government, they are not caused by this Government, they are not caused by us Hon. Members of Parliament. They are caused by climatic changes that were caused by the first world. Therefore, we have to mitigate against these climatic changes. That is why I said that we, going forward, have to look in the production of fodder specifically for animal feed and not only to look at production for human feed because we all, in this room, in one way or another, unless we are vegetarians, we do eat cattle. Therefore, it is one and the same if we grow fodder for the cows that we do eat and ingest. Thank you Mr.
Speaker Sir.
HON. MARKHAM: Thank you Mr. Speaker. My question is very simple. I understand the climate change and the reduction of stock but the point of fact and I would like to point this to Government is we are still talking about bringing in fodder crops when we have already finished the drought; we are going in the rains. Point number two, the Minister has failed to tell us that we do not have a dipping policy that is happening. My question is, when are we going to reinstate the dipping policy so that the cattle that are dying from diseases like theileriosis can be brought to book and we can get on a range of issues that have an open policy that is known to everyone. I thank you.
HON. HARITATOS: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir and thank you to the Hon. Member for the question. The fact is that we do in fact have a policy with regards to dipping. If we, as Members of Parliament are indeed into cattle, we will know that we have to pay a certain amount of money for every herd of cattle that we have and goes towards dipping of our cattle. So the policy is ongoing Mr. Speaker Sir. The unfortunate part is that we do not have the foreign currency to procure the dipping chemicals that are required. It is very important that we do maintain and continue to dip our cattle, otherwise for sure and certainly, diseases will take over and they will lead into a large amount of cattle dying. Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.
HON. MAYIHLOME: Thank you very much Mr. Speaker Sir. Mr. Speaker, the same question was asked about six months ago and the same Ministry gave an assurance to this House that fodder was going to come from Mashonaland Provinces for the Southern regions of the country and nothing happened, not even a visit from this Ministry to check on what is happening on the ground. I will spare probably the Minister for the truth, however, why has the CSC not embarked on a programme to buy stock feed or animals from farmers who are desperate in the Southern part of the country?
HON. HARITATOS: Thank you Mr. Speaker and thank you to the Hon. Member for his passion into solving our issue that we currently have. Mr. Speaker, the CSC deal was signed on 1st April this year. The first deport that will open under CSC will be in February of 2020.
Therefore, we cannot completely blame CSC although it is noted that it was something that was put across to them. Thank you Mr. Speaker –
[HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
HON. MATANGIRA: Thank you very much Mr. Speaker Sir. My supplementary question is – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible
interjections.] –
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, order. Please be awake, you are now number two to ask an original question. What is your question –
[HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
HON. JOSIAH SITHOLE: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. My question is directed to the Minister of – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
Hon. Josiah Sithole and Hon. Spare Sithole having stood up.
HON. JOSIAH SITHOLE: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. My
question is directed to the Minister of...
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order. What are your initials so that we can distinguish between the two of you?
HON. JOSIAH SITHOLE: I am Sithole Josiah. My question is directed to the Minister of Primary and Secondary Education and in his absence, the Leader of the House. What is the Ministry doing about the escalating high drop-out rates of secondary school girls where we are having so many girls dropping out especially in Matabeleland South and Mashonaland Central? I thank you.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you Mr.
Speaker Sir. This is a very specific question which I would respectfully request the Hon. Member to put in writing so that he can get a comprehensive answer. I thank you.
HON. J. CHIDAKWA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. My question
is directed to the Minister of Energy and Power Development. Mr. Speaker Sir, Government institutions are now rejecting deceased bodies of people who would have died from citing unavailability of power at mortuaries. Where are these bodies supposed to go? In my view, it is
Government’s responsibility to preserve these bodies.
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF ENERGY AND POWER
DEVELOPMENT (HON. MUDYIWA): Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.
I would like to thank the Hon. Member for the question. However, I think the mandate of the Ministry of Energy and Power Development is to ensure that there is electricity at hospitals and all other Government institutions.
Now, when it comes to dead bodies that are being denied by the hospital authorities - well, I do not know what to say – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.]- If there is no electricity, it is because of the shortage of electricity that we are experiencing in the country. However, we want to ensure that all hospitals including mortuaries have electricity which is uninterrupted – [AN HON. MEMBER: How?]- We have always ring fenced those places unless there is a serious fault that affects the provision of electricity at those institutions but as a Ministry, we ensure that there is electricity in such institutions like hospitals where mortuaries are premised – [HON.
MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.]-
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, order! Do not usurp the
Chairmanship. I understood the Hon. Minister very clear in her response and the response was reasonable.
HON. CHIKWINYA: I understand as well the response by the Hon. Minister and I want to draw my supplementary question on the particular aspect of ring-fencing the mortuaries being a strategic unit…
THE HON. SPEAKER: You do not have to reinforce my
observation.
HON. CHIKWINYA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I did not
notice that you had observed that as well. My supplementary question is to try and draw alternative methods of powering these institutions since we are suffering from power outages of more than 18 hours. So, even if you are going to ring-fence these institutions, you still do not have power from source. So Hon. Minister, what is the Government policy position on these strategic institutions with respect to supply of alternative energy sources like solar since they do not draw so much energy, they can easily be installed.
HON. MUDYIWA: In the absence of electricity, we encourage use of renewable energy so that we have got solar power plants for particular institutions but our challenge is on funding. We are looking for investors in that capacity to come up with such projects where they have solar plants to cater for particular institutions like hospitals, schools and other institutions.
We have got the renewable policy which we are going to launch very soon that is going to cater for such issues like renewable energy which is the only way to go so that the institution is assured of permanent uninterrupted supply of electricity from the solar.
HON. MAPHOSA: I think the question has not been answered. Whilst there has been talk of alternative source and everything, the question was - whilst they are planning, deaths are happening. Where do we take the bodies since they are rotting in hospitals? What is the Government doing to make sure that they give a remedy to the dead bodies now whilst they are planning for future alternatives? I thank you
– [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.]-
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, order! Can the Hon. Minister be heard in silence?
HON. MUDYIWA: Our responsibility as the Ministry of Energy is to provide electricity which is what we are doing at the moment. From the little electricity that we have, we are importing electricity to augment our generation of electricity in the country and if that is not enough, that is the best that we are doing at the moment. Hospitals fall under the Ministry of Health and Child Care and it is up to the Ministry of Health and Child Care and the responsible authorities to look for alternative sources of where they can place the dead bodies. I think the Ministry of Energy and Power Development would have done its part by providing electricity and ring fencing the hospitals by providing them with uninterrupted sources of electricity. Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.
HON. Z. SIBANDA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. My question is directed to the Minister of Environment, Tourism and Hospitality
Industry and in absentia, I will direct my question to the Leader of the
House. What is the Ministry doing to create harmony between wildlife and people and does the Ministry have any plans to establish funds to compensate the people who would be killed by the elephants?
THE HON. SPEAKER: My recollection is that this question has
been dealt with extensively.
HON. Z. SIBANDA: Thank you Mr. Speaker. If it has been dealt
with, I did not get the answer.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Check in your Hansard.
HON. MUTAMBISI: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. My question is
directed to the Leader of the House. The $300 withdrawal for individuals per week is far below the normal expectations by the general public. What is Government doing to cover up for such disparity?
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you Mr.
Speaker Sir. We are in a transitional period. We moved from the use of the US dollar and we introduced our currency but we had a cash cover of only bond notes that were there, hence the need to ensure that we have a cap on withdrawals but fairly recently we have deliberately decided to inject cash into the market. So as we start injecting that cash we cannot open up but we have to monitor so that we limit the inflationary pressure on our economy. So it is something that the Government will look into progressively but the good thing is that cash is now being injected into the economy and the situation will improve progressively. I thank you.
HON. T. MLISWA: We have the Deputy Minister of Finance and Economic Development there. He was at the RBZ and he can respond.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, order. Hon. Mliswa, it is not permissible to point a finger at him. Hon. Deputy Minister, can you respond?
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT (HON. CHIDUWA): Thank you Hon. Speaker. I
am sure that the Hon. Members really want to get the responses but I officially started work today and because of that, I think we will prepare the appropriate responses. – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible
interjections.] -
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, order. Hon. Minister, you start
working as soon as you are appointed, try.
HON. CHIDUWA: Hon. Speaker, let me give the House a response on that. Hon. Member, the issue of economic management, we have to deal with a lot of variables and the variables that we are dealing with here are the operations of the parallel market. We are dealing with the issue of inflation and a huge cash injection has an impact on how people are going to behave especially with regards to the parallel market. - [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] -
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, order. Hon. Mliswa, I thought you insisted that the Hon. Deputy Minister must answer. So give him the due respect and listen to the answer.
HON. CHIDUWA: Thank you. I was saying the injection of
cash is going to be gradual and that is the long and short of it. Thank you.
HON. ZENGEYA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I have a
supplementary question pertaining to the response that has been given
by the Deputy Minister. Whilst you say you are in the process of monitoring the cash flow, how come while people were failing to access money in the banks there was so much money that was found circulating in the streets of Harare than in the banks? Thank you.
HON. CHIDUWA: Thank you Mr. Speaker. I am sure that the Hon. Members should appreciate that economic management is not based on what you see on the streets. What is important is whether we have empirical evidence to that effect – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – [AN. HON. MEMBER: Are you saying that ZBC is lying?] – [HON. T. MLISWA: ZBC is State owned so hainyepe.] – The Hon. Members are worried about the monies that the SMEs are making on the streets and – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – I am sure the Hon. Members want a response so what I am saying is if we look at our broad policy, we want to have broad financial inclusion. We want the sector to be banked so we are having a situation where people are making their money but if the money is not banked, this is why
Government policy is saying we want to ensure that people are banked.
That issue I am sure is covered because people are probably not banking their proceeds.
Then the other dimension Hon. Speaker which is part of the policy that we are working on is the issue of dealing with the black market. The issue of the black market is something that we are saying when people are buying goods and services from outside; they bring in goods through our borders. What we need is as they bring those goods, the easiest thing for us is just to say mari wakaiwanepi? This will immediately deal with the black market because as long as we say mari wakaiwanepi people will go through the official market. So that is the response.
HON. GONESE: My point of order Mr. Speaker is that the Hon.
Deputy Minister is answering his own question which he has created. He has not responded to the question asked. The question asked Mr. Speaker relates to the issue of new money, the new notes which were introduced yesterday which were already in circulation. The question was - why was there more of these notes on the streets than in the banks? This is a story which was carried on State media and I am sure that the Hon. Deputy Minister should be aware. He must make himself conversant with issues relating to his new Ministry. That is the question to which the Hon. Deputy Minister did not respond and that is my point of order that the Hon. Deputy Minister should be directed because his response does not relate to the new notes. He talks about banking Mr. Speaker, that cannot arise in respect of the new notes which were only introduced yesterday. The question is how this money got on to the streets before going through the banks. That is the answer or response which the people of Zimbabwe want to know because there is a suspicion that this money is being put on the black market instead of the formal market which is the banks.
HON. CHIDUWA: Thank you Mr. Speaker. I may not be privy to
the funds that are in the banks but as of yesterday banks were injected with cash. People were allowed to withdraw their monies. So that is the long and short of it. Maybe the Hon. Members are privileged that they know what is left in the banks but as for the money that was on the street, I am sure people have been given access to withdraw their cash and they did the withdrawals.
HON. MARKHAM: Hon. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Lands, Climate and Water. What is Government’s policy in these times of drought with the wanton drilling of boreholes and the construction of dams both in urban, peri-urban and rural areas, all three areas? What is the Government’s policy towards this because this is happening without following current Government regulations? I understand that water is critical but this is for primary use. My biggest concern is the people downstream of the rivers are not being consulted. The people lose, the water table of the underground water is dropping by tens of metres. My question is - what is the Ministry doing about it because the policy that they have got at the moment is not being observed.
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF LANDS, AGRICULTURE,
WATER AND RURAL RESETTLEMENT (HON. HARITATOS):
Thank you Hon. Speaker, I want to thank the Hon. Member for his question. We have sub-catchments within ZINWA and those subcatchments certainly do consult with the consumers of water. Therefore, the assumption is that when someone drills a borehole, that very same person needs to apply to ZINWA to be able to drill that borehole. That is where the management of these numbers is taken into consideration.
Hon. Speaker Sir, we have a serious problem in that we did not receive enough rainfall in the last season. Therefore, it is of paramount importance that we ensure that people do have access to water. So while we do appreciate that water tables are dropping we also realize that it is a basic human right to access water. Secondly, with regard to dams - you will know that we went to tender earlier this year on 19 dams and those tenders will be issued. Companies did tender for this and they were shortlisted, so our way forward is that we will continue to harvest more water through the building and construction of those dams. Thank you Hon. Speaker Sir.
HON. MARKHAM: Mr. Speaker, my question was specific in
the fact that if you are talking of the dam being built, the water downstream is being taken away from the people downstream because someone upstream is building a dam without the Ministry, ZINWA and
Environmental Management’s authority. What is the policy of Government now? What are they doing to rectify this so that the person obeys. We do not want one person upstream taking all the water and 400 farmers downstream not getting the water. The second issue is on underground water. Underground water is exactly the same as surface water; it flows and works exactly the same area. So, if my neighbor puts a borehole of 120m and I am only on 40m, he is stealing all the water. The question is if the Government is not enforcing this, what are they doing to improve the policy because they are doing nothing?
HON. HARITATOS: Thank you Hon. Speaker and thank I thank
the Hon. Member. He is clearly very passionate about this issue. Again Hon. Speaker as I mentioned, we have catchments in every corner of this country that fall under ZINWA. Those catchments are mandated to manage the amounts of drilling and they are also mandated to ensure that those that are downstream are taken into consideration. Hon.
Speaker, every single dam in Zimbabwe is mapped and has a capacity. Those capacities are recorded and a certain percentage of that capacity can only be withdrawn on a yearly basis. That mandate falls within that catchment which falls within ZINWA.
I find it difficult to believe the accusations that the Hon. Member of Parliament is saying. I will certainly look into what he is saying catchment by catchment. However, again the management of these catchments falls within ZINWA. I do believe and I am 100% confident that the management is done well. Thank you Hon. Speaker Sir.
HON. MADHUKU: Thank you very much Mr. Speaker Sir. My
question is directed to the Minister of Local Government and Public
Works. In his absence, I will ask the Leader of the House. What is the Government policy guidelines on the use of the disbursed devolution funds, especially to the local authorities in view of the fact that they have to meet certain requirements of the Constitution like Section 264 about participation, equitability, accountability and transparency?
Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you Mr.
Speaker Sir. Parliament approved the devolution budget and what the Minister of Local Government did is to disburse to all provinces with specific instructions to local authorities on how to use the money. So the accountability question is not relevant because it is already there. Local authorities were given money, for example, Harare was given money for water and sanitation. It is very specific and it is going to be accounted for. All the local authorities were given and they will account for the monies that they were given. This august House has got a duty to ensure that the funds that were disbursed, they follow up and ensure that it was used for the specific purpose that it was disbursed to the local authorities to do. I thank you.
HON. T. MLISWA: Mr. Speaker Sir, thank you very much. This question was asked in Victoria Falls. While Parliament did pass the budget, there are also certain conditions in the Constitution in terms of the provincial council which must be put in place for monitors the resources and accountability. So, we cannot have a situation where you want to read John verse 14 and forget there is Genesis “in the beginning”. Let us read the whole Bible; the whole Bible as well as the Constitution. We cannot pick and chose.
The Constitution is very clear. I said it that within the very same section, it also talks about accountability and the provincial councils must be in place so that Members of Parliament are part of it and provincial councillors who were elected are also part of it. Right now, who is accounting for the money? It must really stop from the
Constitutional point of view. We cannot continue like this Mr. Speaker Sir. We also read. We might not be lawyers but with our little knowledge, we understand certain sections. The Minister must be able to tell us here which section in the Constitution overrides the aspect of accountability by the provincial council which is set up? That is my question. Which section of the Constitution overrides the accountability aspect of the provincial council which is set up – [HON. MEMBERS:
Hear, hear.] – Money coming in yes, but do not disburse money before there is a system or mechanism which the Constitution talks about.
Accountability is critical. Some of us in our own little way understand that Mr. Speaker. I am not a lawyer, but he must tell us the section in the Constitution not the one that he chooses. He is a lawyer, he knows the section and the test can only pass if he tells us the section he refers to. Thank you.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you Mr.
Speaker Sir. The very Constitution that he is quoting in terms of provincial councils is fatally defective – [HON. MLISWA: Which section is that?] - Let me explain. Mr. Speaker, if you go to Section
270, which speaks about metropolitan councils – [AN HON. MEMBER: Siya metropolitan councils. Taura mamwe 8.] – Mr. Speaker Sir, if you want to look at the totality of the Constitution in terms of the provincial councils, it speaks about metropolitan councils. It refers to committees that have to be set up. When it talks about metropolitan councils, it says those that have been elected, those that are not MPs but provincial councilors that have been elected must be members of committees. In metropolitan councils they are not there; the provision is not there. So we are trying to clean up all this so that we come up with good legislation that will speak to the setting up of these provincial councils. Whatever he is referring to, we are mindful of that but in terms of accountability, we are saying the metropolitan councils as they are currently constituted, the rural district councils as they are currently constituted are still accountable for the funds that are appropriated to them. I thank you Mr. Speaker.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order. In terms of Standing Order
Number 64, time for Questions without Notice has expired.
HON. CHIBAYA: Thank you Hon. Speaker. I move that time for
Questions without Notice be extended with 15 minutes.
HON. CHIKWINYA: I second.
HON. T. MLISWA: Mr. Speaker Sir, this is a fundamental issue and it is in the Constitution of the country. We do not want to be told things which are not in the Constitution. Section 270 (1) (e) is very clear, the functions of provincial and metropolitan councils which the Minister is referring to, (e) talks about one of the functions which is to monitor and evaluate the use of the resources in its province. These are resources coming from where, they are coming from the fiscus! So, I do not know which Constitution the Hon. Minister is referring to. I want to know because we do not want people to think that we do not read. We are very uneducated legally but we are able to point out to certain things that we think are necessary at the right time like I am doing now. He must respond by a constitutional provision which overrides that. It is above the law; the law requires the law not hearsay.
HON. ZIYAMBI: Mr. Speaker, I said funds were appropriated by Parliament and when Parliament did that, they were mindful that the provincial and metropolitan councils were not properly constituted. The point that I was trying to make to the defectiveness of the Constitution is that if you go to Section 271 of the Constitution, it says Committees of
Provincial councils, and it says for the better exercise of their functions, provincial and metropolitan councils may establish committees but each committee must be presided over by a member referred to in Section 268 (h) or 269 (1) (h). Section 268 refers to provincial councils and 269 refers to metropolitan councils but if you go to Section 269 there is no (h) and if you look at it on the composition of metropolitan councils, they forgot about these provincial councils.
Mr. Speaker, our position is we need to clean up all these issues aside of saying that it is also a conflict to say that a Member of Parliament appropriates, follows that particular budget, monitors it and will have oversight over it. We think we need to clean it up so that Members of Parliament do not sit in the provincial council but if this provision I have indicated shows that even the Constitution that he is quoting has got provisions that are missing which is what we want to correct. Thank you – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] -
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, order, this is a very important observation. The bottom line - [Laughter.] – I would ask the Hon.
Minister to liaise with the Attorney- General to indicate whether in view of these gaps and shortcomings in the Constitution, can Government proceed to disburse funds to local authorities. So, we need that clarity. When we had a Pre-Budget Seminar, I indicated that let us err on the positive side of the law and the Constitution. So let us approach the Attorney- General or any other group of lawyers that can assist us as to whether we can in fact disburse funds in the light of these inconsistencies in the Constitution.
HON. MUSHAYI: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. My question is directed to the Deputy Minister of Finance and Economic Development. The reality currently is that pharmacies are charging medications in foreign currency. Given the current situation and the crisis that we have in the health sector, what is it that you are doing to make sure that pharmacies are provided with the foreign currency that they need to procure drugs.
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF FINANCE AND
ECONONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (HON. CHIDUWA): Thank you
Hon. Speaker. We all agree that foreign currency is in short supply, so
in terms of the allocation of scarce resource, we deal with the issue of priorities as they come. So, health is a priority but obviously there is no way we are going to fully fund because we only allocate what is there.
HON. MUSHORIWA: Thank you Mr. Speaker….
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, please go straight to the point
because time is running out.
HON. MUSHORIWA: In light of the response by the Hon.
Deputy Minister, given the fact that yesterday the Government Spokesperson said the Government was going to charge pharmacies that are charging their products in foreign currency which they are procuring using foreign currency, yet you are saying that there is not enough money to give to these pharmacies, is it fair for the Government to take that route? – [AN HON. MEMBER: You can google Hon. Minister.]
