The ManicaPost
Speaker of the National Assembly, Advocate Jacob Mudenda said on Monday Zimbabwe’s annual budget can easily exceed $10 billion if Government focused on domestic resource mobilisation though effective implementation of policies that promote productivity in the economy.
Finance and Economic Development Minister, Patrick Chinamasa last December presented a $4 billion, a figure that has remained unchanged in as many years.
Speaking at a Parliament of Zimbabwe post-budget seminar, Adv Mudenda said it would be folly for authorities to look to the Bretton Woods institutions for solutions and finances to drive the country’s economic rejuvenation.
“My firm belief is that through domestic resource mobilisation, Zimbabwe’s annual budget can surpass $10 billion. The question which logically follows is, how we should close the $6 billion budget deficit against the expected $4 billion revenue inflows?” Adv Mudenda told legislators.
Over 90 percent of the budget is going towards civil servants salaries leaving the remainder to fund the development agenda.
“We should be our own economic liberators. Countries such as China, Singapore or Malaysia did not depend on the World Bank for their development, they looked inward,” he added.
Adv Mudenda said there was a lot more Minister Chinamasa could have done to improve revenue inflows to government, which was not addressed in the 2017 national budget.
Ranking high among the issues the Speaker said the budget did not adequately address, was measures to empower small scale miners, who contributed more than 42 percent of gold deliveries to Fidelity Printers last year.
He said instead of focusing on repaying $1,8 billion owed to Bretton Woods,the money would in the meantime be better used to support local miners.
“My calculation informs me that capacitating artisanal miners to the tune of $1 billion, would raise no less than $3 billion to the fiscus. That is domestic resource mobilisation,” the National Assembly Speaker said.
Adv Mudenda said the budget also failed to deal with issues around exploration of Zimbabwe’s vast mineral resources, especially those along the Great Dyke.
“Our knowledge of our mineral wealth underground should facilitate the securitisation of our minerals on a back-to-back loan against a mineral concession or going the route of outright sale of some concessions on a pre-payment basis,” he said.
Minister Chinamasa must have set the tone for the urgent provision of a legal framework for the consolidation of the diamond mining company to harmonise expeditiously the diamond mining operations as part of our domestic resource mobilisation efforts, he said.
Adv Mudenda said the finance minister could also have as a matter of urgency announced measures towards revival of the now defunct Zimbabwe Iron and Steel Company, (Ziscosteel).
Government has only flattered to deceive regarding the re-opening of Ziscosteel after potential investors pulled out of a deal citing a variety of issues.
“It is my fervent belief that the steel industry is the hub of accelerated industrial development in our country. The nation was expecting a more pointed and time bound resuscitation of the ZISCO Steel Company which would guarantee efficient and sufficient steel production necessary for the up-scaling of our foundry industries and other downstream manufacturing entities,” Mudenda said.
Government also seems to be lethargic in its approach to establishment of Special Economic Zones, which are seen as a quick fix to addressing the country’s foreign investment drought, Adv Mudenda said.
“By now, investors should have been made clear on the incentives obtaining in the SEZs in order to encourage the flow of external funding through Joint Ventures between local entrepreneurs and foreign companies,” he said.
He urged legislators to be thorough in their critic of national budgets and not only rushing to rubber stamp them. – New Ziana.
