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(TALKZIMBABWE) Biti's statement is dangerous, treacherous and inflammatory: Moyo

Biti's statement is dangerous, treacherous and inflammatory: Moyo
Floyd Nkomo
Mon, 20 Jul 2009 01:58:00 +0000

FORMER Cabinet Minister and Tshlotsho legislator, Prof Jonathan Moyo has criticised the recent mid-term budget review delivered in Parliament on Thursday by Finance Minister Tendai Biti calling it manifestly treacherous, inflammatory smacking of a sinister agenda. In an opinion piece we publish today the independent legislator said the "sub-text of the minister’s review ... was more telling than his text."

Biti presented his Mid-Year Budget Statement to Parliament on Thursday, where he ruled out the return of the Zimbabwe dollar in the near future, increased the salaries of civil servants and slashed import duty on key raw materials and import duty on newspapers.

Former information and publicity minister, Moyo said commentators had reserved honest comment on the statement because "they feared that the sub-text of Minister Biti’s speech was so manifestly treacherous, inflammatory and smacked of a sinister agenda."

Calling the finance minister's performance in Parliament on Thursday a 'kiya-kiya', (less than average) performance, the former minister said Biti's statement "should not be left without scrutiny" as his party, the MDC, purports to be a champion on public accountability and ministerial responsibilty.

Moyo said Biti's "dominant and inflammatory sub-text" in the statement "was clearly anchored in his position and role as the secretary-general of the MDC-T with undisguised ambitions for higher office."

Moyo said Biti's "self-indulgent elite manifesto" ignored the rural poor, who formed the majority in the country.

"The plight of the rural poor and the urban unemployed who make up the overwhelming majority in our country and who have no chance of accessing any of the circulating multi-currencies favoured by the Minister of Finance was conspicuous by the absence of its mention in the mid-term fiscal policy whose text read like a self-indulgent elite manifesto," said the professor.


BUDGET STATEMENT: Finance Minister Tendai Biti outside Parliament: Thursday 17 July, 2009

Moyo also said Biti's presentation was embarassing as he "tripped himself over" by failing to differentiate between "excise" and "exercise" when he read the section on customs and excise duty.

He said Biti "also squandered an opportunity to be believed by incredulously promising to pay salaries to civil servants from this July when everyone knows that the Government will continue to pay only slightly increased allowances to its workers as Treasury remains broke."

Moyo dismissed the whole statement as very partisan and self-serving and meant to push the MDC agenda.

It abused the national budget and usurped or pre-empted presidential power, according to the independent legislator.

He also criticised Biti for trying to use the budget statement to reallocate ministerial functions, for example reallocating communication functions to the Ministry of Information Communication Technology (ICT) "in what appeared to be a misguided pursuit of patronage in the apparent hope of currying favour with Minister Nelson Chamisa within the now raging MDC-T power struggles."

Biti’s was also accused of abusing the national budget to support "Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s American-sponsored glossy and controversial newsletter and the local distribution of a partisan newspaper based in Britain called The Zimbabwean.".

Biti slashed all customs duty on newspapers "again for patronage purposes with everything to do with MDC-T internal power struggles" said Moyo.

Moyo said Biti's decision to slash import duty on newspapers had violated Government business which has its processes, and was "a deliberate and irresponsible attack on our national security and a naked sabotage of our economic interests in the so-called global village in which other enlightened and democratic countries like India levy duty on newspapers."

He said Biti had obliged to The Zimbabwean newspaper's campaign for the removal of the 40 per cent duty.

The "MDC-T-affiliated newspaper which is published in Britain by sworn enemies of Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle and nationalist interests, has been openly campaigning for the removal of the current 40 percent duty. Minister Biti has obliged. It now remains to be seen what the rest of us will do."

Moyo concluded that Biti's statement "s very dangerous and totally unacceptable" and "very dangerous for democratic governance, the rule of law and political stability in the country."

posted by MrK @ 3:20 PM