THE HON. SPEAKER: Do not be disparaging, I do not like the
issue of google. Do not be disrespectful and also take into account that the Hon. Deputy Minister is new, be indulgent. Thank you.
HON. CHIDUWA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I think the issue that is supposed to guide us is the issue of law. We have got the law that prescribes how the businesses are supposed to operate. I think what is prudent is for us to just follow the law. If businesses are out of sync with the law, that is what we follow.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, order.
Questions Without Notice were interrupted by THE HON.
SPEAKER in terms of Standing Order No. 64.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS WITH NOTICE
HON. CHIBAYA: Hon. Speaker Sir, question number one has been on the Order Paper for some time now but the Minister does not attend Parliament. I kindly ask through the Leader of the House if the
Hon. Minister can prepare his written response and give it to any of the
Ministers who always comes to Parliament or to the Leader of the
House.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Hon. Member, can you kindly
be reminded that this is the Second Session and all questions are new. So the issue that it has been on the Order Paper for long is out. These are new questions and they will be attended to.
HON. CHIBAYA: On a point of order Hon. Speaker, with all due respect, we have questions with notice on the Order Paper but this front bench is empty. There is no one to ask as all the Ministers have walked out of Parliament. What are we doing? These questions are coming from our constituencies but the Ministers just walk out and there is nobody to ask. The Ministers are not even serious.
POLICY REGARDING SWITCHING OFF OF LIGHTS IN
GOVERNMENT OFFICES
- TSUURA asked the Minister of Energy and Power Development to inform the House on the Government policy regarding switching off of lights in Government offices after working hours in view of power shortages experienced.
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF ENERGY AND POWER DEVELOPMENT (HON. MUDYIWA): We are still working on the
answers. We can defer the question.
PROVISION OF SANITARY WEAR FOR IMPRISONED
WOMEN AND GIRLS
- TSUURA asked the Minister of Justice, Legal and
Parliamentary Affairs to inform the House whether or not the
Government provides sanitary wear for imprisoned women and girls and if so, to elaborate on the frequency and quantities distributed.
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you Mr.
Speaker Sir. I will answer the first part of the question, the statistics will follow. Indeed, we provide the sanitary wear to women in prison to the extent of the available resources that would have been availed by Treasury. We try as much as possible to ensure that all the women in prison get the sanitary wear. I may also add that we do not have a huge prison population of women. Out of the 90 500 prisoners that we have, we have under 400 prisoners who are females. So we try as much as possible to ensure that the conditions that they stay in, they are availed whatever they need to use. I thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.
HON. CHIKWINYA: Thank you Mr. Speaker. The principle of the question addresses items that are necessary to keep hygiene for prison inmates. Hon. Minister, may you assist this House by informing us what you are also going to do in terms of the principle of hygiene of prison inmates on the provision of slippers for inmates to use during bathing since they are using common bathing facilities.
HON. ZIYAMBI: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. The original question pertains to sanitary wear. He has extended it to say perhaps it is an ideal thing in terms of hygiene to ensure that they have slippers which is also very specific. I will follow it up and try to find out whether they have those facilities for slippers specifically regarding what he is now asking. I thank you.
POLICY REGARDING PROVISION OF FARMING
INPUTS TO VULNERABLE MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY
- HON. TSUURA asked the Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Water and Rural Resettlement to inform the House the Government policy regarding provision of farming inputs to vulnerable members of the society such as the elderly, orphans, disabled and child headed families considering that the Presidential Input Scheme is insufficient to meet requisite demand.
HON. MARKHAM: On a point of order Mr. Speaker. My point of order is, Parliament has been reduced to a circus. We cannot ask questions during Question Time without Ministers here. As soon as we finished the Questions Without Notice, only these two honourable gentlemen are here. How can we be an oversight when there is no one here to answer questions? We are wasting our time and I am afraid tomorrow we will also be wasting our time with the budget because the very people we are supposed to oversee will all pitch up tomorrow thinking they own the place. I for one will not attend the budget session tomorrow. Thank you.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Can I try to respond to that
one. If you look at your Order Paper, most of the Ministers that are supposed to answer these questions were announced as having taken leave of absence. So, most of the questions belong to those Ministers who were presumed to be out of work because they are on duty. So that does not apply.
HON. HAMAUSWA: On a point of order. I am not trying to go against your ruling but I want to refer you to what the Leader of the House said. He once said that according to the Constitution, the Cabinet has a collective responsibility, meaning that if those Ministers who were here present, if they are here, we were going to be given confidence that Cabinet is working collectively. Now, if you say those Ministers who were supposed to answer the questions are on leave then it is contradicting the collective approach of Cabinet, thus the issue we want to raise to you.
THE DEPUTY MINISTERS OF LANDS, AGRICULTURE,
WATER AND RURAL RESETTLEMENT (HON. HARITATOS):
Thank you Mr. Speaker and thank you to the Hon. Member of
Parliament for the question. My response is as follows - as you might be aware, the Presidential Input Scheme is also termed as the Presidential Vulnerable Households Input Scheme. The programme is meant to empower all citizens...
HON. MUTSEYAMI: On a point of order. Mr Speaker Sir, I appreciate that these are written questions and equally the same, we expect the Hon. Minister to respond to those written questions on paper – [HON. MEMBERS: This is technology.] – We are not dealing with technology. This House is purely on hard copy. It has been the precedence and the Speaker always speaks for Members not to tweet in this House or to have access to the usage of cellphones. So it has to be clear. Mr. Speaker Sir, I seek your guidance with the presentation that is being done by the Hon. Deputy Minister. Is it in line?
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: What is important to the
House is for the Minister to give an answer but what is also important is that a written answer must be tabled. It is not for us.
HON. MADZIMURE: On a point of order. Mr. Speaker, it is procedural that the Minister must have a hard copy that is tabled and that is the purpose of a written question. Hon. Ziyambi got away with it when he brought answers without the statistics. That is why we give them two weeks to prepare. Hon. Ministers are supposed to table their answers and you cannot change the rules just like that. We are now an animal farm.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Hon. Member, you are now
out of order. What is procedural is that the Minister gives the response and what is procedural is that the Minister gives the report and submits the written report to the Clerks at the Table – [HON. MEMBERS:
Inaudible interjections.] –
HON. HARITATOS: Thank you once again Hon. Speaker. As
you might be aware, the Presidential Input Scheme is also termed as the Presidential Vulnerable Households Input Scheme. The programme is meant to empower poor citizens at household level to participate towards household as well as national food security. In that regard, identification to the extension of farmers that benefit under the Presidential Vulnerable Households Input Scheme is informed by involvement of the local community participation. The process ordinarily targets the vulnerable members of the society such as the elderly, orphans, disabled and child headed households. I thank you.
HON. CHIKWINYA: Our society has now broken the dual
enclave with regards to rural and urban. I understand that the Presidential Input Scheme inputs currently are being given to the rural communities. In recognition of urban farming which is also assisting in sustaining livelihoods to the urban people, what policy measures is the Government going to do in distributing presidential inputs to people who are currently doing urban farming in our cities?
HON. HARITATOS: Thank you Hon. Speaker and I would also
like to thank the Hon. Member for the question. However, on a point of correction, we distribute to 1, 8 million households. These households involve some form of urban which are the peri-urban farmers. So my assumption is that these are part of the 1, 8 million households. As I have mentioned that it is the community that identifies these vulnerable, it is not our mandate as Ministry. Our mandate is to provide the inputs that will then be later parceled out to the vulnerable community.
HON. KARENYI: What is the Government policy on the issue of
the implementation of supervising the issue of these presidential schemes? In our rural areas, it is public knowledge that these inputs are being politicised. Some of the political parties are not benefiting these Government programmes. So what is the Ministry doing to supervise so that all the vulnerable groups and all the elderly are given without political interference?
HON. HARITATOS: I believe poverty knows no colour, social
status, gender, religion as well political affiliation. If you are hungry, you are hungry regardless of what political party you voted for and whether you voted in the first place. Our mandate as a Ministry is to provide the inputs with regards to the distribution; it has got nothing to do with us. I thank you.
ADEQUACY OF INPUTS FROM GOVERNMENT PROGRAMMES
- HON. RAIDZA asked the Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement to inform the House on the adequacy of inputs from both Government programmes, that is Command Agriculture and the private suppliers in view of the fact that the rain season is upon us.
THE DEPUTY MINISTER OF LANDS, AGRICULTURE,
WATER AND RURAL RESETLEMENT (HON. HARITATOS):
Thank you Hon. Speaker. What I can advise the House is that we have met with the respective banks that finance our Command Agriculture and I am happy to inform you that 65% of the targeted farmers have been contracted. The following figures are what is on the ground: - 210 000 hectares is our target of maize; 30 000 hectares is our target under soya; 12 000 hectares is our target under sunflower and 25 000 hectares is under sorghum.
As I mentioned, 65% of that figure is currently being contracted under the Command Agriculture. Presidential Input Scheme, we have surpassed the 95% mark and we have almost completed.
FIRST READING
RESERVE BANK OF ZIMBABWE AMENDMENT BILL [H. B. 9,
2019]
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI) presented the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Amendment Bill [H. B. 9, 2019].
Bill read the first time.
Bill referred to the Parliamentary Legal Committee.
FIRST READING
CONSTITUTIONAL COURT BILL [H. B.11, 2019]
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI) presented the
Constitutional Court Bill [H. B.11, 2019].
Bill read the first time.
Bill referred to the Parliamentary Legal Committee.
FIRST READING
INTERNATIONAL TREATIES BILL [H. B. 10, 2019]
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI) presented the
International Treaties Bill [H. B. 10, 2019].
Bill read the first time.
Bill referred to the Parliamentary Legal Committee.
MOTION
REPORT OF THE PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE ON DEFENCE,
HOME AFFAIRS AND SECURITY SERVICES ON THE
PETITION REGARDING THE WELFARE OF WAR
VETERANS
HON. MAYIHLOME: Thank you very much for the opportunity.
I move the motion standing in my name that this House takes note of the
Report of the Portfolio Committee on Defence, Home Affairs and Security Services on the Petition regarding the Welfare of War Veterans.
HON. MACHINGAUTA: I second.
HON. MAYIHLOME: Mr. Speaker Sir, I thank you very much
for the opportunity to present a report for the Portfolio Committee on Defence, Home Affairs and Security Services on the petition regarding the welfare of war veterans.
On the 14th May 2019, the Speaker of the National Assembly received a petition from a Mr. B. Kundhlande, which was then referred to the Portfolio Committee on Defence, Home Affairs and Security
Services. The petitioners’ prayers were that Parliament should conduct an enquiry into the welfare and plight of war veterans. He made reference to Section 23 (2) of the Constitution which provides that the State must take reasonable measures for the welfare and economic empowerment of veterans of the liberation struggle. He lamented that the current economic situation where the cost of living is perpetually rising. The monthly pension of RTGS$240 could not meet a quarter of the family’s basic requirements. He described the state of the health care having deteriorated where operations, scans, spectacles, medicines and drugs are being charged in foreign currency.
The prayer also besieged Parliament to recommend that the Ministry of Defence and War Veterans Affairs adopts policies and practices that take into consideration economic empowerment such as joint venture mining, agriculture, vocational training centres, loan facilities and fair representation in Government structures. In terms of Section 149 of the Constitution, the Portfolio Committee on Defence, Home Affairs and Security Services conducted an enquiry to assess the adequacy and effectiveness of Government policies and programmes targeted at empowering and improving the general welfare of war veterans across the country.
Methodology:
Your Committee undertook the following activities in gathering evidence. Oral evidence was gathered from Ambassador G. Marongwe, the Secretary for Defence and War Veterans Affairs on the pension benefits and welfare of war veterans on the 4th July, 2019.
The Committee also conducted public hearings on the welfare of war veterans in the 10 provinces of the country as follows:
We had hearings in the northern part of the country with the first group in Masvingo at Chitsanga Hall in Chiredzi and Masvingo Civic Centre. In Manicaland, we were gathered at Gaza Hall in Chipinge and at Queens Hall in Mutare. In Mashonaland East, we were at Mbuya
Nehanda Hall in Marondera and Zihute Hall in Murehwa. On the 1st of
August, we were in Mashonaland Central in Mt Darwin Sports Club and
Halla Hall in Bindura and in Harare, in the Senate Chamber and Mai
Musodzi Hall in Mbare.
The second group conducted public hearings in Bulawayo, Council
Hall in Gwanda, Jahunda Council Hall in Gwanda and Bulawayo
Council Hall in Luveve. In Matabeleland South as well, we were at
Plumtree Council Hall and Stanley Square in Bulawayo. In
Matabeleland North, at Lupane Council Hall and Tsholotsho Council
Hall. In the Midlands, we conducted hearings at Zvishavane Council Hall and Kwekwe Council Hall. In Mashonaland West Province, we conducted hearings in Chegutu Council Hall and Karoi.
The public hearings were attended by those who fought in the liberation struggle. Those who assisted the fighters in the liberation struggle and those who were imprisoned, detained or restricted for political reasons during the liberation struggle and the widows and wives of the veterans and children of war veterans.
Mr. Speaker Sir, furthermore the Committee considered written submissions received from various stakeholders including the Zimbabwe
National Liberation War Veterans Association and the Zimbabwe
National Association of War Veterans, and Zimbabwe Ex-Political Prisoners, Detainees and Restrictees Association, Association of War Collaborators, Zimbabwe War Cadres and the Association of Women of War Veterans, among others.
Committee Findings:
Mr. Speaker Sir, the oral evidence from the Ministry of Defence and War Veterans Affairs Ambassador G. Marongwe made the following submissions to the Committee that:
The War Veterans Act Chapter 11:15 provides for the establishment of schemes for the provision of assistance to war veterans and their dependents. The Act also provides for the establishment of a fund to finance such assistance. It details the War Veterans’ (Benefit Schemes) Regulations, the benefits entitled to war veterans as gratuities, loan benefits, education benefits, medical benefit and funeral benefits. He also emphasized that the Ex-Political Prisoners Detainees and Restrictees Act is virtually a mirror image of the War Veterans Act which regards to the special fund, the governing board and benefits.
On the pension benefits for war veterans and ex-political prisoners and detainees restrictees, the Permanent Secretary quoted Section 7 (5) of the War Veterans Act which provides for the pensions to be paid for the war veterans from the Consolidated Revenue Fund. A war veteran in terms of Section 4 of the War Veterans (Pension Scheme) Regulations gazetted through Statutory Instrument 280 of 1997 is entitled to a pension payable to him or her until the time of his death at the rate of Z$2 000 or an empowerment equivalent to at the time purchasing power parity of US$200 which was prevailing at the time in 1997. This amount was only given at the inception of payment of pensions of war veterans and was changed as time progressed as the rate deteriorated.
Mr. Speaker Sir, upon death the pension of a war veteran will be paid to the surviving spouse and any dependent child of the war veteran below the age of 18 years. The pensions for ex-political prisoners, detainees and restrictees are also provided for under the Ex-Political Prisoners, Detainees and Restrictees Regulations of 2005. He further lamented that the Pension Review Tribunal empowered by the Pension Review Act consulted relevant authorities and agreed on a policy of indexing war veterans pension to a grade of warrant officer class 1 in the Zimbabwe National Army. Whenever the salary of a warrant officer class 1 is reviewed, the pension is also reviewed proportionately. He also highlighted that the Ministry is considering a Cabinet decision which mandated all Government Ministries involved in economic activities to set aside a percentage to cater for war veterans.
The Committee was further informed that the current amount being received by war veterans and ex-political prisoners and detainees is too little given the current economic challenges. In response to these economic challenges, the Secretary assured the Committee that efforts were being made by the Ministry to lobby for an increase which is reasonable and meaningful to the comrades. Currently, the pension of a registered war veteran was RTGS$315, whilst that of ex-political prisoners was pegged at $317, equivalent to about US$22 or just abou7t
10% of what was availed in 1997 Mr. Speaker Sir.
The Committee was informed that the Ministry was proposing an increase for the pensions from that of a retired Warrant Officer Class One to that of a retired Major. This is in line with the Constitution requirement of Section 84, which states that veterans of the liberation struggle are entitled to due recognition for their contribution to the liberation struggle; a suitable welfare such as pensions and access to basic healthcare.
The Secretary submitted that the welfare of war veterans has been greatly affected by the prevailing economic challenges and most of them are riling in dire poverty and they do not have any means of subsistence. However, the Ministry has been assisting in providing certain assistance in the following;
Medical assistance – the Secretary for Defense, War Veterans
Affairs highlighted that war veterans’ health has deteriorated due to aging and chronic diseases such as hypertension and diabetes have become prevalent, hence there was need for consistent medical attention.
On the same, he submitted that the Ministry had prioritised medical treatment and war veterans’ healthcare claims that do not have a set limit. It was also submitted to the Committee Mr. Speaker Sir, that procurement regulations stipulate that the Government procurement uses three quotations. However, in cases where there are less than three service providers in an area exception are accepted and also the department caters for consultation fees. In line with this, the Committee was informed that the Ministry’s vision is to establish provincial and district hospitals dedicated to war veterans. Currently, plans were underway to provide medical identities for war veterans to access health service.
On funeral insurance Mr. Speaker Sir, the Committee was informed that the Ministry provides RTGS$2 500 for funeral assistance. However, this amount was no longer sufficient due to rising funeral and burial costs. The Ministry was engaging and strengthening partnerships with funeral parlors such as Doves Holdings, Nyaradzo Group and others so that provision of decent burial is maintained.
On school fees Mr. Speaker Sir, the Secretary for Defence pointed out that despite the budget constraints the Ministry had currently reviewed school fees from RTGS$2 000 to RTGS$4 000 per claim to cater for veterans and their dependants. He further stressed that the general shortage of foreign currency in the country was greatly affecting children of diplomats, military students and war veterans as parents were now being forced to source for foreign currency from the parallel market.
The Committee was also informed that a draft Bill that seeks to consolidate the War Veterans Act and Ex-Political Prisoners and Detainees, including other categories will be submitted to Parliament which I submit Mr. Speaker Sir has since been done. Moreover, the Committee was informed that once the Bill is passed into law, the war collaborators will be vetted and given requisite benefits. The Ministry was proposing to recognise both combatants and non-combatants, that is, youths who were usually based in refugee camps.
Now to the Public Hearings Mr. Speaker Sir, our Public Hearings in the ten provinces revealed the following. War veterans across the provinces expressed anger and bitterness with regards to their monthly pension benefits which have so far for many years been below the poverty datum line. Currently, the pension of a registered war veteran being RTGS$315 and Ex-Political Prisoners, Detainees and Restrictees paid at RTGS$317 is an equivalent of US$21 at the rate of 1:15 hence rendering war veterans to become the poorest group in society as they cannot purchase even a quarter of their daily survival needs.
A request was made for the pension to be pegged at the level of a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the Zimbabwe National Army. Statutory
280 and 281 of 1997 had pegged the pension of war veterans at ZWL
$2 000 but this was totally ignored and members have since been surviving on low pensions. It was reported that State had failed to honour and comply with the provisions of the Statutory Instrument. It was lobbied that the Government should settle the outstanding balance from the year 1997 when the Statutory Instruments 280 and 281 were gazette to both the living beneficiaries of the State and of all the deceased veterans. A request was also made that all senior citizens should be paid before civil servants.
Mr. Speaker Sir on the school fees, the Committee was informed that school fees payments was very erratic and some children had been denied tuition support to the extent that they dropped out of school before completion of their studies. The burden was placed on war veterans to verify whether tuition had been paid or not since they were receiving reports from their children who were being turned back from school. Cases of war veterans’ children being paraded in front of all the school children were very common in most of the areas that we visited much to the embarrassment of the veterans of the liberation struggle.
Whilst some war veterans felt that the management of fees to schools is the best, the majority strongly believe that it should be given to parents for accountability purposes as well as to minimize harassment as the case in some schools where war veterans’ children are being paraded and mocked. It was reported to the Committee that there did seem to be favouritism and neglect of war veterans’ children in accessing scholarships like the Presidential Scholarship Scheme, hence the request was that 20% of the students should be set aside for children of war veterans.
It was reported that the War Veterans Act had set 23years as the age limit for children’s support to the children of war veterans resulting in many dropouts before completion of studies. A call was made for this section to be removed and the establishment for vocational training centres to facilitate training skills to children of war veterans.
On the medical assistance, the state of war veterans’ health is deplorable and many of them are suffering from liberation war trauma. Funding for medical assistance was not been provided in time and whenever attempts for such funding are made, such assistance does not cover all the costs. A request was made that Government should equip one military hospital to enable war veterans access to medical treatment.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Hon. Members at the corner,
order! Hon. Members there, please give him a chance to read his report.
Yes, order there.
