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This article participates on the following special index pages:
Marange, Chiadzwa and other diamond fields and the Kimberley Process - Index of articles
Diamonds funding parallel government: Hon Biti
Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC)
May
17, 2012
Diamond revenue has been under-performing since January 2012 raising
fears there could be a parallel government in place, a government
official has said.
Presenting his state
of the economy report for March 2012, Hon Tendai Biti, the Finance
Minister said revenue collection amounted to US$287.9 million against
a target of US$320.2 million, whose shortfall emanated from the
under-performance of diamond revenue.
"There are challenges
of opaqueness. As Ministry of Finance, we fear that there might
be a parallel government in respect of where the revenue is going
and not coming to Treasury. This economy needs every resource it
can get including diamond revenue.
Diamond revenue has been
under-performing since January 2012, with only US$30.4 million received
by treasury for the period January to March 2012. This is against
a target of US$ 122.5 million," he said.
Hon Biti slammed Anjin
for not remitting any revenue yet it is the biggest mining company
in Marange.
"There
are four major mining
companies in Marange. One of these companies, Anjin, has not
remitted a single cent to Treasury. The Constitution of Zimbabwe
is very clear: all fees, taxes and other sources of revenue in Zimbabwe
shall be paid into and form one Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF),
so the constitution is clearly being breached because not every
cent is being accounted to the CRF. We bear the brunt because everyone
looks at the Ministry of Finance, yet people do not look at where
the money is coming from," he said.
MDC maintains that, there
be transparency in diamond revenue as this will turnaround the face
of our country's economy. Every Zimbabwean should benefit
from the proceeds of the diamonds in jobs, technology, infrastructure
and investment.
Hon Biti said the economy
is likely to suffer a decline in value due to the failure of Treasury
to realise budget revenue targets, reduced demand for export commodities
which affects the overall Gross Domestic Product (GDP) , the rising
imported inflation against the background of high oil and global
food prices and the general decline in maize production.
The minister said there
was a disaster in the energy sector with unresolved challenges at
Hwange thermal power station where the generating units have outlived
their lifespan by 21 years.
"The plants should
have been replaced and new generation plants put in place in 1990
but nothing was done. There is need to put up two new generators
in Kariba South to increase the generation capacity," he said.
On inflation, Hon Biti
said for the month of March, there was a downward reduction of inflation
and the month-on-month inflation slowed down with housing and education
continuing to be major inflation drivers.
He, however, said the
wage bill continues to gobble 70% of the total revenue and deprives
government an opportunity to attend to other obligations like health,
education and recurrent expenditure.
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