Finance Minister sticks to guns

FINANCE, Economic Development and Investment Promotion Minister Mthuli Ncube will not let up on his proposal to only allow registered and tax-compliant players to buy from the manufacturing sector.

In its 2024 National Budget Response Paper (Response Paper), the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) had said the decision to allow only registered and tax-compliant players to buy from the manufacturing sector will have serious implications on manufacturing business viabilities, especially due to curtailed ability to push volumes.

The Business Member Organisation (BMO) said if the new measure is enforced as announced, current models of operations that were being used to drive demand will no longer be possible. To push volumes, manufacturers were putting in place various strategies including arrangements with pushcart vendors as well as selling groceries through tuck shops. But debating the Finance Bill in Parliament on Thursday, Minister Ncube said the proposal “is how we begin to formalise them.”

“We think that this will do part of the trick but we need to build stalls as Government so that it is easy to find these SMEs operators.

“We will do that but we feel that the measures we are proposing, if fully implemented, will need to contribute to the formalisation agenda,” said Minister Ncube.

The Finance Ministry boss, however, said the two cents sugar tax was actually a mistake.

“We made a mistake in that calculation, those are the facts. It should be 0,2 percent, which means that if you have got a can of Coca-Cola, if it is 300ml, it has got about 135 grams of sugar in it, so 0,2 cents, that means an extra seven cents on that can of Coca-Cola, that is what it translates to.

“I do not think seven cents is a big deal Mr Speaker Sir. Surely that is affordable, let us support this cancer fund effort.” -BH24