HON. MAYIHLOME: War veterans strongly condemned the
procurement regulations requirement which stipulates that the client must produce three quotations to the Ministry for the assistance to be processed. More so, expenses associated with obtaining quotations like transportation, accommodation and services fees are too high and prohibitive and claims for reimbursement for such expenses usually take long to be paid back. The whole process is more complex and totally disregards the fact that war veterans require constant medical checkups since many are living with disabilities and are too old. Medical reviews were reported to have been last done in 1997.
Although the Ministry was applauded for initiating the issuance of medical aid cards as a form of medical assistance, total displeasures was expressed as a result of harassment occurring in public institutions when accessing medical treatment.
The Committee was informed that war veterans require specialised medical care in the following categories:
- Access to audio care support,
- Access to paraplegic care and sensitive devices
- Access to visual care and assistive devices and - Access to dental care and support.
On representation in Government structures - the general feeling was that war veterans’ issues are not well represented in all Government structures. A call was made that 20% quota be reserved in all public institutions, including Parliament, to facilitate representation of their issues. In the same vein, most war veterans felt that they understand that a war veteran board composed of commanders was recently appointed. However, the grass root war veterans were neither consulted nor considered for board appointments, and they felt that they should be allowed to elect their own representatives to such a board.
It was also reported that issues to deal with war veterans were not being properly addressed by the Ministry of Defence and War Veterans since it has many departments with competing needs, hence a separate Ministry responsible for war veterans must be created. War veterans also requested that they be exempted from Government taxes because this places them with burdens given their paltry welfare and also that they be exempted from paying ring tax, customs duties for vehicles and agricultural equipment, tollgate fees, vehicle parking fees as well as industrial equipment for those who want to engage in businesses.
On Exhumations and Reburials - war veterans also raised the issue of freedom fighters who perished in Mozambique, Zambia, Angola, Tanzania and those who died locally and are buried in shallow graves and nothing has been done to either notify their families nor to establish their names in order to pay for their compensation. Further to that, the remains of such freedom fighters were still being discovered in all parts of the country. In relation to the above, it was noted that no effort has been made to maintain and monitor those shrines and some bones were still visible on the ground both in and outside the country. A request was made for the setting up of the Commission of Enquiry into the freedom fighters who perished during the liberation struggle, who have not received attention for burial compensation and recognition.
On Funeral and Burial Assistance – the Committee was told that currently, the funeral and burial assistance was pegged at RTGS$2
500.00 and the assistance usually came long after the burial of the late Comrade. It was also reported that discrimination and favouritism with regards to funeral and burial assistance benefits where some are given while others are not – not to mention tombstones. Concern was also raised regarding some delays of conferring hero status once a war veteran in rural areas has died. They recommended that once a war veteran departed, confirmation of a hero status should be given automatically.
With respect to honour and treatment on burial sites, those at national and provincial shrines are honoured with military parades whilst ignoring those buried in their home areas. A call was made to recognise all members of the liberation struggle as equals and that they should be favoured and conferred with the same national hero status despite the fact that one would be buried at the national shrine and others at provincial and while others will be buried in their home areas but benefits paid should be the same and equal.
On Vehicles and Offices for War Veterans - it was submitted that currently administrative offices for war veterans were only found at provincial level. A request was made for Government to decentralise administrative offices and that these must be supported with vehicles to coordinate activities for war veterans.
On War Victims Compensation Fund - Mr. Speaker Sir, the Committee was told that the majority of all victims were not compensated and those who were receiving their compensation did not get their full benefits. Concern was raised over the formula being used to calculate percentages since percentages are now uniform – ignoring the fact that there are some without limbs, legs and hands and that requires additional percentages. These compensation percentages needed to be reviewed periodically, which unfortunately was last done in 1997.
War veterans have expressed displeasure to the Committee over the closure of the Ruwa Rehabilitation Centre where all war victims were being rehabilitated. It was reported that General Solomon Mujuru then used influence as Commander of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces at the time to deploy the army to harass and chess away war veterans that were rehabilitated at the centre as the call was made for the Government to re-establish war victims compensation fund to cater for war victims.
On empowerment - during the Committee’s Public Hearings, war veterans proposed four clusters which include firstly a war veterans’ bank. It was noted with concern that war veterans were spending more than two weeks in queues in order to access cash from banks. A request was made for Government to establish a war veterans’ bank which will allow members to access loans for their projects. Such a bank would avail affordable loans that will empower veterans to establish joint ventures or going to businesses.
On agriculture, despite the policy of the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement which stipulates that once land had been allocated to individuals, this must not be repossessed. The Committee was told that many war veterans especially those in A1 farms were being evicted and their land re-allocated to senior Government officials and their relatives – not to mention widows of war veterans who were being deprived or dispossessed of their land once their departed husbands had passed on.
The Committee was informed that the land was the major driver of the liberation war but for many years, war veterans did not have access to the land and farming equipment, hence a call was made for Government to allocate at least 50 hectares of land and above to each and every war veteran and 20% be maintained.
Hon. T. Mliswa having passed between the Hon. Member speaking Speaker and the Chair.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Order Hon. Members.
HON. MAYIHLOME: The Committee was also told that war
veterans should benefit from conservancies, mining, forestry, wild life, fishing, poultry, livestock, command agriculture and benefit from the distribution of Government inputs from which they were being deprived. Currently, war veterans are said to be excluded from command agriculture and the Presidential Input Schemes.
On mining, it was reported that veterans are being denied access into mining or have had their claims re-allocated, hence a call was made for them to be given free claims in the event that they identified some mineral deposits. They also appealed to the mining companies in Zimbabwe to also consider contributing a percentage towards the war veterans welfare in the corporate social responsibility initiatives.
On vocational training centres – whilst the policy to support war veterans who intended to further their education is clearly enunciated in the statutes, it appears as either access to tuition had been done selectively under the guise of limited resources to the extent that many war veterans who are entitled to such support are still struggling. A request was made that Government should establish vocational training centres which will offer different vocational skills in agriculture, welding, carpentry and building, just to name a few.
Joint Ventures
In order to empower war veterans, a certain percentages of shares in the economy should be allocated to them as groups or registered companies. This will enable them to benefit from dividends of business operations according to their shares. It also forwarded to the Committee that lack of initiative by the board in the last two decades had seen failure to support any well intended self reliance projects which could have promoted entry into commerce and industry by many skilled and semi-skilled war veterans.
Mr. Speaker Sir, on Zimbabwe Ex-Combatants (ZEXCOM), war veterans requested the Committee that they lobby Government to assist them recover their shares from the following companies, ZEXCOM which was a company formed by war veterans when they voluntarily contributed $50 thousand each in the early 90s. The Committee was told that the war veterans who contributed their money did not benefit from the company though they were entitled to get shares. It was also raised that companies like SUNCORP Group Bank, NITRAM, Telecel and another venture led by a Mr. Benson Beta had deprived war veterans of their income. Following the speculation about the none existence of these companies, war veterans were worried whether they will ever recover their money, therefore, a call was called for an investigation to be made although the issues were not directly covered in this current petition. These were brought to our attention.
Honours and Awards
Whilst the Constitution clearly spells out the need to owner and recognise war veterans of the liberation struggle, Government has not done enough in compliance with this constitutional provision. Mr. Speaker Sir, concern was raised regarding the absence of recognition on State occasions such as independence celebrations...
HON. T. MLISWA: On a point of order Mr. Speaker Sir.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER (HON. M. KHUMALO):
What is your point of order?
HON. T. MLISWA: My point of order is that this motion is very important especially for the ruling party which serves as a revolutionary party. I even see Hon. Houghton is here yet he never went to the struggle and does not belong to the revolutionary party. Where are others. I was going to implore the Chief Whip before I blow the trumpet for members of the ruling party to be here. You are where you are because of them but you seem to be insensitive? I do not think you are sending the right signal. So, I am imploring the Chief Whip, before I ring the bell for people to come back here and listen to the petition –
[HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
HON. MAYIHLOME: Thank you Hon. Mliswa I think this is a
very valid point Mr. Speaker.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: May all Chief Whips please
make sure your members are in the House, not only the other side but all
Chief Whips may they order their members to come in the House.
HON. MAYIHLOME: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir and thank you
Hon. Mliswa for that intervention. Mr. Speaker Sir, I was on honours, awards and recognition, whilst the Constitution clearly spells out the need to honour and recognise veterans of the liberation struggle, Government had not done enough in compliance with the constitutional provision. Concern was raised regarding the absence of recognition on State occasions such as independent celebrations, National Heroes Day and Defence Forces Day. In other European countries for example, war veterans are given special respect and recognition through parades.
The Committee was informed that war veterans are always told during national events like presentations that they are not on the list of important people. Many war veterans are now no longer comfortable to attend national events due to the humiliation by the youths. A request was made that they should be given a role to play during national events, awarded with liberation war medals, provided with uniforms and special sitting arrangements made for them during national events. They should be provided with food like everyone else during such occasions.
History and Legacy
Mr. Speaker Sir, it was argued that attempts at writing the liberation history of Zimbabwe will fail because of this tendency to join both ZANLA and ZIPRA history together, yet these were unique issues in each of the liberation movements. They strongly felt that the history should be written separately. The Committee was further told that there are no archives of information about the names and the role played by many who lie in mass graves. Consequently, documentation of the history of the liberation struggle is being done by people who never went to the war and it is being distorted.
They strongly condemned and opposed the current status whereby schools, clinics, halls, roads, statues and organisations amongst others are still being given colonial names as if the nation is short of heroes. A proposal was made that these should be changed and named after prominent Chimurenga heroes both living and departed.
Disarmament, Demobilisation, Rehabilitation and
Reintegration.
The war veterans’ perception was that of unequal treatment and different opportunities for different wings as presented to the Committee. They believed that in spite of the 1997 Unity Accord and successful integration of the former armies, there were still perceptions of marginalisation particularly by those war veterans who did not join regular army and who were retired from active service particularly in Southern parts of the country. A call was made for these issues to be objectively looked at to find a lasting solution.
Mr. Speaker Sir, in conjunction with the above, the Committee was informed that very little effort was channeled towards rehabilitation and reintegration of the liberation struggle since freedom fighters were disarmed and demobilized. No efforts were made to deal with the stress and left freedom fighters with no education, no skills to integrate them into civilian life and no resources to help them to cope with the demands of the new civilian life at a time when most of them had attained the age of marriage.
It was argued that the United Nations had provided for financial support to cater for war veterans after the war with a provision that every war veteran be entitled to $500 thousand Zimbabwean dollars. However, only 50 thousand dollars was released, living a balance of 450 thousand dollars which they believe must be paid. The Committee is yet to get a clear response from the Ministry of Defence and War Veterans Affairs on this figure. In comparison to Rwanda and Namibia, ex-armed groups were given retirement grants, psycho-social counseling, awareness training, community sensitisation and psychological support.
The Vetting Process
Mr. Speaker Sir, it was reported to the Committee that after the liberation struggle, the majority of war veterans were vetted whilst some were not. Those who were vetted were given benefits and are receiving their monthly pension while others have not received anything 20 years later. Furthermore, there are those that are being vetted now who are not getting their back pay. The following categories of war veterans were encountered by the Committee Mr. Speaker Sir. Those who fought in the war of liberation, those who assisted the fighters during the war of liberation, those who were imprisoned, detained or restricted, those who died during Gukurahundi era, those who were hanged or executed at Salisbury Maximum Prison, whose who died during and after the war; those who were trained in the front, those who were vetted but not receiving their money and those who were vetted later on and started receiving pension benefits recently without back pay.
The Committee was told that the vetting teams were generally corrupt and the exercise is being conducted by youths who were requesting war veterans to bring witnesses whilst many of them had passed away. It was recommended that the team should not be there on a permanent basis. It was reported to the Committee Mr. Speaker Sir, that some freedom fighters that were captured during the cease-fire period disappeared and no efforts were made to date to account for them.
A request was made for Government to establish a database to account for every war veteran, living or dead, trained and untrained and complete the vetting exercise.
The Ex-political Prisoners, Detainees and Restrictees
Mr. Speaker Sir, the Committee noted that a number of freedom fighters were kept in political prisons, detention camps under harsh and unfavourable conditions. Many died in prisons, others were hanged and executed. They needed to be remembered and compensation given to their families. There was an appeal for Government to speed up the vetting process for both living and departed veterans or prisoners so that they can start to receive compensation and benefits.
Mr. Speaker Sir, although this was not part of the petition, the Committee received very disturbing concerns from the collaborators who expressed concern about their failure to have them vetted 40 years after independence as well as failure to conduct a belated national bira to welcome back the surviving heroes of the liberation struggle while recognising and appeasing the souls of those who perished along the way - fighters and civilians.
Collaborators assisted the fighters with information, food and cover and they were subjected to abuse and victimization although the Ministry has started the process of complying with the provisions of the Constitution by including war collaborators in the draft Bill which I am sure this new Bill will cover.
The Committee was informed, Mr. Speaker Sir, that land is being taken away from the surviving spouses once the war veterans had departed. It was further submitted that the monthly pensions that are paid to widows is severely reduced. Concern was also raised on the exclusion of surviving spouses in the empowerment programmes and projects once a war veteran had departed ignoring the fact that they continue to cater for the family.
A call was made for the Government to recognise and consider payment of benefits and pension applicable to both departed and living comrades as to be equal to their surviving spouses.
Marginalisation of Children of War Veterans
The Committee noted that child headed families whose parents had departed were being marginalised. The Committee was told that many had dropped out of school due to failure to pay school fees. It was brought to the Committee’s attention that a number of undocumented children were born during the war whose fathers were not known or are being ignored. As compared to Rwanda, ex war veterans children are receiving psychological counseling, skills training, and financial support in education with income generating projects.
Committees Observations and Recommendations
Funeral assistance
The Committee observed that in Zimbabwe, the current funeral assistance being given to war veterans was quoted at $2 500 whereas in South Africa for example, it is R25 000 as well as the provision of a coffin. The Committee recommends that the Government should periodically review the financial assistance fund. The Committee observed that the funeral assistance for the diseased war veterans is being provided months after the burial. The Committee recommends that Government should set aside a funeral assistance fund such that funds are released in time to avoid inconveniencing mourners.
Pension Benefits
The Committee observed that the current war veterans are receiving 315 RTGS and ex-political prisoners 317RTGS per month which amounts are far below the poverty datum line. The Committee recommends that the Ministry of Defence and War Veterans, beginning 2020 budget cycle, review the monthly pension to above the poverty datum line and pay date be that of civil servants to at least equivalent to US$200 per month which was stipulated in 1997.
The Committee observed that the promulgation of SI 280 and 281 of 1997 was not repealed. The Committee recommends that the Government should specify the pension benefits of war veterans through Statutory Instrument.
Medical Assistance
Mr. Speaker Sir, the Committee noted that there are no specialised medical care centres to cater for war veterans. Unlike in Rwanda, a medical rehabilitation unit was created and other experts to assess war veterans health and other benefits. The Committee recommends that the Ministry of Defence and War Veterans in conjunction with the relevant Government departments should establish specialised medical care centres to cater for war veterans.
The Committee also observed that the procurement regulation which requires war veterans to obtain three quotations is both expensive and time consuming. The Committee recommends that the Ministry of Defence and War Veterans should issue medical aid cards and place all war veterans on a medical aid scheme that seeks to comprehensively respond to the above psychological and physiological conditions by 2020.
The Committee observed that war veterans are being chased, are harassed in public and private institutions whenever they intend to access medication. The Committee recommends that the Ministry of Defence and War Veterans should invest in specialised infrastructure in the form of at least two to three specialised hospitals and one rehabilitation centre. Beginning year 2020, the Ministry of Defence and War Veterans should introduce a programme that calls for periodic review of medical examination of war veterans.
The Committee observed that Government violated section 84 of the Constitution by failing to honour and fulfill its obligations by providing suitable health and welfare and benefits to war veterans. The Committee recommends that Government should fulfill its obligations as provided for in the Constitution.
The Committee observed that there is no rehabilitation centre for war veterans including those who are now living with disabilities. In comparison with Rwanda vulnerable groups such as female war ex combatants and combatants living with disabilities are being provided with farming, housing, reintegration grants, equipment and access to various medical services. The committee recommends that the Ministry of Defence and War Veterans should establish a rehabilitation centre to cater for war veterans disabilities by 2021.
Empowerment
The Committee observed that war veterans are not represented well in Government structures in line with their plight and challenges.
The Committee recommends the following to the Ministry of Defence and War Veterans.
- The Ministry of Defence and War Veterans in conjunction with the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement should adopt a policy to ensure that once land has been allocated it must not be repossessed and all repossessed land should be returned to war veterans.
- Widows and surviving children of war veterans must not be dispossessed of agricultural land.
- The Ministry of Defence and War Veterans should allow grass root war veterans to elect their representatives to the board.
- The Government should establish a War Veterans Bank which allows members to access loans at low interest rates.
- The Government should establish vocational training centres which offer practical short courses in welding, plumbing, pig farming and poultry to be introduced at the beginning of year 2020.
- Beginning year 2020, Government should also exempt war veterans from the following taxes; land, vehicles, industrial machinery, agricultural equipment levies, tollgates and parking fees.
Educational Assistance
Mr. Speaker Sir, on educational assistance, the Committee observed that many war veterans’ children have dropped out of school and some are in tuition arrears. The Committee recommends that the Ministry of Defence and War Veterans with effect from January 2020 should timeously disburse tuition fees for children of war veterans and a budget for tuition should be included in their 2020 budget.
Recognition
Mr. Speaker Sir, on recognition, the Committee observed that war veterans are not being given recognition during public events. The Committee recommends that the Ministry of Defence and War Veterans should craft a policy that recognises war veterans, duly awarding them with liberation war medals, with uniforms and special sitting arrangements at all events that relate to the liberation of Zimbabwe. It is also recommended that Government should declare all veterans of the liberation struggle national hero status upon death with equal benefits despite that one is buried at the National Shrine, Provincial Shrine or his home area.
The Committee observed that many institutions, roads and schools in the country still have colonial names. The Committee recommends that with effect from 2020, Government should adopt a policy that ensures that institutions like schools, hospitals and roads be named after prominent Chimurenga heroes, living and departed.
The Committee noted with concern that the vetting is not only incomplete but fraught with too many irregularities. It is recommended that a new Vetting Committee be set up and objectively vet all war veterans by December 2020.
The new Bill to harmonise war veterans should be speeded up. This one has been submitted Mr. Speaker Sir. The Committee observed that 1990 veterans have not been catered for, post 1980 war veterans have not been catered for. There are no plans to ensure that this group of experienced military commanders is not forever ignored. The Committee recommends that the Government should come up with a policy to encourage this group to form a Military Veterans Association to ensure continued repository military experience. Here, I am talking of military veterans who have served Zimbabwe Defence Forces post 1980, who were not war veterans of the liberation struggle, whose generation this country is quiet about but there shall come a time in the future that they should also be considered. So, the Committee is recommending that they be allowed to form a military of veterans association as well so that their interests are also protected.
Compensation
Mr. Speaker Sir, the Committee recommends that the Government should create a War Victims Compensation Fund to cater for all war victims and the fund must be well allocated in terms of financial resources from the budget beginning year 2020.
The Committee recommends that the Government allocates land, distribute farming equipment to war veterans in both A1 and A2 farms by December, 2020.
Exhumation and reburial
The Committee observed that after the war, very little was done with regards to exhumation and reburial of departed war veterans. The Committee recommends that the Government should speed up the exhumation exercise and ensure decent burial of the remains.
The Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, beginning year 2020 should allocate to the Ministry of Defence and War Veterans Affairs, a budget specifically for the exhumation and decent burial of comrades.
The Committee recommends that Parliament should facilitate benchmarking visits to Rwanda and Namibia for the Defence, Home Affairs and Security Services Committee to share experiences, assess and validate benefits being accorded to veterans in those countries.
Conclusion
It is this Committee’s fervent hope that the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development should consider the above proposals in the 2020 budget. The Committee further envisages that this report and recommendations contained herein will go a long way towards improving the welfare of the war veterans. The Committee appreciates and would like to appreciate Mr. B. Kudhlande for his petition which culminated in the inquiry into the welfare of war veterans. The Committee is also very thankful to all stakeholders who made submissions during the public hearings. It is the Committee’s fervent hope that the Ministry of Defence and War Veterans and relevant Government departments will diligently implement recommendations and appropriate measures to improve the welfare of war veterans, collaborators, ex-political prisoners, detainees and restrictees for it is upon their blood, sacrifice and limbs that we all have this freedom. I thank you Mr. Speaker.
*HON. MACHINGAUTA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. Firstly, I would like to thank Parliament for the Portfolio Committee on Defence, Home Affairs and Security Services for receiving the petition of the war veterans and moving around Zimbabwe to listen to challenges bedeviling liberators of this country.
