Maravi

(HERALD) Mid-Term Policy today

Mid-Term Policy today
Tuesday, 26 July 2011 02:00
By Walter Muchinguri

FINANCE Minister Tendai Biti today presents his Mid-Term Fiscal Policy statement, expected to provide solutions to a number of challenges facing the economy.
Among other issues, Minister Biti is expected to deal with financial discipline in the wake of financial irregularities unearthed at Renaissance Merchant Bank a few months ago.

RMB was placed under curatorship by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe on June 2 after allegations that its directors and shareholders allegedly misappropriated depositors' funds.

The bank was subsequently closed for two weeks in May, for the completion of the handover and takeover process as well as the finalisation of the evaluation of various initiatives under consideration.

RMB reopened early this month after the curator announced he had completed the handover and takeover process.

Minister Biti is also expected to deal with poverty and social safety nets to cushion the vulnerable in society.

He is also likely to announce measures to deal with challenges facing most companies. These problems led to de-industrialisation in most cities and towns across the country.

Industry representative bodies, including the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries and the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce, have been called for cheap finance to enable companies to recapitalise and retool in order to compete favourably with imported goods.

Most companies have also called for the minister to review duty on raw materials arguing that the current duty regime is too high such that locally manufactured goods were being priced higher than imported ones.

The minister is also expected to deal with the issue of high expectations in the country against limited fiscal space.

He has been under pressure in recent months to award civil servants a salary increment but has insisted this is impossible due to limited fiscal space.

But Minister Biti has reiterated in recent weeks that he would not be presenting a supplementary budget to the US$2,7 billion 2011 National Budget he presented in November last year.

The Zimbabwe Revenue Authority announced in May that revenue collection for the first quarter of this year exceeded target by 11 percent to reach US$618,9 million, as most of the revenue heads registered an upturn.

Zimra board chairman Mr Sternford Moyo said at the time revenue collections were performing well against set targets for the period, despite the constrained economic growth.

Total gross collections for the quarter amounted to US$618,9 million against a target of US$555,2 million.

Value Added Tax and individual tax were the largest contributors to total revenues of US$242,4 million and US$134,1 million respectively.

This was against a target of US$241 million for VAT, and US$105,4 million for individual tax.

Zimra collected US$78,1 million in customs duty against a target of US$70 million, constituting a 12 percent variance.

This was an improvement from the same period last year when US$66 million was collected.

Labels: RBZ, TENDAI BITI

posted by MrK @ 6:12 PM