We need to support the issues affecting the war veterans. Our presence in this House is a result of those who sacrificed their lives during the liberation struggle – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] – So, when we begin to debate about the plight of war veterans, we should not be partisan about it. We should bury our political differences and ensure that those who liberated the country are well catered for.
Mr. Speaker Sir, the issue we are discussing here is not a new one, it is even present in our Constitution in Section 23, that they should be respected and well catered for. Section 84 of the Constitution also provides for the importance of respecting and caring for war veterans.
Therefore, what we are debating about here is there in the Constitution and needs implementation, which is not happening and we should support the implementation of such.
Our war veterans are receiving an amount of $315 to $317 which is equivalent to US$12. However, in other countries like South Africa, the war veterans receive R1 800, R25 000 for funeral cover and also a coffin. They are also given accommodation where they pay 20% less in accommodation costs. This is what we also need to do towards our own war veterans. In Mozambique, war veterans are provided accommodation and they also receive free medical treatment whilst their children receive free education. In Angola, they receive US$67, free medical treatment and reburials where some are reburied in their various original home areas. Our own war veterans also indicated that this is what they want. Some of these things are provided for in our Constitution but we are failing to implement some of these provisions when we contributed to its crafting.
In the Constitution’s Preamble, it mentions the issues concerning war veterans and war collaborators like Chimbwidos and Mujibhas who are being left out and yet they contributed immensely in the liberation struggle up until independence. To date, these people are being ignored and when food is being distributed they are left out yet during the liberation struggle they were key informants and helped in the provision of food and accommodation – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] –
However, when the cake is being shared they get nothing; they are like graders which are used to gravel the road but after the road is smoothened, they are refused permission to drive in the same road as good vehicles are allowed to be driven there. These were some of the challenges which the war veterans and war collaborators were grieving about.
In Zvishavane, some war veterans and collaborators nearly shed tears as they indicated that amongst the Hon. Members present were some whom they used to mingle with during the liberation struggle and yet they are now sidelining and ignoring them. It was a painful experience as I was hurt by such sentiments. So we should handle these issues seriously. They also indicated that sometimes the country is faced with bad things like the cyclones due to the grieving of those who liberated the country. I therefore appeal to Hon. Members to support this report and our constitutional provisions on issues to do with war veterans so that they are well taken care of – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] –
War veterans also indicated that there should be re-vetting of war veterans because when this exercise was carried out, there are many who were left out and are out of the data base. These war veterans who have been left out also need to be included in the current data base. They also indicated that during the vetting exercise, the commanders of the liberation struggle should also participate since they are truly aware of those who were involved. This is because during the last vetting exercise, it is alleged that some of those who were included in the vetting exercise never participated in the liberation struggle and some are ignorant of what really happened or who was present. Therefore, they feel that if their commanders are included, it will be helpful especially if it is done according to the areas concerned since they knew each other well during and after the liberation struggle.
In addition, the war veterans requested that they need assistance so that their social standing is also above political parties. They also indicated that even some parliamentary procedures are not in tandem with what they agreed on during the liberation struggle. If given due respect, war veterans would be able to point out mistakes to politicians, political parties and Government officials so that the values of the liberation struggle are upheld since the country attained its independence. The war veterans also highlighted the fact that they need support from Government as a culmination of the previous exercise which resulted in the formation of Zimbabwe Ex-Combatants Foundation Investment Fund (Zexcom).
Some war veterans received the ZWL$50 000.00 once off gratuity which was disbursed in 1997-98 and 4 388 war veterans pooled their resources together to form Zexcom on the understanding that they would establish their own companies. However, these funds were abused. The war veterans are now requesting Government to investigate the circumstances surrounding the misuse of these funds, the culprits should be apprehended and they should reimburse the war veterans because these funds were supposed to transform the lives of war veterans.
The war veterans also sought clarification on funds that were sourced from the United Nations which were supposed to benefit every member of the war veterans Association. This money amounts to around $500 000.00 to benefit individual war veterans instead the war veterans only got ZWL$50 000.00. Therefore, we would like to request that Government investigates where the difference went to so that the ZWL$450 000.00 can be redistributed. This is the plight of war veterans Mr. Speaker Sir, they implore Government to look into the issue as a matter of urgency.
Furthermore, war veterans expressed concern over their properties and they requested that these properties should be returned because the properties were a source of their livelihoods. For instance, they expressed concern over a group of companies that fall under Nitrum, they also mentioned the Castle Arms Hotel which they felt should be returned to its rightful owners who are the war veterans; Nest Aid Farm in Bulawayo; Ascot Farm in Solusi; Woodglen farm in Nyamandlovu;
Howe Farm in Gweru; Lijo Farm in Harare; Salisbury Motel in Harare; Magnet House in Bulawayo; Davies Hall in Bulawayo and Green Haven along Victoria Falls road. All these properties belonged to the war veterans and the proceeds from these properties ensured that war veterans had sustainable livelihoods.
In conclusion Mr. Speaker Sir, war veterans expressed concern over the fact that when they returned from the liberation struggle most war veterans were not reintegrated into society. Some have been experiencing mental health challenges for a long time, some are destitutes – they move around scavenging for food in bins. If the rehabilitation process had been done in a proper way, war veterans would be living decent lives. However, some are not living in harmony with their neighbours and communities – this is not their fault but is a result of their war time experiences. Some were even nostalgic of their former leaders like the late Hon. Chenjerai Hunzvi – may his soul rest in peace because he tried his best to emancipate war veterans.
Some war veterans gave as an example their colleagues who participated in the 1967 battle. They mentioned people like Jonathan Moyo and Madziva who is currently living a life of destitution, roving around the streets of Bulawayo and eating from bins. He appears to be mentally challenged – he was supposed to be rehabilitated but that did not happen and he did not benefit in any way from any Government
initiatives.
The war veterans also mentioned the Presidential Scholarship scheme which they felt is not benefiting their children but the scheme is only benefiting children of those who have access to resources and did not even participate in the liberation struggle. Those who are deserving are not being afforded the opportunity for their children to also benefit from the scheme. They also mentioned that they also require a quota for war veterans in Parliament as representatives of war veterans, not what
is currently happening where some individual war veterans are elected Members of Parliament representing different constituencies. The proposed war veteran’s quota system should be similar to the current women’s and youth representation quotas.
With these words, Mr. Speaker Sir, I would like to implore the august House to brainstorm about these issues, to take the recommendations as we adhere to the Constitution and also to go back to the basic tenets of the liberation struggle for the nation to experience progress. I thank you.
*HON. CHIPATO: Thank you Hon. Speaker Sir, I stand in
support of this motion. Firstly, I would like to indicate that during the information gathering process, we noted that war veterans are living in abject poverty yet these are the people who sacrificed their lives to attain Independence. Most war veterans, ex-detainees and war collaborators in different communities are wallowing in poverty because even after 38 years of Independence they have not benefited from any Government empowerment programme.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Order, order, may the owner
of a silver vehicle AES 7989 which is blocking other vehicles please go and remove his/her car. You may proceed Hon. Member.
*HON. CHIPATO: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir, I would like to
continue deliberating on the report by buttressing the fact that this a heart rending plight that is currently obtaining in our country which got its Independence through the sacrifice of our war veterans. Most war veterans are suffering, some were injured during the protracted struggle; some people go around peddling malicious rumours that war veterans are uneducated and despised. This is a culmination of the imperialist Smith system which subjugated the black person and resulted in most people not affording to pursue degrees like what is currently obtaining in independent Zimbabwe.
In my opinion, Zimbabwe has never been led by the Opposition but by veterans of the struggle who have forgotten about their colleagues in the struggle. This is a cause for concern because for 38 years War veterans, war collaborators and ex-detainees have been suffering and wallowing in poverty. The ZWL$50 000.00 gratuity that they received can be compared to a parent who makes porridge, eats most of it and then smears the remainder on the mouths of the children.
Zimbabwe is currently what it is because of sacrifices during the protracted liberation struggle between our war veterans and our former colonizers yet they are overlooked when Government appointments are made. We implore Government to consider war veterans in different
Government initiatives like empowerment programmes, the Women’s Bank, Youths Bank and mining yet we do not have a war veterans, exdetainees and war collaborators bank … - [HON. MLISWA: Yes, dzokororai ipapo!] – We were also young people during the liberation struggle, untrained CIO intelligence operatives. Therefore, we would like to urge Government to prioritise the welfare of war veterans because the majority of the veterans of the struggle is suffering from different medical conditions like High Blood pressure, diabetes as a result of their war time experiences. Most war veterans do not have access to medical facilities, medication and other healthcare amenities yet they are expected to pay for treatment of chronic conditions yet they are unemployed. Some are earning only ZWL$200.00 per month as pensioners which is equivalent to a paltry USD$10.00. It is important for Government to prioritize the welfare of war veterans before considering everyone else.
Especially now, some who have children of school going age, previously war veterans were directly paid fees for their children but now the fees are directly being paid to schools, which results in their children being turned away for unpaid fees. We urge the Government to look into that. If we talk of war collaborators, they are parents just like war veterans and ex-detainees but they are not getting anything. Things are very expensive these days, where do you expect that person to get the money to buy groceries. Let us remember the people who liberated this country because since 1980 this country is being led by war veterans and we expect them to look at the welfare of these war veterans. Thank you.
HON. T. MLISWA: Mr. Speaker Sir, I want to thank you for this opportunity to contribute to this debate which touches the hearts of many. Mr. Speaker Sir, for as long as the war veterans and the liberators of this country are not free economically, this country will never be given the respect it deserves. We shall be a laughing stock of the world. We attack the Americans and the British but look at the way they look after their war veterans. They are well taken care of and they are given everything that they want. We fought a protracted struggle which young men and women sacrificed. Some are no more and some are here today.
I am a son of the war veteran having been born in Zambia. My father was ZIPRA, he worked with the Cde. Mutinhiri, Hon. S. K. Moyo and the late Joshua Nkomo. Those are the references that know the contribution my father made. My mother was also in Zambia and the six of us were born there. I recall a time when our House was bombarded in Kabwata because of the fact that the struggle was continuing. As the struggle continued, it involved many. It involved a situation where those who believed in it outside would support in different ways.
Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about the real issue. It is sad, it is a shame for the leadership of this country which from 1980 as the dear Hon. Chipato said, that since 1980 this country has always been with the leadership of the war veterans. The question that I ask myself is how they went to sleep when they knew that the fellow commanders and fellow liberators are not doing well. We do not have to beat about the bush, the first President was Robert Gabriel Mugabe and the war veterans suffered but they worked to ensure that they were in power, they were abused, they were used and at the end of the day they were forgotten. They became enemies of the people of Zimbabwe because they believed in standing up for the values and founding principles of this country.
The Ministers were war veterans and the security sector was war veterans. The question herein is when you have such leadership which have war veterans why did they not think of their fellow comrades? I am too young if I am in power tomorrow to think of the war veterans because I never went to the struggle, I have no relationship with the war veterans. We would expect those that fought side by side with them to be in the forefront of this. The demise of the former President of this country was him not being able to take care of the war veterans, him not being able to do the things that they agreed would be done. Their benefits and pensions are nothing.
The real comrades are there in the rural areas, they have humility and do not talk – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] – they will tell you that during the liberation struggle I was a commander. Let me talk about the commanders of the ZANLA Forces who are alive today; Cde.
Perrance Shiri was Commander, Tete Province, Cde. Zimondi, Manica Province, Cde Mabhenge was Gaza Province. These are the men who are alive. There was the High Command and General Staff in both ZIPRA and ZANLA.
Today as we speak, there are only 15 or maybe less than 20 High Command Staff who are there. No one has even said to them they must sit on certain boards or somewhere so that they are recognised. When will we ever be able to give them their due respect? They are not asking for money Mr. Speaker Sir. They are asking for recognition which has made this country what it is. These are the most humble men and women that you can come across. They do not ask for anything, unless you probe them then they tell you that we were part of the struggle. Maybe it is the struggle that made them so disciplined that they are not able to speak. The leadership has taken advantage of that discipline that they have in them that they must speak, but today we shall speak for them because we believe in their cause, we believe in what they stood for. It is important Mr. Speaker Sir to understand that.
Mr. Speaker Sir, let us not talk about war veterans being united when on the other hand there were properties that belong to ZIPRA. If we are to talk about reconciliation, has that property given back? These are sensitive issues which the ZIPRA Commanders could not talk about because of the discipline that they have. I told them that this is a new dispensation; the President His Excellency was part of the struggle. In being part of the struggle, there are outstanding issues which happened which brought bad blood between ZANLA and ZIPRA, Gukurahundi was part of it, we call for unity. The current Government must give back what belongs to ZIPRA, that is important. We know that they are moving forward with reconciliation but hide and seek is the game that they play.
Mr. Speaker Sir, ZIPRA Commanders, well trained remained quiet because they are disciplined not because they cannot speak. They were victimised for a very long time. While they were victimised for a very long time, they were labeled the enemies of the State. In being labeled as the enemies of the State, they went underground and some of them do not even want to be known where they are and so forth. It is important that the current administration looks into that.
The Minister of Defence is a renowned war veteran, respected and is part of the presidium of the ruling party. We cannot talk about war veterans without mentioning the ruling party because it is the governing party. The opposition has never governed and the opposition not having governed the country has done its part by ensuring that the Constitution covers the war veterans. The war veterans understand very well that in that Constitution there is something missing, and today I will say spiritually. You did not fight this war on your own. You had spirit mediums. Where are they in the Constitution?
We brag about Mbuya Nehanda and in the Constitution she is not there but we say she was part of the struggle. She led but today we have war veterans in there and the Chiefs. Who is it that led the struggle? Who is it that was protecting, it was a spiritual war. Then we go to the spirit mediums, an Hon. Member spoke about bira. Mr. Speaker and Members of Parliament here, I am very young but this country needs a bira which will cleanse what has happened. For as long as we do not hold a bira the problems of this country are not political they are spiritual, they are traditional.
Mr. Speaker Sir, we are not even prepared to go to the National Sports Stadium and do our bira there because we think we are white, one minute we want to be western, one minute we want to be eastern. Where are our roots? How can we be blessed by the forefathers of this land when we do not honour them? How many of us go back to their villages and do bira and you want to pretend as if you do not do it but you are wearing suits. It is critical at this point in time that we unite as a nation and that a bira be held to cleanse this nation. You talk about the companies which the war veterans were given. Telecel is one of them and they had a shareholding but we do not know where the shareholding has gone to. Hon. Mayihlome spoke about how we needed to account for this and so forth. The vetting processes of the war veterans – we have young boys and girls who, because they are driving flashy cars in the youth league, think they can vet their fathers who went to the struggle, yet their fathers went to the struggle before they were born.
What type of a system is that Mr. Speaker Sir? We need to revisit that. No wonder why some of them are despondent. There is something which I have learnt about life. Even if I am angry with somebody or I have angered them, I still believe at the end of the day I must say sorry so that their spirit is settled. The war veterans have been insulted and no one has said sorry. Just the word sorry – we are looking for a situation where moving forward, the President takes it upon himself to say a lot has happened in this country and it will never happen again.
Our casualty of the so called Mujuru cabal is where the ruling party destroyed war veterans. You destroyed the party by lying. We have war veterans like Kaukonde, Mushore who framed Mai Mujuru. We have war veterans like Jabulani Sibanda and Mvundura, people that you do not even know but you went and lied that they were about to ouster the President. Who ousted who at the end of the day? This is how this country is in a mess because you went and started attacking war veterans and you have never said sorry to those war veterans. So, for as long as you do not say sorry to those war veterans Mr. Speaker Sir, there is disunity. We have Didymus Mutasa and Rugare Gumbo, one of the few founding fathers of the struggle who suffered but today because you are in the echelons of power, you forgot how you got there. Young boys and girls do not know what Rugare Gumbo or Didymus Mutasa did but today you even want these two to apply to a party which is theirs. Shame on you, shame on you, shame on you, shame on you. How can you want the owner of the company to apply to that company?
HON. TOGAREPI: On a point of order Mr. Speaker Sir. With all due respect, I think this report is talking about war veterans and the veterans of the liberation struggle. It is not about politics or specific individuals and I think we -[HON. T. MLISWA: Inaudible interjection] –
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Hon. Mliswa please, they
listened to you throughout. Please can you listen to the Chief Whip?
HON. TOGAREPI: I think we are ready to hear from
Members including some from the opposite side - they debated very well and we also got what they were saying. But when it becomes specific to individuals or this debate degenerating to protecting individual interests, I think we need your protection.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Hon. Mliswa, can you stick to
the welfare of war veterans as per the question.
HON. T. MLISWA: I am a very democratic person. I am talking
about the ill treatment of the war veterans in this country and there is nothing wrong unless they are telling me that they were not ill treated.
Mai Mujuru was dumped in the streets and they were celebrating. Hon.
Togarepi was there supporting the former first lady Grace Mugabe. Were you not? That is the truth of the matter. I speak with my heart and honestly and you cannot stop me from that. It is very emotional but you all ganged up against war veterans to get them out of the party. You created what was called gammatox when she was not a gammatox. Today the party is weak because you are busy selling out for lack of ethics or principles. A party without war veterans has lost the election. I am telling the truth and it is painful to you. There is no unity without war veterans. You ill treated them. Manyon’onywa nechokwadi hooo- hooo- hooo.
Mr. Speaker Sir, this is a bunch of hypocrites which is in power through falsehood and for that you shall not survive the power that you think you are because you are not honest. You disown your own war veterans, you insulted them yet they campaigned for you and you got into power through their sweat. God is speaking to you now, you hypocrites. Hamunyare vanamai vakuru vakadai. Makavatuka, mukavadzinga vana Mushore, Bvundura nana Kaukonde, vana Didymus Mutasa na Rugare Gumbo.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Hon. Mliswa, there is a point
of order.
HON. RAIDZA: Hon. Chair, he is no longer addressing the
Chair. He is busy addressing us
HON. T. MLISWA: I want to tell them the truth. Munoita basa rekuuraya musangano hamunyare. Musha usina baba moti musha, ah hamunyare, varikupi varidzi vemusha, varipi varidzi vemusha. Iwe
Pupurai Togarepi wakaenda kunamai Mugabe iwewe uchindidzinga. Saka hachisi chokwadi here? Uri war veteran akaita sei iwewe unodzinga mai Mujuru na Didymus. Zera rako iwewe, ndakuudza chokwadi. Ini ndinofa ndichitaura chokwadi. Hauna zera na Didymus and Rugare Gumbo iwewe. Makadya mari dzema war veterans – and today they are suffering. Are you not ashamed? I am telling you the truth today so that you know. Zvichembere izvi hapana munopinda ne PR imimi. All those proportional representation seats must go to war veterans and not these women. Why do war veterans not have seats in Parliament, why are we having war veterans going for elections? If they are founders of this nation, they should never go for elections Mr. Speaker Sir. The war veterans must be given their own 50 seats. They do it proportionally and they get into Parliament. We cannot have a situation where you give, especially from the ruling, these useless people who do nothing, you give them seats.
With those words, I want to summarise by saying that I have told the truth that hurts. For as long as they do not respect the war veterans they are gone and for as long as you do not apologise to the war veterans, you are not going anywhere. War veterans were victimised. I want to thank you for this time and to say that it is important that the truth is said. You are not going to rule until the war veterans are put into power. I thank you. – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Hon. Mliswa, surely it is very unfair that people listen to you throughout. – [HON. T. MLISWA:
Inaudible interjection.] – I will chase you out.
– [HON. T. MLISWA AND OTHER HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible
interjections.] –Hon. Mliswa, can you get out? Can Hon. Mliswa get out? Hon. Mliswa, can you go out? Can you go out Hon. Mliswa please? – [HON. T. MLISWA: VaMugabe makavaburitsa nenzira iyoyo. Mnangagwa kuita sei? Mnangagwa futi muri kuda kumuburitsa nenzira iyoyo. Manje tiri kuzvidira jecha.] – Order Hon. Members.
There is a Member on the floor please.
Hon. T. Mliswa escorted from the House by the Sergeant-At-Arms.
*HON. TOGAREPI: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I would like to thank the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee for the report that talks of the veterans of the liberation struggle. I believe, going forward, this report should refer to them as the veterans of the liberation struggle, not just war veterans because there will be a misnomer. The history of this country must be very clear that there are three groups of people that fought the same way to liberate the country of Zimbabwe, though they were in different groups. The ones we now call war veterans are the excombatants who fought using fire arms (guns), followed by war collaborators and there are those that were detained in prisons, the detainees.
Sections 23 and 84 of our Constitution together with the founding principles of our Constitution explain that these people who fought in the war of liberation, including the collaborators should be treated fairly
– [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Hon. Members at the back, order please – [HON. MEMBERS: Vanodherera Chief Whip wavo.] – Can there be order please.
*HON. TOGAREPI: I am saying these three groups of people liberated this country and our Constitution talks to the welfare of these people. We should not be waiting for a petition from somebody who would have noticed how the war veterans, the ex-detainees and war collaborators are struggling. We are the ones who wrote the
Constitution and agreed as political parties that we should look after the welfare of the war veterans because they liberated us. Some people would want to differentiate and view these war veterans as is others are more superior than other war veterans but the firearms would attack everyone the same way. Therefore, there is no war veteran that is more superior to the other. Burial place for a war collaborator or an exdetainee is not what is important but their good deeds. They fought and liberated this country, therefore, our Government must take note of everything that has been debated in this House that if we pay ZWL$350 to our war veterans, what are we saying? How do we think they are surviving?
I fought as a war collaborator during the war but I got an opportunity to further my education but if in the communities, I can see a war collaborator who fought for this country, who never had the opportunity to go to school or to work so that they can take care of themselves; they are living in abject poverty. As people of Zimbabwe, we should look into the welfare of these people. In elderly ages, you start experiencing most of the diseases such as diabetes and hypertension because of the war. We should take the war veterans as important people so that our children know the history of our country.
I propose that in the coming 2020 National Budget, Parliament should ensure that they are allocated enough funds so that our war veterans are taken care of. They should be paid a better living wage so that they can access medication, take care of their families and do everything they need in their lives. These people are not many, they are now very few. If we look at our resources, we should be able to look after our war veterans, war collaborators and ex-detainees. When they fought the war, they did not do it for one tribe, not for specific political party but they fought for everyone – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] – When we debate about the War Veterans Act, let us be united because these people fought for everyone. You have heard some debating that some of them do not talk about their background until they have been asked and you would realise that the old man that I saw at the beer drinking was actually a commander of the section that liberated this country. I do not think they are quiet but they are in pain and thinking that after all the work we did for these people, they are just looking at me whilst I am suffering. I feel that this report has touched on all areas that will allow us as Parliament to put in place a law that looks into the welfare of freedom fighters and war veterans.
In conclusion Mr. Speaker, most people politicise this issue. War veterans are freedom fighters who fought for Zimbabwe and no one knew that after the liberation, they will come back to Zimbabwe and attain positions. Some war veterans that are leaders in Government and others are not. There are others who went for teaching and others for different professions. Our Government made an effort and we have an Act here at Parliament. It is now our turn as Members of Parliament to craft and fast track that Act so that war veterans are taken care of. Government may put their effort to look after these people but if there is no improvement on our economy, it means the fiscus will not be enough to look after war veterans. We are representatives of the people, we also represent war veterans, when we contribute to the suffering of people of Zimbabwe; we are also making the war veterans suffer. I would want to thank the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee and his seconder.
Thank you Hon. Chairman for the report which you produced on the fact finding mission about the welfare of war veterans. I am also happy to note that on this motion, there is unity of purpose from all Members of Parliament of both sides. I am so glad to note that we are proposing that these ex-combatants and all who took part in the war of liberation struggle benefit from the National Budget which is going to be presented tomorrow, 14th November, 2019.
+HON. NKOMO: Thank you very much Hon. Speaker for giving me this opportunity to talk about the war veterans issue. When we are talking of war veterans, we are talking of people who changed Rhodesia to the then Zimbabwe. As Parliamentarians, we are here to talk about ways of improving our economy and improving the livelihood of war veterans. These people need to be respected because they fought for our country and we do not have to forget that they were fighting as a family and under one spirit. We need to respect war veterans, war collaborators and ex-detainees; we are not supposed to be separating them because they were fighting as a family.
In this House, we are not supposed to be calling them by names but they are freedom fighters. As I have mentioned earlier on, they fought as a family for us Zimbabweans to enjoy peace. People were fighting from all angles, for example some were trained in Botswana, some of them died along the way, some drowning in the rivers and others managed to make it. Some managed to train and they came back to fight for our country but others are still journeying and are going to make it.
As Zimbabweans, we need to remember the war veterans who died and that some of their colleagues are still living. We need to respect them because of their job well done; they fought as a family, women, men, boys and girls. We also need to appease the spirits of the deceased war veterans, war collaborators and ex detainees.
Lastly, their salaries and allowances need to be reviewed. I thank you.
*HON. KARENYI: I would like to start by saying thank you to the Hon. Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Defence and Home Affairs for tabling such an important report. I would also like to thank the Hon. Members who have contributed on this motion.
However, I would want to thank the war veterans for the liberation of our country. We are living a happy and peaceful life because of their sacrifices. The people who went to fight for the liberation of Zimbabwe sacrificed their lives and their families, some of them died during the war whilst others survived. It is my sincere wish that as a country we should take care of the families left behind by these gallant sons and daughters of Zimbabwe.
We know that it is in our nature that when we work, we work towards getting pensions when we age and in some instances, we are taken care of by our children. We have had instances where during the liberation struggle, an only child went to war and died and their parents were left with nobody to take care of them. I am proposing that when we are talking about the welfare of these ex-combatants, we should also include the families of these children who died in the war front. I will give a personal testimony; I was born in 1975 during the war of liberation and during that year my uncle from my father’s side called Goliath volunteered to go and join the struggle leaving behind a family and he never survived the war.
The child he left behind and his wife were never taken care of by the Government, hence my call for supporting these people in the budget. I have only mentioned my uncle by name but he represents many people who suffered the same fate and should be taken care of by the State.
I will now turn to the conferment of the hero status. It pains me to say that meetings and meetings are held to determine the hero status of the people we know that they were really engaged in the war of liberation. I feel this is a waste of time and resources; we should craft a clear-cut policy on the conferment of hero status. We have noticed that in our provinces, some funerals take long because people will be working on the modalities of the conferment of the hero status of a well known hero.
I will now turn to the health welfare of these war veterans, war collaborators and ex-detainees. I am proposing that they should receive specialised treatment at Zimbabwe National Army hospitals because they are part of the army and they were part of the army during the liberation struggle. They should receive this treatment free of charge because they have already played their part in fighting for the liberation
of the country.
I will now talk about rehabilitation Mr. Speaker under the department we call Psycho Social Support. Mr. Speaker, usually when someone is faced by a problem, it makes someone to go through trauma. Many of those people are viewed as insane but all these would have been caused by the experiences they were exposed to during the liberation struggle. We should have established a special department that concentrates on the rehabilitation of these combatants going through post traumatic stress. The treatment involves counseling and rehabilitation so that an individual maybe able to stand on his own and support his family.
Let me now talk about female e-combatants who deserve special attention because they have since lost respect from their communities. I talk about the women because they face unique problems unlike their male counterparts. The first problem that they faced was that as freedom fighters, they had to go to the war front and the second problem that they faced was giving birth. Another problem which they faced was that as young women, they had to go through their menstrual cycles in a difficult situation that sanitary wear was not readily available and this caused a lot of stress to them. I am therefore calling upon Government to give extra care and support to these women because of the post traumatic stress.
The report has also revealed that the process of vetting these war veterans has been hijacked by corrupt people who are disturbing the processes. I have noted that corruption is a really big problem in Zimbabwe but I thought this should only be found in financial and industrial circles and not in such vetting processes. I am proposing that when these war veterans form their new body or committee for vetting, it should be made up of deserving individuals – the ex-combatants and nobody else.
The report also revealed that some widows of these ex-combatants have been ejected from their farms and properties and I wonder who commits such an evil crime. I am therefore proposing that Government should take a step to reclaim this land and give it back to the widows and orphans. This should be spearheaded by the Land Commission which should carry out a thorough audit and reimburse the families so that they can survive on their land and not as paupers. I am proposing that those ex-combatants who did not benefit from the land distribution should be considered in this redistribution programme. We have a lot of derelict farms which could be redistributed to these landless deserving combatants and widows.
The report also discusses the education of war veterans’ children. It noted that these can only access primary level which is cheap but cannot go through secondary or tertiary education. I am proposing that Government should subsidise secondary and tertiary education for the children. The children should also benefit from the presidential scholarships to attain tertiary education.
In conclusion Mr. Speaker Sir, I am proposing that the welfare of the war veterans should not be handled on partisan lines. We have had instances whereby some of us think that war veterans only belong to the ruling political party, which is wrong. As MDC, we have a clause in our constitution which talks about the welfare of the war veterans. Government took a long time to look into the welfare of the excombatants immediately after independence. The late founder leader of
MDC, Morgan Tsvangirai in his capacity as the leader of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions spearheaded the welfare of the war veterans which saw the rise of leaders such as the late Cde. Chenjerai Hunzvi and the pay-out of the $50 000 gratuity. - [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] - Some of us may deny this but let us carry our research and the truth will be revealed. Let us shun corruption so that excombatants may benefit and improve on their welfare.
*HON. JOSIAH SITHOLE: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I
would like to say just two points. The first one is that we should understand that if the war veterans have to be recognised, we are the legislators and we should go to the people and educate them to respect war veterans. War veterans are a disciplined lot.
During the war, these war veterans had discipline instilled in them. If we want to unite as is always said by our President, kubatana kubatana, unity, unity, war veterans are the people who were told what is called unity because that was part of their slogan. So, even when we talk of working together as parties in Zimbabwe, the war veterans are the only people who understand what this means. Discipline was so important to the war veteran during the war that everyone knew what was meant by discipline. We know that war veterans are disciplined and do not just go into the streets to demonstrate. A true war veteran is not a sell out like Nyathi as he is well cultured and this is what we look forward to.
Lastly, there are those who have been mentioned that they need to be vetted. Our request is that the process be done soon so that we can be able to do those projects that have been alluded because the number of people involved will be known. This will help us in knowing the people who need assistance are because if we do not know the numbers and where the people are, the process will not be efficient. Thank you Madam Speaker.
*HON. SEREMWE: Thank you Madam Speaker. The issue that
is coming out with regards to war veterans’ welfare is mostly to do with land. A war veteran who does not have land should be allocated land. All the other things are a luxury, but if a war veteran or his dependant has access to land, that will give him a sense of self-esteem or dignity…
Technical fault
HON. TOGAREPI: I move for the adjournment of the debate.
HON. S. SITHOLE: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Thursday, 14th November, 2019.
On the motion of HON. TOGAREPI seconded by HON.
RAIDZA, the House adjourned at Half past Six o’clock p. m.
PARLIAMENT OF ZIMBABWE
Tuesday, 12th November, 2019.
The National Assembly met at a Quarter-past Two O’clock p.m.
PRAYERS
(THE HON. SPEAKER in the Chair)
ANNOUNCEMENTS BY THE HON. SPEAKER
PETITIONS RECEIVED FROM MR. R. MAJONGWE AND MR. L.T.
CHASAIRA
THE HON. SPEAKER: I wish to advise the House that on 11th
November, 2019, Parliament of Zimbabwe received a petition from Mr.
- Majongwe of the Progressive Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe, beseeching Parliament to realign the Public Service Act to the National
Constitution and to ratify the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Conventions 151 and 154, in order to match domestic law with international law and the State to be duty bound to ensure industrial harmony, fair labour standards and social justice in the Public Service and to strictly adhere to the rights guaranteed in the Constitution by the State and its agents. The petition has since been referred to the
Portfolio Committee on Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare.
I also wish to advise the House that on 11th November, 2019, Parliament of Zimbabwe received a petition from Mr. L. T. Chasaira of the People and Earth Solidarity Law Network, 6 Gloucester Avenue, Eastlea, Harare, beseeching Parliament to protect the constitutionally guaranteed rights to information and environmental conservation and the statutory right to access to the environmental information, especially concerning the capture of export or wildlife from National Parks. This petition has since been referred to the Portfolio Committee on Environment and Tourism.
HON. MARKHAM: Thank you Mr. Speaker. I rise on a point of
privilege. Two months ago, you ruled on an issue that audit reports must be laid before this House. As required and as a member of the PAC, we have requested an audit and a report on the Airport Road from the Minister of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing, in a letter to him requesting that audit report on the Airport road has long expired and it has not been presented. The report called for the special investigations committee report on City of Harare land sales, leases and exchanges from the period of October 2004 to December 2009. The reason for the urgency of this report is, the Airport Road was supposed to be completed for the World Cup Football in 2010 and it was not. The City of Harare contracted a contractor, Augur Investments and it was not done. ZINARA continued and paid for that road. The road is paid for at least twice. It is of serious urgency that the report is availed to this House. Thank you.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, order. I will proceed to engage the Hon. Minister of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing so that the Hon. Minister complies with the request accordingly. Thank you.
+HON. MASUKU: I rise on a point of privilege Mr. Speaker Sir. We are very happy because of the resounding victory in the two byelections in Tsholotsho. There was also a resounding victory in
Hwedza. This shows that as the ruling party we will continue ruling and people also know that the only party which is there for them and representing them is ZANU PF. We will continue ruling until the cows come home.
HON. MAVETERA: Thank Mr. Speaker Sir. I rise on a point of privilege whereby we would like to thank His Excellency, the President. We want to give special commendation to His Excellency for appointing more youthful Ministers and Deputy Ministers the Executive into Cabinet – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] – This is an unrelenting recognition of what the President did and is indeed an endorsement of the inclusive philosophy of generational blending where the young are blended with the elders. We would like to thank him for we understand this is actually in line with the philosophy of the new dispensation of making sure that there is generational blending.
I also want to congratulate the Hon. Ministers and Deputy
Ministers who managed to get into the Executive. We want to thank His
Excellency for we know that these new developments are a confirmation of the new dispensation’s commitment to intergenerational dialogue.
Thank you Hon. Speaker Sir.
HON. BITI: Hon. Speaker Sir, I rise on a point of privilege in terms of Standing Order 69(d). I seek your ruling that you direct the Minister of Health and Child Care to address Parliament on the crisis in the health sector. Hon. Speaker Sir, doctors are on day 69 of their strike and the situation in our public hospitals is a disaster with so many people dying.
Hon. Speaker, I was in Karanda Hospital recently and the little hospital has been flooded by thousands and thousands of people who are now leaving Harare, other cities, towns and villages to go to Karanda.
Hon. Speaker, I am also disturbed by the fact that the United Kingdom Government has in fact given special exemptions to doctors from foreign countries wanting to work there. I am afraid that unless we address the situation, we are going to lose over 300 doctors that the country trained, paid for to the United Kingdom. So I ask with great respect Sir, that the Minister of Health and Child Care gives a Ministerial Statement on the issue.
I also want to draw your attention Hon. Speaker that on Thursday, 12 November, the Minister of Finance will present a 40 billion dollar budget in this august House. Surely, I pray that the Minister finds in his wisdom that he gives adequate remuneration and funding to doctors and the public health facilities. Thank you – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] –
THE HON. SPEAKER: Thank you Hon. Biti, I will proceed to
engage the Hon. Minister of Health and Child Care, except that the last part of your request - I think that one should be reserved for budget debate. I will not include that one.
*HON. MATHE: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I rise on a point of privilege. Mr. Speaker Sir, people are facing difficulties because of the drought. Livestock is dying in hundreds and in one family they lost about seven cattle and there are about two or three cattle that are dying on a daily basis. Shortly we will have no cattle in this country or in
some regions. The main reason why these animals are dying is that there is no grazing land, there is no water. We have had no rains up to this time. I am begging this House, and from Members of Parliament, to look at ways and means of alleviating this problem, especially on stock feed. What we now need is an emergency supply of stock feed so that we can sustain these animals until the rains fall.
According to our culture, this is a form of draught power we use cattle instead of tractors. By so doing, we will be trying to fight off hunger. Mr. Speaker, the cattle we have are now so thin, such that they cannot be used as draught power, even if the rains fall. I am pleading with the Government to put emergency plans of assisting the farmers in ploughing their fields because cattle may not be able to carry that task.
*THE HON. SPEAKER: Thank you Hon. Member. I advise you
to ask the question during Question Time to the Ministry of Agriculture, so that we can get a response on the means and ways we can save livestock which is being wasted and dying on a daily basis.
Hon. Matangira having stood up to raise a supplementary point. THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, order, Hon. Matangira, I hope
you were not serious about that. We do not supplement a point of privilege.
HON. SIKHALA: I rise on a point of privilege Mr. Speaker concerning the events of the 15th October, 2019. On the 15th of October,
2019, Mr. Speaker Sir, there was an altercation that took place in the
City of Belgrade in Serbia between you Mr. Speaker Sir and a
Zimbabwean journalist called Simba Chikanza. After that altercation, it is now reported and also through an affidavit that has been deposited to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, (IPU) that you Mr. Speaker Sir, went and reported the said journalist to the Director of National Intelligence, Isaac Moyo that Simba Chikanza is a security threat in this country.
Simba Chikanza, Mr. Speaker Sir is a Zimbabwean who in terms of the Constitution is entitled - [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections] – Mr. Speaker Sir, Simba Chikanza is a Zimbabwean who is entitled to the protection by the laws of this country over the issue of his security. May you please guarantee, as he has raised a red alert that he has been classified as a threat to national security, that he is guaranteed to come to his country without harassment, intimidation or arrest? It is said that his classification as a threat to State security was motivated by your report to the Director General of CIO. Can you guarantee Simba Chikadza’s security in our country as a citizen of this country? I thank you.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, sometimes it is important that you
get the facts straight. Leaders of delegations to conferences such as IPU are accorded state security and I was privileged to be covered by the state security of Serbia. It was what the security in Serbia thought, to the extent that my security had to be secured, they did take the necessary measures including beefing up the security around my presence in Serbia. It is normal practice that the security services in Serbia are obligated to inform my country of origin of what has transpired. It is the communication between the security services of Serbia and security services here in Zimbabwe. They were obligated to give a report and liaise with the security services here in Zimbabwe. What transpires between the two organs is not privy to me. It is a matter between the two security agencies in Serbia and Zimbabwe. So, I did not make any report to the Director General of Zimbabwe Intelligence Services.
*HON. MATSIKENYERE: I have risen on a point of privilege. We educated our doctors through our own funds in this country and they have been supported throughout their university education. To my surprise, they are the people who are now betraying their country. I am begging this House to put some laws in place which will guide some people who will have trained in some certain professions such as doctors, nurses, pilots and other essential services.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Order, Hon Member, do not tempt me to
send you outside please. Hon. Member, you raised a matter that is connected to the point of privilege raised by Hon. Biti. When the Hon. Minister gives a Ministerial Statement, it will be proper at that stage to make that suggestion to the Hon. Minister.
HON. NDUNA: I wish to rise on a point of privilege. Thank you for recognising me. It is my suspicion that since the start of the new term – I have information that since the start of the new term, children at Chegutu High School have not been taught. The teachers go to school and sit in the staff room since the beginning of the term. It is my hope that the new Minister of Primary and Secondary Education, Cde. Cain Mathema gets to the root of this because it is my suspicion that it is not only happening in Chegutu but it is happening everywhere else. It has not been brought up publicly as something happening. It is also my thinking that the headmaster at the school is complacent because he could be aware of what is happening that children are not being taught Mr. Speaker Sir. I rise to protect the electorate of Chegutu West Constituency in particular and Zimbabwe in general, especially on this issue.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Hon. Members, issues of privilege must
please have a national character. May I urge Hon. Members that if you have a specific question like the one from Hon. Nduna, to put it in writing. It will demand the Minister concerned to enquire or make some research and report to the Hon. Member because it is definitely a specific area happening in a constituency. So, I hope you will put it as a written question and the Hon. Minister should be able to answer.
MOTION
RESTORATION OF THE ZIMBABWE INVESTMENT
DEVELOPMENT AGENCY BILL [H. B. 2, 2019], MONEY
LAUNDERING AND PROCEEDS OF CRIME AMENDMENT BILL
[H. B. 4, 2019], CORONER’S OFFICE BILL [H. B. 5, 2019],
MARRIAGES BILL [H. B. 7, 2019] AND EDUCATION
AMENDMENT BILL [H. B. 1C, 2019] ON THE ORDER PAPER
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): I rise on a
motion standing in my name that the motions on the following Bills which were superseded by the end of the First Session of the Ninth Parliament be restored on the Order Paper at the stage at which the Bills had reached in terms of Standing Order No 161(1);
- Zimbabwe Investment Development Agency Bill [H. B. 2, 2019];
- Money Laundering and proceeds of Crime Amendment Bill [H. B. 4,
2019];
- Coroner’s Bill [H. B. 5, 2019];
- Marriages Bill [H. B. 7, 2019];
- Freedom of Information Bill [H. B. 6, 2019] and
- Education Amendment Bill [H. B. 1C, 2019]. I thank you Mr.
Speaker Sir.
Motion put and agreed to.
MOTION
RATIFICATION OF THE AGREEMENT ESTABLISHNG AN
ECONOMIC PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN THE EASTERN AND
SOUTHERN AFRICAN STATES AND THE UNITED KINGDOM OF
GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you Mr.
Speaker Sir. I rise on a motion standing in my name that:
WHEREAS in term of Section 327 (2) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe provides that an international treaty which has been concluded or executed by, or under the authority of the President does not bind Zimbabwe until it has been approved by Parliament;
AND WHEREAS the Agreement establishing an Economic
Partnership Agreement between the Eastern and Southern African
States, on the one part and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Northern Ireland was opened for signature, at London on 31st January, 2019; and it will enter into force either on the first day of the first month, or on such other date as the United Kingdom and that signatory Eastern and Southern Africa States agree, following the deposit of the latter of their respective instruments of ratification, acceptance or approval;
AND WHEREAS the said agreement establishing the Economic
Partnership Agreement between the Eastern and Southern Africa States, on the one part and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, on the other part was signed on the 31st of January, 2019, on behalf of the Republic of Zimbabwe;
AND WHEREAS Article 59 (1) of the Agreement provides for signature, ratification, acceptance, approval and accession;
NOW THEREFORE, in terms of Section 327 (2) (a) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe, this House resolves that the aforesaid
Agreement be and is hereby approved. I thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.
Motion put and agreed to.
HON. MUSHORIWA: On a point of order Mr. Speaker Sir.
THE HON. SPEAKER: There has been some procedural hiccup on Notice of Motion No. 1, Hon. Minister, if you could redo that one.
My apologies.
MOTION
RESTORATION OF THE ZIMBABWE INVESTMENT
DEVELOPMENT AGENCY BILL [H. B. 2, 2019], MONEY LAUNDERING AND PROCEEDS OF CRIME AMENDMENT BILL
[H. B. 4, 2019], CORONER’S OFFICE BILL [H. B. 5, 2019],
MARRIAGES BILL [H. B. 7, 2019] AND EDUCATION
AMENDMENT BILL [H. B. 1C, 2019] ON THE ORDER PAPER
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you Mr.
Speaker Sir. Mr. Speaker Sir, I rise on a motion standing in my name that the motions on the following Bills which were superseded by the end of the First Session of the Ninth Parliament be restored on the Order
Paper at the stage at which the Bills had reached in terms of Standing Order No 161 (1).
- Zimbabwe Investment Development Agency Bill [H. B. 2, 2019];
- Money Laundering and proceeds of Crime Amendment Bill [H. B. 4,
2019];
- Coroner’s Bill [H. B. 5, 2019];
- Marriages Bill [H. B. 7, 2019];
- Freedom of Information Bill [H. B. 6, 2019] and
- Education Amendment Bill [H. B. 1C, 2019]. I so submit.
Motion put and agreed to.
THE HON. SPEAKER: Again, we need to be procedural in terms of Notice of Motion No. 2 because I needed to call for debate.
MOTION
RATIFICATION OF THE AGREEMENT ESTABLISHNG AN
ECONOMIC PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN THE EASTERN AND
SOUTHERN AFRICAN STATES AND THE UNITED KINGDOM OF
GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you Mr.
Speaker Sir. I rise on a motion standing in my name that:
WHEREAS in term of Section 327 (2) of the Constitution of
Zimbabwe provides that an international treaty which has been concluded or executed by, or under the authority of the President does not bind Zimbabwe until it has been approved by Parliament;
AND WHEREAS the Agreement establishing an Economic
Partnership Agreement between the Eastern and Southern African
States, on the one part and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Northern Ireland was opened for signature, at London on 31st January, 2019; and it will enter into force either on the first day of the first month, or on such other date as the United Kingdom and that signatory Eastern and Southern Africa States agree, following the deposit of the latter of their respective instruments of ratification, acceptance or approval;
AND WHEREAS the said agreement establishing the Economic Partnership Agreement between the Eastern and Southern Africa States, on the one part and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, on the other part was signed on the 31st of January, 2019, on behalf of the Republic of Zimbabwe;
AND WHEREAS Article 59 (1) of the Agreement provides for signature, ratification, acceptance, approval and accession;
NOW THEREFORE, in terms of Section 327 (2) (a) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe, this House resolves that the aforesaid
Agreement be and is hereby approved. I thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.
HON. GONESE: On a point of order! We have got a situation where we have a Portfolio Committee which deals with matters relating to economic affairs, which is the Budget and Finance Committee. My question is, whether this particular agreement had been referred to the appropriate Committee.
I believe that in the last Parliament, we had adopted as a matter of practice that when we have such agreements, they are referred to their appropriate Portfolio Committees which will then give us an in depth analysis so that when Members debate, they do so from an informed position. Whilst Members may be able to debate from their individual knowledge but as a matter of practice, I believe that it is more desirable for the appropriate Committee which is seized with the matter to have deliberations on the agreement, present a report and thereafter debate can then resume.
THE HON. SPEAKER: As far as I am aware, the requirement is
for presentation to Parliament and that is why in the Eighth Parliament you were insisting that you wanted to see the agreement put in your pigeon holes. If we are going to go that route of committees, then it will take years for us to go through the protocols.
This agreement is straight forward. In fact, it is part of the EU and it has been extracted from there; there is nothing new as far as I am concerned. The Hon. Minister can elaborate on that.
HON. ZIYAMBI: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. You are very correct. The United Kingdom is preparing to exit European Union, so they just extracted that agreement and then we have it with Great Britain instead of European Union. So, it is an existing agreement that was extracted from EU that we are now signing with Great Britain and Northern Island.
HON. MUSHORIWA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I think the Minister of Justice should inform this House what motivates, what is the basis behind us as a country going to sign for this agreement?
Mr. Speaker Sir, you will appreciate that Zimbabwe is a Member of SADC. You will also understand that we are also a member of
COMESA and recently, you will also understand that we are part of the
African Continental Trade Agreement. Now, the essence of it is that; for instance if you talk of the African Free Trade Area that we signed as part of Africa, where we want us as Zimbabwe and Africa as a continent to make sure that we liberalise the trade agreement, we also make sure that we have got access to each and every market.
It then boggles my mind if we then have an agreement coming in where we have European States Agencies and these States are defined as the Union of Comoros, the Republic of Madagascar, the Republic of Mauritius, the Republic of Seychelles, the Republic of Zambia and the Republic of Zimbabwe.
Now, if you consider the other countries that we deal with as a country in terms of trade, most of these countries even within SADC are not part of this agreement. Even within Africa, they are not part of this agreement. However not only that, you will reckon that in terms of the signatory, I think the first country to sign is Seychelles and then Zimbabwe. Out of these countries that I have mentioned who are part of this ESA agreement, my view is that it is prudent for the Minister responsible for trade to make sure that we do not need to have these piecemeal agreements. In as much as I agree that the United Kingdom is leaving the European Union, but truly we know that sooner rather than later, they are going to have an agreement - SADC and COMESA. Why are we pulling ourselves out of the regional blocs? Why are we pulling ourselves out of the economic blocs that we are part of? There should be a reason.
Just to show you Mr. Speaker, Zambia which is listed here has not even signed. We are so quick to commit our signature on any document that we want. I just wonder whether we are motivated as a country by just sending our officials there to get per diems and sign these documents without a clear thinking. If you then look into this; it does not read well even with the economic blue print that the Government is using. We do not think deep before we commit ourselves to this. It is to this end that I will require the Hon. Minister to explain to this House what Zimbabwe’s investment thinking is; what is it that we intend to achieve outside the other economic blocs that we are? Are we not disadvantaging ourselves and why should we be the first ones to run? I thank you.
HON. NDUNA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. First and foremost, I would like to applaud the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs for presenting this agreement for the expeditious signage or signature that they appended on this treaty. I say this with the background that we are a former colony of Britain and the de-investment of Britain or business which we then stopped doing with Britain because of the sanctions and other additives because they are our erstwhile colonisers, it set us back a bit Mr. Speaker Sir because the machinery that we used to use was of British origin.
I remember long back when I was in the military, we used to have an institution that was British Military Assistance Technical Team
(BMATT) and it was there for a good reason to be the transition to continue to have a British military style in the Air force and in the military Mr. Speaker Sir, not only because of convention and tradition but because of the equipment that we were utilising but aware that Britain was the chief supplier of military hardware to the Rhodesian forces pre-independence, we had to have that transition both technically and equipment wise. After that period of transition was over, we then became masters of the equipment that we had but when the sanctions came in, when there was disengagement completely; we even grounded some of the military hardware because the origin was Britain.
Now, the coming in of this business association and this treaty and agreement is quite welcome because the hardware I speak to and about is both aviation and high velocity weapons. They have a shelf life which can still be recouped and for argument’s sake, if it is a fighter jet, it is supposed to have a shelf life of about 3 000 flying hours. So, we could at the time of disengagement have just flown 1 500 hours on these pieces. So I am hoping Mr. Speaker Sir, that we can salvage these pieces of military hardware through the engagement with the British once again so that we can get what we want from what we have. We do not only have aviation pieces of equipment, but we also have hangers and equipment to mend and to repair the same hardware, which hangers and equipment were designed according to that hardware. So, it is my fervent view and hope that this re-engagement is especially championed by the new dispensation of the Zimbabwean Second Republic is going to see us salvage something out of the lost hardware that we would have lost completely if there was no such treaties and agreement.
Mr. Speaker Sir, we also lost because of that disengagement, a lot of our radar machinery since a lot of it was from Australia and her allies, who is Britain. It is my hope that this can now get to inform the Australians and the other allies of Britain to be embedded with us in terms of recouping the lost relations that we had that can transform this nation into an economic hub both continentally and regionally.
Mr. Speaker Sir, I want to also then say Britain by disengaging from the European Union, it does not give it less power than it had when it was in the European Union. They are still Britain whose power you know very well and it is all just incumbent upon us to stand on the shoulders of giants in order for us to see far. So, I commend the reengagement efforts and I also applaud the Minister for expeditiously appending his signature. We should quickly append signatures to such treaties now and in the future in order to get our country from the economic doldrums that we currently are embedded in. Mr. Speaker Sir, I want to thank you for giving me this opportunity to vociferously and effectively put across my points.
HON. K. PARADZA: Thank you very much Hon. Speaker. This agreement is a precursor to so many things and we are happy that we have signed this agreement and we are going to ratify this because it is going to open so many avenues for our business people and industries. It is also going to open a lot of things and it shows that Zimbabwe is now engaging. This is part of our engagement efforts and it is good that we have done this. You will remember Hon. Speaker, that prior to 2000, we had our EU quota of beef, 9 100 kgs/tonnes of beef which was going to Europe bringing us more than $50 million each year and this is part of it. We are starting now to engage with our erstwhile colonisers. So we are going to resuscitate that and you are aware Hon. Speaker that as we speak, the CSC is being modernised in preparation for the business to come. It is good that together with SADC, we are going to do business with the UK and it is a very good market for our products. Those who are in the horticulture sector Mr. Speaker Sir, you know that we had been sending flowers and peas to Europe and that was banned and now because of this agreement, we are going to resuscitate doing that to send our horticulture to especially Tesco which is a big supermarket in the UK. It is going to give us a lot of mileage and I think because of this agreement, it is also going to open avenues with other countries as well, especially the US which I think is going to see some sense so that we can also even sign a similar agreement with the US and other European countries in order to start trading with them.
Hon. Speaker, I just thought that I should commend our Government for doing that and the Executive has done very well in terms of making sure that we open these lines of communication with the UK. I think we should not waste our time debating this but we should just ratify it here and we go. Thank you very much Hon.
Speaker.
HON. CHIKWINYA: Thank you Hon. Speaker. I shall try and
attempt to address this motion on three parts. The first part is that it is very necessary and it is also a strong measure of the Government’s character in terms of consistency with regards to its policies. Hon.
Speaker, this agreement was signed on the 31st January, 2019 in London. Pursuant to that Hon. Speaker, we came back as a nation, went to SADC and managed to convince SADC that we are under performing because of sanctions. SADC took a resolution to mark the 25th October in solidarity for the sanctions to be removed against Zimbabwe, but in the backyard we were not telling the whole world that we are entering into such agreements and this proves inconsistency on our part.
These are the allies whom we want to be trading with and we are at the same time putting resources and chanting propaganda that they are putting sanctions on us. So we must be consistent Hon. Speaker. We failed to be so consistent to the extent that our own parliamentarians being motivated by the propaganda which we had churned to them, one of our own managed to actually come up with a motion which has been debated in Parliament and it is on the Order Paper, being motion number five (5). This is what the Hon. Member seeks to achieve and I
quote, “NOW THEREFORE –
- a) Calls upon the United States of America, the European Union and its allies…” and certainly Britain is part of the European
Union and is regarded as an ally, “…to urgently and unconditionally remove the illegal sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe at their instigation as these have resulted in horrendous suffering of the ordinary Zimbabwean citizens”.
My point Hon. Speaker is that we have put so much emotion into
the people’s representatives, including parliamentarians - yet in the background we are not telling the truth that we are not only engaging the British in terms of trade. Point number two is that I have taken note of the countries so listed here; Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Apart and with due respect from
Zambia, we are being grouped against countries like the Comoros, Madagascar and Seychelles which have got nothing.
The British know that we are resident with 63 minerals and it is us whom they are targeting. We must be able to rise to a level whereby we trade equally and therefore, it brings me to the issue that if we do not properly analyse this agreement, we are exposing ourselves to people who are seeing that they are getting out of the European Union and now want to seek allies whom they are going to do trade in their favour. I therefore seek that Britain should equally group us with countries like South Africa and Mozambique whom they are negotiating with on their terms and not group us with weaklings like the Comoros in terms of economic development.
Thirdly Mr. Speaker, I was looking at it if the British are genuine in that they want to trade with Zimbabwe, there are no terms of reference with regards to movement of people from Britain to Zimbabwe and Zimbabwe to Britain. We cannot be able to do business when we have got stringent conditions of movement. We cannot be able to do business when there are restrictive conditions of movement. If we look at the Malawians Hon. Speaker, they do not require a visa to go to Britain. So, unless we discuss the issue of movement of Zimbabweans going to the United Kingdom and the British coming to Zimbabwe that is when we can be able to discuss trade agreements. I thank you.
HON. MADZIMURE: I want to draw members to the fact that on the 19th September, this year the United Kingdom entered into an agreement with the customs union of Southern Africa and the countries involved there are Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho, Eswathini and Mozambique. They went into a preferential trade agreement that excludes Zimbabwe and this was after Zimbabwe and the United Kingdom had entered into an agreement earlier in the year. Now, you try to extract the reason why such an agreement was arrived at between
South Africa, Botswana, Namibia - excluding Zimbabwe and the United Kingdom, and we are celebrating an agreement where we are lumped with countries like Comoros.
It is clear that the U.K is protecting itself as far as resources are concerned. They are pulling Zimbabwe away from the E.U. Zimbabwe will now have to negotiate with the E.U and it will be Zimbabwe alone negotiating. When we ask for these agreements to be debated or referred to the Committees, we want to scrutinise these agreements on what is there for Zimbabwe in the agreements. As far as I am concerned, we cannot celebrate this and the issue of hypocrisy Mr. Speaker, how did the British even debate such an agreement in their own Parliament when here in Zimbabwe we are debating sanctions and castigating the British? How do you reconcile our own actions Mr. Speaker?
If there is one issue that I respected the old man, (may his soul rest in peace), he did not want to do double standards – [AN HON. MEMBER: Tsvangirayi] – Aaah, Robert Mugabe. He would stick to his guns and what we are now seeing here is meddling around trying to jump from here to there as far as I am concerned because how can we debate a motion on sanctions at the sometime debating an agreement between ourselves and the U.K. Where is the reasoning? What are we trying to achieve? What kind of re-engagement is this? We are actually sending a delegation out there to lobby including the Chair of the International Relations leading delegations. This is the contradiction that any leader would not want to see.
So, Mr. Speaker I cannot understand where we are going and where we are coming from. I have not heard even our own Portfolio Committee on Foreign Affairs complaining about what the British did; they signed an agreement with Zimbabwe earlier in the year and went on to sign another preferential agreement with other six countries that are actually of well-meaning in terms of their economies and lump us with these. Mr. Speaker, my concern is that as Zimbabwe we are quick to celebrate things that we sometimes do not even understand.
I would want to see that agreement even myself so that we can contribute meaningfully but there is no sincerity as far as this debate is concerned, because we are going to be left exposed. The EU are serious and those people are really serious. They will start looking at Zimbabwe and say, you have got an agreement with the UK so whatever agreement we had with the EU we have now to renegotiate. I rest my case.
HON. HAMAUSWA: I also want to add my voice to this agreement. I want to refer the House to the previously known as EPA agreements which were done between EU and African countries. These EPAs had many challenges that are well documented and I was of the view that we were supposed to exhaust those challenges and see whether this agreement is going to address those challenges. We had an opportunity to have a re-look into the agreement because they said it was extracted from an already existing agreement from the EU but African countries have complained.
Firstly, EU has been negotiating as a united front but entering into agreements with different countries, like dividing the African countries. This has been a big challenge. The issue is like in Southern African and I concur with my colleagues who are saying South Africa has been outside the agreement which Zimbabwe is entering into. South Africa is
a major trading partner of Zimbabwe. So by being bunched together with countries with small economies, it is going to be a big challenge.
The other issue is that the EPA agreements were criticised for restrictive measures that were imposed by the EU countries, including Britain. One example is phyto-sanitary measures whereby goods from developing countries are supposed to meet certain standards. My question is: - are our industries going to meet those standards now? How many industries from Zimbabwe are going to manage to send their products to Britain without facing restrictions? As long as Britain is going to come up with restrictive measures which will consider how our products are going to be manufactured, it is actually a big challenge to Zimbabwe.
It is going to be a David and Goliath kind of relationship where Britain will have well established industries, but Zimbabwe - because we do not have well established industries, we need to know the restrictive measures that Britain will put in relation to the goods that will be originating from Zimbabwe. This is one big challenge. There is another challenge that might arise because Britain will not be able to enjoy the market share within the EU, they would want to dump their products to African countries, including Zimbabwe.
So, we also need to be very careful in terms of the goods that are going to be dumped from Britain to Zimbabwe. Are they not going to displace our own products – are we not going to affect the industries that we are supposed to nurture? This is another big challenge which we should be wary off. We cannot open floodgates for well established industries to come to Zimbabwe. We need to know the specific products that are going to benefit from this agreement. Possibly, Zimbabwe will not benefit much.
I conclude by saying it was important for this agreement to be deliberated by the specific Portfolio Committee so that a full agreement is tabled before the Committee and some of the provisions are really examined to see the disadvantages and advantages of entering into such an agreement. Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir.
HON. TOGAREPI: Mr. Speaker, I am shocked for the first time that I hear from the other side that they would want Zimbabwe to refuse any relationship with the international community. It is so shocking and for the first time, I hear them repeating the language of ZANU PF but now, the situation that we are in is for Zimbabwe to have partners. If we are going to have partners like UK, it is going to open relations with countries whom we find in the Commonwealth and increase international engagement for the good of Zimbabwe? I do not find any argument that says we should not engage the UK and we believe any engagement with UK will disadvantage Zimbabwe.
*HON. HAMAUSWA: On a point of order Mr. Speaker Sir. It is important to clarify issues and to be honest. What the Hon. Member just said is not what I said. Maybe the Hon. Member did not understand what I said in English and so I would want to repeat what I said in Shona...
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER (HON. MUTOMBA): May
you withdraw that language which is unparliamentary?
*HON. HAMAUSWA: Mr. Speaker Sir, I withdraw. I was saying
that the issue emanated from our side and the issue is that this agreement was not analysed because this agreement which is being said that it originated from the EU and other parts of the world - I am saying that we are not refusing that Zimbabwe should have partnerships with other countries the world over. That is not what we said and because of that, I wanted to clarify that point.
HON. TOGAREPI: Now I am very happy that the Hon. Member
has said he is not against the agreement. If he is not against the agreement, there is nothing to debate and we should proceed with the agreement.
Hon. Biti having stood up.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: I thought Hon. Biti debated
earlier on. – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections]-
HON. BITI: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I want to clarify our submission on this motion. Firstly, we are not going to stand in the way of this motion by the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, but we are saying to the Government that the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union offers a fantastic opportunity for countries like Zimbabwe - but this opportunity should be harvested at regional level. Therefore, in our respectful submission, we should be part of SADC to negotiate with Britain and in the process of the negotiation, we should go beyond the issues that are covered by this small sub-agreement which in fact, as Hon. Hamauswa has said is just an EPA. We need exhaustive issues.
I heard Hon. Nduna speaking about something that is not in this agreement, which is military cooperation. It is not there in this agreement and that point illustrates that if we are going to have relationships with the United Kingdom, we need a comprehensive package, including the issue raised by Hon. S. Chikwinya, the issue of Zimbabweans access to the United Kingdom by having a visa free arrangement. It is not an accident Hon. Speaker Sir. It is not an accident that the countries you see on this agreement that are in the company of Zimbabwe are Mickey - Mouse countries without any financial power including ZAP, that is not accident.
So, in order for us to have power, let us have a comprehensive agreement negotiated in the context of SADC. As I am talking to you right now, the Hon. Minister will know that the European Union has started negotiating the successor of the Cotonou Agreement. These two platforms offer an opportunity for Zimbabwe to cover out terms that are specific and special to it. This little agreement does not say that, so that is the point which we are making that we can get more and we can do more but we have not opposed this particular agreement. I thank you
Hon. Speaker – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] –
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): Thank you Mr.
Speaker Sir I want to thank the Hon. Members that debated and contributed – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] –
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Can the Hon. Member be
heard in silence Hon. Members.
HON. ZIYAMBI: Hon. Mushoriwa was asking the basis of
signing the agreement; it is an economic partnership agreement that is the basis. I want to go to the second point whereby Hon. Members were saying we are members of SADC and COMESA; it is true Hon. Speaker. If we are a member of SADC, it does not bar us from having bilateral or bi-national agreements. When we are in SADC, we can have bi-national agreements with Botswana and South Africa, it is allowed and I want to agree with Hon. Biti that when the time comes for a bloc of SADC to negotiate with Great Britain; Zimbabwe as part of SADC will negotiate as part of SADC and that is well received and it will be done accordingly. What I also want to say is that Hon. Members were speaking to issues that are not part of the agreement.
This agreement that we are signing has its own aims and what the Hon. Members were speaking to are broad issues that are not in the agreement, so I believe that we must approve this agreement. It is well received that if Great Britain is going to negotiate with SADC, we will do that. As a bloc, we will have an agreement that is favourable to us but for now Mr. Speaker Sir, I move that this House adopts this agreement, I thank you – [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.] – HON. HAMAUSWA: On a point of order Mr. Speaker Sir.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: What is your point of order?
HON. HAMAUSWA: My point of order is that I realise that the full agreement was just put in our pigeon holes and we did not get time to go through it. What the Hon. Minister is saying is not true; those broad issues are there in the agreement. We have issues like the rule of origin and how the customs duty is going to be addressed. Those are the issues that the Hon. Members are supposed to debate. I will give you an example; here when we are milking our cows we use hands, Britain can actually say they want to import milk that was extracted through mechanized means. Those are the issues that we need to address so that the agreement is in line with the conditions of our economies. We were debating saying that in Zimbabwe, the informal sector is actually holding more than 8 billion dollars. So it means our economy is largely informalised but then we are taking the formal sector, this is a Goliath and David kind of an agreement where Zimbabwe is a David and Goliath is Britain so – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – so we need to unpack these rules of origin, we are not doing favour to our country, we need to unpack the agreement. We cannot just rush to sign this agreement without unpacking it. Why are we rushing?
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Hon. Members, these papers
were put in the pigeon holes on the 24th of October.
HON. HAMAUSWA: Mr. Speaker, I check in these pigeon holes
on a daily basis, I checked yesterday and there was nothing and the House was not sitting.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: But we have got other
members who saw the papers.
HON. HAMAUSWA: As you are saying that we must go ahead
and sign this agreement, you can proceed but you will not be doing this country a favour because the industries and the majority that we represent that are affected by this agreement, we cannot be able to debate on their behalf.
THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER: Hon. Hamauswa, I had
actually given you the opportunity to seek your point of order but now it is appearing you are now debating. I did not give you the platform to debate and I have ruled on your point or order.
HON. ZIYAMBI: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir, I had already concluded and maybe I may just explain that we do not debate or alter the format of international agreements. We debate on either to agree, ratify it or to refuse, not to alter the contents of the agreement. I also indicated that this agreement has always been there. It has been extracted from an existing agreement with the European Union. I also agree with Hon. Biti that should an opportunity arise that SADC is negotiating as a bloc or COMESA, Zimbabwe is part of that and there is nothing that stops Zimbabwe from having bi-national agreements with any other country because they are member States of SADC. So, I move Hon. Speaker that this House ratifies the agreement.
Motion put and agreed to.
MOTION
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
THE MINISTER OF JUSTICE, LEGAL AND
PARLIAMENTARY AFFAIRS (HON. ZIYAMBI): I move that
Orders of the Day, Numbers 3, 4 and 5 be stood over until Order of the Day, Number 6 on today’s Order Paper has been disposed of.
Motion put and agreed to.
MOTION
FIRST REPORT OF THE PUBLIC ACCOUNTS COMMITTEE ON
COMPLIANCE ISSUES FOR THE RESERVE BANK OF
ZIMBABWE
HON. BITI: I move the motion standing in my name and on behalf of the Public Accounts Committee, that this House adopts the First Report of the Public Accounts Committee on Compliance Issues for the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.
HON. NDUNA: I second.
HON. BITI: This is the Second Report of the Public Accounts
Committee on Compliance Issues involving the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe. Section 119 of the Constitution, gives Parliament power to ensure that provisions of the Constitution are “upheld and that the State and all institutions and agencies of Government at every level act constitutionally and in the national interest.”
Section 299 of the Constitution confers the Public Accounts Committee with unlimited oversight powers over all State revenues and expenditure. It states that
- “Parliament must monitor and oversee expenditure by the State and all Commissions and institutions and agencies of Government at every level, including statutory bodies, government controlled entities, provincial and metropolitan councils and local authorities...”
Accordingly, Parliament in general and the Public Accounts
Committee in particular has the responsibility to ensure accountability and openness of the State through oversight of activities of the Executive and its auxiliary bodies.
The Public Accounts Committee is constituted in terms of Standing Order No. 16 of the Standing Rules and Orders of the National Assembly which reads:
“There must be a Committee on Public Accounts, for the examination of the sums granted by Parliament to meet the public expenditure and of such other accounts laid before Parliament as the committee may see fit.”
In doing its work, not only does the Committee measure compliance arising from reports of the Auditor General or other reports but the Committee also looks at constitutional and statutory compliance in so far as it relates to financial and audit matters.
In short, the Committee exercises its oversight function by examining both the technical accounting issues as identified in audit report as well as technical legal compliance issues.
Background to the Inquiry
In performing its duties, the PAC relies mainly on the annual statutory reports compiled by the Auditor General and its findings on the level of implementation of recommendations by various entities audited.
The Committee in its work also relies on various specialised audits including Forensic and Value for Money audits done by the Auditor
General at the special instance and request of Cabinet, particular Minister or any other entity.
In carrying out its work, the Committee is guided by Section 119 of the Constitution.
Ultimately, the purpose of the Public Accounts Committee is to promote democratic and good governance in Zimbabwe as propagated by the Constitution.
Significance of the Reserve Bank Of Zimbabwe
Mr. Speaker Sir, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) is the country’s apex bank which plays a critical role in the economy of the country. The RBZ’s key functions include; implementing and executing the country’s monetary policy, management of the country’s payment system and currency and the regulation of the banking sector. The RBZ also plays the central role of being the banker to the State, a function which involves making payments on behalf of Government and in a limited way, lending to Government. The Bank also plays a critical role as a lender of last resort in addition to managing and regulating the use of foreign currency in the country.
Our first report to Parliament which was adopted by Parliament on 30th July 2019 focussed on compliance issues relating to the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development. It was in the process of gathering evidence central to our report that certain issues emerged, Hon. Speaker Sir, which made it necessary and essential to interrogate the RBZ on its own. These issues included among other issues the Government
Overdraft with the Central Bank and Debt Contraction by the Central Bank itself, quasi - fiscal activities by the Central Bank among other things.
Methodology
The Committee studied the reports of the Auditor General for the years 2014 to 2017 in so far as they related to the Appropriation Account of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development. From the observations, a few of the issues raised in this report required clarification by the Central Bank. The Committee therefore invited the Central Bank to give evidence before it.
The Committee was honoured to receive the RBZ Governor, Dr J.
- Mangundya and his team which included the bank’s Counsel, Mr. Webster Madeira, the Director of ZAMCO, Dr Kanhai, and the Director of Finance, Ms Mushowe on 4th and 11th March 2019.
Various issues were comprehensively discussed during the said meetings. These included the following issues
- The RBZ Debt;
- ZAMCO;
- The RBZ’s engagement in quasi fiscal activities;
- Bond notes and RTGS balances;
- Foreign Currency and Export Surrender requirements; and
- Securitisation of minerals
Bank’s Refusal to Supply Certain Information
As is normal in the work of every Parliamentary Committee, the Committee requested various information and documentation. The Bank through its Counsel, Mr. Madeira, undertook to provide a legal opinion on quasi-fiscal activities as well as the legality of the Bank’s export surrender requirements and the legality of the Bank’s use of the country’s minerals as securities for loans obtained by it. This process is called securitisation. This opinion was never supplied to the Committee.
The Bank also undertook to provide full details of all its activities and transactions relating to ZAMCO. This included full details and disaggregation by Bank of each loan portfolio taken over by ZAMCO, the names of the individual defaulters, the amounts thereof, and the security provided.
This information, in oral evidence, the RBZ Governor undertook to provide without delay. In fact, in the second meeting held on 11th of
March 2019, the Governor explained Dr, Kanhai’s absence as that he was compiling the information that we had requested. The Committee was shocked when it received a letter dated 18th March 2019, in which the Bank claimed that it could not disclose the disaggregated information, Hon. Speaker, pertaining to the RBZ, the portfolio taken over, the amount lent and the security on the basis that:
- Protected by banker-client privilege existing between ZAMCO and the individual defaulter whose debt was being taken over.
- That the RBZ was covered and protected by section 60 of the RBZ Act as well as Section 12 (2) of the Privileges,
Immunities, Powers of Parliament Act.
We strongly disagreed with the Bank’s position. We maintained in our response dated 12th April 2019, that we had the right to scrutinise any public institution before us as a result of Sections 117 and 119 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe. We also reinstated our right of scrutiny of all revenues in terms of section 299 of the Constitution. We are pleased that Counsel to Parliament agreed with our position because we sought the opinion of the lawyer to Parliament.
We insisted and communicated this to the bank through our letter dated 21st May 2019. We therefore want to restate as the Public Accounts Committee and as Parliament, that Parliament has unlimited sovereignty and oversight powers and the RBZ, like any other body that receives public funds cannot refuse scrutiny on the basis of some technical or fictitious legal arguments.
Mr. Speaker Sir, I want to state that after this report has been written, we subsequently received the information which we were requesting namely, information on ZAMCO. However, this report does not cover ZAMCO fully; we will come back to it once we have scrutinised that information as a Committee.
Mr. Speaker Sir, I now want to summarise the key findings of the
Committee. After going through the evidence, the Committee’s major findings was that the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe was non-compliant to a number of legal requirements. The following are the Committee’s findings:
1. Government Debt
Having received oral evidence from the Governor of the Reserve Bank, the Committee learnt that the bank owed a total of US$8.1 billion as of March 2019, comprising the following;
Treasury Bills used to acquire Non Performing Loans NPLs |
US$ 1.2 billion |
Savings Bonds (Money mopped from the system) |
US$ 2.8 billion |
PTA and Afrexim Bank |
US$ 0.9 billion |
Money Borrowed to support Government Overdraft |
US$ 3.2 billion |
Total |
US$ 8.1 billion |
I want to say that this is correct as at the end of March, 2019.
We know that they now owe the Afrexim Bank more than US$1 billion.
This is a huge figure Hon. Speaker, when you consider that the country’s external sovereign debt is around US$9 billion. The country’s domestic debt, Treasury Bills (TBs) is $9 billion. So, if the Central Bank is going to acquire $8.1 billion outside this Parliament, there is something wrong Hon. Speaker. So, we give a full breakdown of this debt Hon. Speaker in Paragraph 5.11 of our report.
The Committee also noted that the RBZ as of 11th March 2019 was owed US$ 2.99 billion as an overdraft by the Central Government. So, the Government itself also owes the Central Bank. These are the Committee’s findings Hon. Speaker on the RBZ debt.
Committee Observations and Recommendations
The Committee is gravely concerned with the huge footprint of the RBZ in the economy. The Central Bank is not Treasury; it is not the fiscus or the Ministry of Finance. Therefore, it cannot compete with the Central Government in accruing debt and in funding operations as we will show below.
The Committee is concerned by multiple sources of debt contraction in the country which do so oblivious to the requirements of the Constitution, the Public Debt Management Act and the Public
Finance Management Act. So our finding Hon. Speaker is that; only the Minister of Finance should be the sole debt contraction agency in the country because it is bound by the Public Debt Management Act, the Public Finance Management Act and the Constitution.
The Committee was also deeply concerned with the RBZ’s lack of acknowledgement of Zimbabwe’s laws and that it was bound by the same. We found it deeply amazing that the Central Bank did not recognise that it could not contract any public debt without the approval of Parliament. Mr. Speaker, we have just spent the better half of this afternoon approving an agreement in terms of Section 327 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe. All this debt that the RBZ has been contracting has been done outside the provisions of Section 327 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe. However, what amazes us Hon. Speaker, was the feeling by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe that it was not bound by the Constitution and it had no obligation to come to Parliament to seek approval for contracting these foreign loans, particularly loans contracted with the African Import and Export Bank.
The Committee was also concerned about the clear lack of coordination between the Central Bank in its debt contraction activities and the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development. This was particularly self-evident on the question of Treasury Bills where it was evident that Treasury Bills were being issued by both the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development and the Central Bank without coordination. On this issue Hon. Speaker Sir, we found that the two departments were not talking to each other. So, the figure for the debt by the Reserve Bank in its books is not mentioned or acknowledged in the Central Government’s books. Equally, the figure for Treasury Bills; the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development has one figure and the Central Bank has another figure. Our submission Hon. Speaker, is that everything should be done centrally through the Ministry of
Finance.
Mr. Speaker, I now want to come to ZAMCO and the ZAMCO Debt. The Committee noted that Treasury Bills were issued to purchase non-performing loans from banks in the total sum at the time of US$ 1.2 billion. The TBs are a levy on the Consolidated Revenue Fund and will have to be paid and honoured by the taxpayers of Zimbabwe. There was therefore a need to provide for these borrowings in an appropriation account to be approved by Parliament in terms of section 305 of the
Constitution of Zimbabwe; this did not happen in an Appropriation Act.
Treasury Bills became the major source of the budget deficit accrued between 2014 and 2018. They represent a major bypassing of Parliament. TBs also became the major source of the country’s domestic debt now standing at US$ 9 billion, creating a situation where for the first time in the country’s history, domestic debt now exceeds
external sovereign debt.
Recommendations
TBs should not be issued outside Parliament and without approval in an Appropriation Act. Hon. Speaker, this is very important. More than US$9 billion worth of Treasury Bills have been issued more than any budget passed by this Parliament since 2014. It makes the business of Parliament particularly what we are going to do on Thursday, of approving a budget when a parallel budget unapproved by Parliament is going to be run through the issuance of Treasury Bills Hon. Speaker Sir.
We demand with the approval of this House that Bills of Condonation should be presented to Parliament together with the appropriate supplementary budget by 31st December 2019. We recommend that the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) must be strengthened so that the role of the Ministry of Finance as the sole authority to issue TBs is cemented and protected. So, Hon. Speaker, we are recommending that the PFMA should be made clearer that only the Ministry of Finance and not the Reserve Bank can issue TBs.
We also recommend that only the Ministry of Finance should be the sole debt contracting agent in the country as we have recommended in our previous report.
External Debt
The Committee gathered that the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe contracted external debt amounting to US$ 985 million as of that time
Hon. Speaker, March 2019. This was constituted by the following; US$
641 million borrowed from Afrexim Bank, US$152 million from the
PTA Bank, US$ 25 million from Banco de Mozambique, the Bank of
Mozambique, US$ 9 million from the PTA Insurance Corporation, US$ 15 million from the African Development Bank and US$1.9 million from a mining company in South Africa among others, as shown in the table below:
Afrexim Bank |
US$ 641 million |
PTA Bank |
US$ 152 million |
Banco de Mozambique |
US$ 25 million |
PTA Insurance Corporation |
US$ 9 million |
African Development Bank |
US$ 15 million |
Premier African Mint |
US$ 1.9 million |
Others |
US $141.1 million |
Total |
US $ 985 million |
These loans were contracted at rates of between 5-6 % and for periods ranging from three to five years.
5.3.2 Contrary to the advice of the Central Bank, the Committee was not furnished with any evidence to show that the RBZ got consent from the Minister of Finance and Economic Development and this is important because the Reserve Bank kept on saying, we were authorised by the Ministry of Finance and indeed the Reserve Bank Act allows the Reserve Bank to act as an agent of Government but that has to be done in writing specifically. We requested for letters from the Reserve Bank offered by the Ministry of Finance authorising the bank to borrow and we never got those letters.
5.3.3 Loan contraction by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe was in breach of Section 300 (3) and (4) of the Constitution which obliges the Minister of Finance and Economic Development to publish in the Gazette loans contracted and guarantees issued by Government within sixty days of their conclusion and to present to Parliament a report on loans raised.
5.3.4 In addition to that, the loans were contracted without the Minister of Finance and Economic Development seeking on behalf of the bank, Parliament’s approval as required by Section 327 of the Constitution.
5.3.5 The Governor’s contention that approval is sought by the Minister of Finance and Economic Development and not him was unacceptable to the Committee as the bank has an obligation to ensure that the law is complied with. The least expected of the Central Bank officials is to remind the Minister and ensure that the requirements of the law of the land are complied with.
5.3.6 RECOMMENDATIONS
5.3.6.1 All loans contracted without Parliament’s approval should be presented to the august House by 31st December 2019 and all future borrowing should be presented as dictated by the constitutional provisions.
5.3.6.2 All loans that were not gazetted as is required by the law, should be published in the Gazette by 31st December 2019
5.3.6.3 As a matter of urgency, all laws to do with public debt contraction should be aligned with the Constitution to create one centre of publication, in particular Section 7 (1) (n) and Section 23 of the Public Debt Management Act needs to be aligned to the
Constitution and be amended to reflect the following:
- That no debt can be contracted without the approval of
Parliament.
- That the Ministry of Finance is the sole debt contracting office
5.4 Money mopped and converted into Savings Bonds and the money borrowed to lend the Central Bank
5.4.1 The RBZ borrowed a substantial amount of money, US$ 3.2 billion that was essentially to finance Government operations. The Committee notes that an expansionary fiscal policy forced the RBZ to actively enter that market to mobilise resources for and on behalf of Central Government.
5.4.2 The challenge with this process is that it was done outside
Parliament and the amounts were well above those approved by Parliament in terms of Section 13 of the RBZ Act. The Committee put it to the Governor that he had the duty to ensure that the Government complied with its own budget and the limits provided by Parliament.
5.4.3 The RBZ was adamant that, of the US$3.2 billion that it
converted into savings bonds, none of it came from people’s deposits in their bank accounts. The discussion that took place in the Committee was that the RBZ went and raided people’s accounts and took US$3.2 billion which was then used to support Government’s operations. The RBZ denied this and we make the following findings:
5.4.4.1 The Central Bank failed to act diligently in ensuring that the Central Bank complied with the budget approved by Parliament.
5.4.4.2 On the contrary, it appears that the RBZ aided and abated an expansionary fiscal policy which resulted in the huge budget deficits experienced from 2014.
5.4.4.3 The Committee also makes the finding contrary to the protestation by the RBZ that in fact it mopped up deposits in bank accounts for onward lending to Central Government.
5.4.4.4 Our finding is based on the clear and uncontroverted
evidence that the relevant companies and organisations whose deposits were later on converted into savings bonds, in fact kept the same in banks and not in their safes, pillows or offices. What we are saying is that the money that these companies had which was later converted into savings bonds were in fact kept into savings accounts in banking institutions and not in people’s pillows or houses – that is the money that was mopped and then later converted into savings bonds resulting in the shortage of US$, resulting in the clear inevitable creation of the mirage currency called the RTGs dollar and subsequently the bond note.
Our recommendations are as follows;
5.4.5.1 By the 31st December 2019, the RBZ Act should be amended to ensure that the Central Bank sticks to its original core mandate of any Central Bank.
5.4.5.2 For the avoidance of doubt, the Committee recommends
that the mandate of the bank should solely be: (i) Acting as a banker to the state.
- Managing the monetary policy.
- Managing the local currency.
- Managing the exchange rate.
- Managing the national payment system.
- Acting as lender of last resort.
Any other function that the bank has been doing outside these six key functions should be done by the Ministry of Finance and we cannot afford two competing Ministries of Finance – one in Central Avenue and the other one at 80 Samora Machel Avenue.
5.4.5.3 Through the Minister of Finance, the RBZ must report twice a year on all monies it would have borrowed within that particular year and monies lent.
5.4.5.4 The RBZ must comply strictly with Section 49 of the RBZ
Act that its lending must be backed by 100% reserves.
5.5 Government’s overdraft facility with the Central Bank
5.5.1 The Committee gathered that Government had borrowed
$2.99 billion from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe as at 31st December 2018. The Committee learnt that this money came from Reserve Bank savings bonds and not from depositors’ money in commercial banks. The bank’s asset savings were reported to be $3.2 billion and the tenure ranged between 2 and 5 years. The diagram below tabulates the State’s annual borrowings from the Central Bank from 2014 to 2018.
YEAR |
2014 |
2015 |
2016 |
2017 |
2018 |
Amount |
$126 373 713 |
$278 761 815 |
$941 815 033 |
$1 369 355 198 |
$3 004 842 937 |
5.5.2 An analysis by the Committee of all the amounts overdrawn by the State from the Central Bank and the revenues from the State clearly showS that the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe was in breach of Section 11 (1) of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Act which provides as follows:
“(1) The Bank shall not-
(a) Lend or advance moneys to, or directly buy, discount or rediscount bills, notes or other obligations from the State or any fund established by the State so that the amount outstanding at any time exceeds the equivalent of twenty percent of the previous year’s ordinary revenues of the State;
A 20% cap is put on the amounts that the state can borrow 20% of the previous year’s Government revenues. Mr. Speaker Sir, we found that throughout the period under review, the State borrowed above the 20% threshold. The table below illustrates the Committee’s finding:
|
Dec-2013 |
Dec-2014 |
Dec-2015 |
Dec-2016 |
Dec-2017 |
Dec-2018 |
Total Revenue |
3741041420 |
$3727189670 |
$3737068001 |
$3502166241 |
$3869956331 |
$5402099667 |
20% limit |
|
$748208284 |
$745437934 |
$747413600 |
$700433248 |
$773991266 |
Actual outturn |
|
35.0% |
36.5% |
60.4% |
95.5% |
109.6% |
So the levels of non compliance are huge and unexplainable.
5.5.4 The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Act also provides that
Government should repay the overdraft within twelve months after the
end of the financial year in which it was made. The Committee established that Government was in default as it was not doing so.
The Committee was disturbed by the continuous breach of the section 11 of the Act, and that the percentage of the overdraft grew significantly with each year.
5.5.5 Our biggest concern is that the Zimbabwean Central Bank is undercapitalised. It does not have resources of its own. As shown above, all the money it lent to Government was mopped from private sector, from people’s bank balances.
5.5.6. It is a fallacy to pretend that the Central Bank in its current position can lend to Government. This is just a licence of pushing the CB into embarking on creative means of resource mobilisation which includes interfering with bank deposit and export earnings.
5.5.7 Recommendations:
5.5.7.1 The RBZ Act should be amended by 31st December 2019 to repeal section 11 (1) (b) and ensure the RBZ does not lend to the State under any circumstances.
5.5.7.2 Until the repeal of section 11(1) (b), the Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe should not allow Government’s overdraft with the Central
Bank to exceed twenty percent of the previous year’s revenue as stipulated in the law.
5.5.7.3 Government must, before 31st December 2019 settle its obligations with the RBZ.
5.6 The Engagement of the RBZ in Quasi-Fiscal Activities.
5.6.1 The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Act was amended in 2010 to, among other things, prevent the Central Bank from engaging in quasi-fiscal activities. Furthermore, the Government, through the 2019
Budget Statement states that “all Reserve Bank quasi fiscal activities, … are being discontinued” and that public expenditure would be confined to the budgetary framework approved by Parliament. The Committee sought an explanation from the Governor on the legal basis for payments of grain, fuel and electricity imports by the Central Bank.
5.6.2 The Governor defined quasi-fiscal activities as activities undertaken by the Central Bank or any other institutions on behalf of Government at below the market prices. He argued that as far as he was concerned, the bank had not been involved in any quasi fiscal activities from 2014. His contention was that the Bank was providing foreign currency to fuel importers or millers at the market rates and therefore could not be referred to as quasi-fiscal activities. Mr. Speaker it went so far as the Governor offering the Committee a retreat in Victoria Falls or anywhere so that we will be taught the meaning of quasi-fiscal activities. We want to go to Victoria Falls Hon. Speaker. He highlighted that it was the role of the Central Bank to manage foreign currency as this was the case in other countries such as Botswana, Nigeria and Angola.
5.6.3 Committee’s Observations
5.6.3.1 During the oral evidence session, there was a disagreement between the Committee and the RBZ Governor over the definition of quasi fiscal activities (QFA). The Committee is concerned that the RBZ is slowly drifting back to the era of quasi fiscal activities. QFA create contingent implicit liabilities which the government is expected to fulfill there by mortgaging the nation’s future without proper approval and end up being funded by borrowings which leads to increased money supply.
5.6.3.2 The Committee noted that the RBZ through its Monetary Policy Statement of February 2019 continued with quasi fiscal activities through its procurement of commodities that included, fuel, cooking oil, electricity, medicines and water chemicals1. Procurement is the responsibility of central government.
5.6.3.4 On analysing the Monthly Economic Reviews by the RBZ, the Committee noted that a very high proportion of imports
(averaging 60%) per month, was classified as ‘other’ under the ‘Imports Classified by Harmonised Commodity Description and Code System’ tables as shown below for the months from November 2018 to May
2019;
5.6.3.5 The Committee is concerned by this unexplained high proportion of the foreign currency being channelled towards imports and would want to know the breakdown composition of what it entails.
5.6.4 Committee’s Recommendations:
5.6.4.1 The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe must stop engaging in quasi-fiscal activities and focus on private sector growth to help economic recovery. The RBZ should stick to its core mandate of
- Acting as a banker to the state.
- Managing the monetary policy.
- Managing the local currency.
- Managing the exchange rate.
- Managing the national payment system.
- Acting as lender of last resort.
5.6.4.2 The RBZ Act should be strengthened to proscribe all quasi fiscal activities.
5.6.4.3 To prevent the 9th Parliament from being saddled with another Debt Assumption Bill, the Minister of Finance and Economic Development should present to Parliament the full scope of quasi fiscal activities.
5.7 Purchasing of non-performing loans by the Zimbabwe Asset
Management
Corporation (ZAMCO)
5.7.1 The Committee gathered that ZAMCO acquired 1160 nonperforming loans (NPLs) with a value of $1.13 billion, over the period 2014 to 2018. The non-performing loans were bought through issuance of Treasury Bills worth about $ I billion. At the time of the enquiry, about 260 loans were reported to have been repaid leaving a balance of 882 loans outstanding.
5.7.2 The Committee’s finding was that the Reserve Bank had no legal basis to purchase the non-performing loans through issuance of Treasury Bills. The Committee submits that issuance of Treasury Bills is the remit of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development.
5.7.3 It is also the Committee’s finding that the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe through ZAMCO, had acquired the non-performing loans without Parliament’s approval. This was in breach of Section 327 (3) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe which provides that an agreement which is not an international treaty but which imposes fiscal obligations on Zimbabwe does not bind Zimbabwe until it has been approved by
Parliament. So, $1 billion has been paid but the money is coming from
Parliament and all we are saying is that anything spent by the State must be approved by Parliament through a budget such as the one which is going to be presented to us on Thursday.
5.7.4 The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe submitted to the Committee that the assumption of non-performing loans was based on the willing buyer – willing seller concept. Secondly, a bank had to be willing to sell a loan as opposed to resolving it internally. Thirdly, the loan had to be secured by an asset or acceptable security.
5.7.5 Contrary to this evidence, it does not appear as if the debts were secured at all. If the loans had security like houses, factories and so forth, they would have been nonperforming anyway because banks would have been able to fall close on the securitized assets. So that means $1 billion has been spent on loan that are totally debt because there is nothing to securitize the same. This conclusion was reached for the simple reason that commercial and other banks owed money would have followed up on the security pledged by the borrowers rather that sell the non-performing loans to ZAMCO.
5.7.6 The Committee requested the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe to submit information on ZAMCO relating to the list of beneficiaries of debt assumption, the banks involved, values of each loan, discount rates applicable, security pledged and the tenure of Treasury Bills. Despite several attempts and Counsel to Parliament’s legal opinion supporting the Committee’s position, the Bank has not complied. The Central
Bank’s refusal to submit the information stems from their argument that the information requested is privileged as it is covered by bank/client confidentiality. The Committee strongly differs with this claim. The demand for information on ZAMCO is being pursued separately.
5.7.7 Committee’s Observations
5.7.7.1 Part of the challenges with ZAMCO is that there is no legal instrument or Act governing the RBZ’s Non-Performing Loans as like with other countries like Nigeria. In Nigeria for instance the Parliament passed the Nigerian Asset Management Act in respect of which Parliament approved the purchase of nonperforming loans from banks and then provided the necessary financial muscle for the central bank to do so under Governor Samido. This has not happened in our case. So, the bank is doing this outside any legal framework and hence some of the challenges that they are facing. The absence of a legal instrument makes the process opaque and subjective leaving too much discretion in the hands of RBZ officials.
5.7.8 Recommendations
5.7.8.1 The Ministry of Finance and Economic Development should present Non-Performing
Loans assumed by ZAMCO before Parliament by 31 December
2019, for approval.
5.7.8.2 Parliament should issue summons to the RBZ compelling the Bank to comply with the lawful request for information on ZAMCO. (This has already been done two weeks after this report had been complied with).
5.7.8.3 An Act should be crafted to deal with the acquisition of
Non-Performing Loans which is the best practice.
5.8 Security Provided for the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe’s
External Loans
5.8.1 The Committee gathered that external loans, in particular to the African Import/Export Bank contracted by the Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe were being secured by the country’s future gold sales. Evidence submitted was that Government was paying US$ 5 million per month as loan repayments. These payments were being made against the country’s monthly gold earnings of between US$ 15 million and US$ 16 million.
5.8.2 The Committee’s finding was that the Central Bank had no legal basis to assign export receivables to repayment of loans without
Parliament’s approval. Section 327 says these loans must be approved by Parliament at first instance. Contrary to the Governor and officials from the Bank that sections 7 (1) (n) and 49 of the Reserve Bank Act of
Zimbabwe gives them the legal basis to do so, the Committee’s view is that all receipts from gold sales constitute revenue for the country, which should be legally appropriated by Parliament. It was also apparent that there was no limit set in terms of export receivables that could be used as security for the loans. We also came to the conclusion that there is no legal instrument in our country that authorises the RBZ or anyone else to mortgage the country’s minerals and to use them as security against any loan. We also noted that even in those countries like Angola which have securitized their minerals, in the case of Angola, this was a complicated process which requires a lot of forensic skills, which skills we do not have at the present moment.
5.8.3 Recommendations
5.8.3.1 The Minister of Finance and Economic Development should regularise the securitisation of export receivables as security for loans contracted by the Central Bank by presenting the arrangement for approval by Parliament not later than 31 December 2019.
5.8.3.2 In the absence of a legal instrument authorising securitization, the Minister of Finance and Economic Development must, by 31st December 2019, bring to Parliament a comprehensive report and strategy detailing Zimbabwe’s exit strategy and defection from all agreements where Zimbabwe’s minerals had been securitized.
5.9 Maintenance of Adequate Foreign Currency Reserves
5.9.1 Section 49 (2) (a) provides that “the Bank shall maintain sufficient reserves to cover one hundred per centum of its liabilities to the public, held in foreign currency accounts in any banking institution.”
5.9.2 The Committee’s finding was that since 2009, when the country adopted the multi-currency system, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe had never maintained foreign currency reserves to match the statutory requirements. At the time of receiving the oral evidence, the Committee established that the country had about US $500 million which constituted 3 to 4 weeks cover in reserves. This position is unacceptable as this leaves the country at great risk of being unable to meet its current account requirements or external obligations.
5.9.3 Recommendations:
5.9.3.1 The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe should by 31st December 2019 have built sufficient foreign currency reserves to a point where the reserves match the level legally provided for by the Act. Our export earnings this year are over US$5 billion and the RBZ through export surrender requirements is obtaining a huge chunk of this money. So meeting the reserve requirement required by Section 49 of the Reserve Bank Act should not be a problem at all.
5.10 Export Surrender Requirements
5.10.1 The Committee noted that the Central Bank was retaining export surrender requirements which varied from 20% to 80% depending on the commodity.
5.10.2 The Committee noted that at the time of surrender, the RBZ was using the exchange rate of US$1 to I bond, which has since changed with the various changes in multiple currency in particular Statutory Instruments 33 of 2019 and 142 of 2019.
5.10.3 The legal basis of the export surrender requirements according to the RBZ was the Exchange Control Act.
5.10.4 The Committee also noted that the export surrender requirements required that tobacco farmers had a short period of utilising their retained forex failure of which the RBZ would retain the amounts at the rate of 1.1.
5.10.5 It was the Committee’s finding that the legal basis of the RBZ retaining export proceeds was extremely tenuous.
5.10.6 The Exchange Control Act did not provide a clear and unambiguous legal basis for the RBZ to appropriate exporters’ foreign currency. In the absence of a clear legal exchange, Counsel to the RBZ, Mr Madeira, failed to provide a legal opinion justifying the requirements. The Committee felt that export surrender requirements were an unlawful appropriation of private property in breach of the provisions of Section 71 of the Constitution. Our strong view was that export surrender requirements are part of the country’s revenues and all the revenues are accounted to Parliament through the Consolidated Revenue Fund which is distributed by the Ministry of finance through the budget. Therefore all export earnings must come to Parliament through the budget presented by the Minister of Finance and not a parallel exercise of distribution outside Parliament and Public scrutiny as is being done by the RBZ at the moment.
5.10.7 The Committee also established that the monies that were being retained by the RBZ through surrender requirements were huge and ran into billions. The RBZ, at that time in March 2019 had the sole discretion of allocation of the expropriated forex.
5.10.8 It was the Committee’s view that any money received by any public entity must be appropriated through Parliament. Only Parliament through Section 365 of the Constitution should have power to allocate the same. This means the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development will have the discretion to allocate the funds through the budget, subject to approval by Parliament.
5.10.9 As pointed out above, the RBZ quasi fiscal activities are huge and are driven by this the export surrender requirement.
Recommendations
5.10.10.1 The RBZ must cease the export surrender requirements forthwith.
5.10.10.2 The RBZ must ensure that there is a free market of foreign exchange.
5.10.10.3 The exporters must follow the laws of the country and bank their proceeds locally.
5.10.10.4 The Ministry of Finance and Economic Development must source forex through traditional means which include the Income Tax Act, Capital Gains Tax, Value Added Tax and other revenue measures.
5.10.10.5 The Ministry of Finance and Economic Development must twice a year report to Parliament on foreign currency received and utilised which is implied in any event in Section 300 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe.
6.0 Conclusion
As a Committee, we note that the RBZ plays an important role in the economy; because of its importance, it must adhere to the strict provisions of the Constitution, the RBZ Act, the Public Finance Management Act, the Public Debt Management Act and other laws. This is important for the good governance of the country which is codified in Section 2 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe. We therefore trust that the authorities shall comply with the recommendations above and we, as Parliament shall ensure compliance so as to protect the Constitution and the resources of Zimbabwe. I so commend the report before this august House Hon. Speaker Sir.
HON. NDUNA: Thank you Mr. Speaker Sir. I just want to second the report by the Chairperson of the Public Accounts Committee, Hon. Biti on the Compliance by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ). Mr. Speaker Sir, I stand here to complement and augment the words in this report, which report is pregnant in terms of compliance and the timelines that he has given in order to adhere to the ethos and values of compliance according to the Acts of Parliament that we produce here.
Mr. Speaker Sir, any country is looked at and respected by the way it respects its own Constitution and by the way it respects its own laws that it originates. We cannot burn midnight candles here, originate laws for the good governance and order of the people of Zimbabwe, only for those laws to be assassinated willy nilly, with impunity by Government entities and quasi- Government entities. Mr. Speaker Sir, I therefore, want to say, Section 2 of the Constitution speaks to and about the supremacy of the Constitution. As I have said, we are respected by the way we uphold our own Constitution as a nation and any Act that is ultra vires the Constitution needs to be repudiated to the extent that it is ultra vires the Constitution. Therefore, Mr. Speaker Sir, in 2013, we did not put dates by which our Acts and laws need to be aligned to the Constitution. We lost the opportunity. It is now therefore, a process which was left open-ended and it is now incumbent upon us to pressure the Executive to align certain Acts of Parliament with the Constitution. This is where the lacuna presents itself, in terms of the alignment of our laws with the Constitution.
You will find that the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing but ultimately the Constitution is the supreme law of the land.
The new Constitution of Kenya Mr. Speaker Sir, speaks about the timelines by which types of Acts need to be aligned with the Constitution, alas, ours does not have that. That is certainly an impediment on our operation or modus oparandi of our Acts and our Constitution. Mr. Speaker Sir, the Chairperson of the Committee spoke so eloquently and so vociferously about a lot of issues and the quasi- fiscal issues that the RBZ is engaged and grappled with, which according to the view of the Committee, it is supposed to be acting contrary. Otherwise, I stand here to say exactly, the RBZ needs to come here and seek condonation for whatever transgressions that it has presented itself knowingly or unknowingly.
As I conclude, he also talks of ZAMCO Mr. Speaker Sir. ZAMCO in its defence says it was formed in order that it clears the bank’s balance sheet of non-performing loans. By so doing, it says, it is cleaning the balance sheet Mr. Speaker Sir and that is its primary mandate. It goes further to say that mandate, according to them, has been concluded. On further interrogation why they would have done so without seeking an Act of Parliament like Nigeria did as alluded to by the Chairperson of the Committee; they will go further to say Section 57
(a) of the RBZ mandates them to deal in the manner that they dealt. Mr. Speaker Sir, the Committee have none of that. The Committee would want to see that any Act is done according to an Act of Parliament Mr. Speaker Sir. If it has not been done according to that, the supreme law of the land which is the Constitution far overrides any other Act which is ultra vires what is imbedded in the Constitution.
The issue of securitisation of ubiquitous amount of mineral wealth – by the way, we are endowed with – like Hon. Chikwinya said, over 63 minerals and the largest belt diameter of the Great Dyke in Chegutu West Constituency and is 11 km. Twenty of those minerals are the only ones that have been extracted or that have been exploited but 40 of them, including uranium which if we beneficiated just a little ball will cause us to have copious amounts of ZESA and power here in Zimbabwe.That is topic for another day.
My point exactly is that as long as we do not put our money where our mouth is, our money is the ubiquitous amount of mineral wealth, we need to policy their inclusion in our economic development. We need to policy and put eyes on the ball as relays to the externalisation of our minerals. Externalisation means that there is need for authority to be gotten from Parliament if there is anyone that is going to securitise or externalise our minerals, even for the good order and governance of the people of Zimbabwe. So I agree with the Chairperson and also go further to say, on the 31st December, let all that has been securitised on the 31st December, let all that has been securitized against any amounts gotten by this country, in particular our mineral wealth be presented to Parliament without any further delay. Any further than 31st December; if that information is not availed here, I ask that you bare teeth Mr. Speaker Sir. If you do not have them, you will be given so that you expose the teeth and you bite these entities.
Coming into the revenue inflows and illicit outflows; the Hon.
Chair touched on revenue gotten in foreign currency form which needs
to be banked here – back in Zimbabwe. The Platinum Group of Metals; I am saying with a heavy heart that currently we are exporting the Platinum Group of Metals and we are leaving it to ZIMPLATS to tell us what is in there because we are not beneficiating and we are not refining our own platinum. The Platinum Group of Metals is quite broad in terms of content of minerals in those PGM’s. So, it is incumbent upon the Executive to make sure that in the absence of a refinery, we still make sure that ZIMPLATS banks their resource based economic benefit from those minerals back here in Zimbabwe so that we can use our minerals as a pedestal and as a platform for economic emancipation and enhancement. The Committee is very alive that this new dispensation has to be an upper middle income economy by 2030.
Mr. Speaker Sir, I want to thank you for giving me this opportunity to vociferously, effectively and eloquently back the Committee’s report on Public Accounts. Let us adhere to the values, the ethos and the contents of that report as it relates to the timelines given for adherence to seeking condonation and establishment of the Act that speak to
economic development of our country using what we have to get what we want. Thank you.
HON. TOGAREPI: I move for the adjournment of the debate.
HON. NDUNA: I second.
Motion put and agreed to.
Debate to resume: Wednesday, 13th November, 2019.
On the motion of HON. TOGAREPI seconded by HON.
NDUNA, the House adjourned at a Minute to Five o’clock.