Delays in implementing laws to boost economy causes concern

In an interview in Victoria Falls on Sunday, Eng Mzembi said players in the tourism industry had informed him that they were yet to benefit from laws promulgated by Government meant to boost the growth of the industry because the Ministry of Finance was yet to operationalise the laws.
Minister Mzembi said Government had come up with Statutory Instrument 124 that exempts players in the tourism industry from paying duty for capital goods meant to refurbish and upgrade facilities such as hotels and lodges.
He said another piece of legislation meant to benefit the sector was Statutory Instrument 125 also meant to exempt players in the industry from paying duty when importing specialised safari vehicles.
“These two pieces of legislation are yet to be operationalised by the Ministry of Finance and I only learnt this from players in the industry,” said Minister Mzembi.
He said he did not understand why it was taking long to operationalise legislation so that players in the industry could start benefiting from these special facilities put in place by Government.
“These delays are obviously impacting negatively on the growth of the industry and there is urgent need for the Ministry of Finance to put in place mechanisms to speed up the operationalisation of these legal instruments.
“Once a Statutory Instrument has been promulgated it should immediately become operational. There is no logic for the industry to wait for say four months to benefit from such facilities,” said Minister Mzembi.
He said to avoid further prejudicing players in the tourism industry, he had instructed the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) to start processing applications from companies that want to benefit from the duty exemption facility.
“Four weeks ago, I summoned all stakeholders and we agreed that once a week, on Thursdays, they do the vetting and processing of all applications made through ZTA by operators wanting to benefit from this duty exemption,” said Minister Mzembi.
He said the duty exemption facility should run beyond 2013 to enable operators to prepare adequately for the hosting of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation General Assembly.
He said Government realised that for operators to take advantage of the duty exemption to upgrade their facilities as well as buy the required vehicles, there was need to avail attractive financial packages to the sector.
The Minister said in this regard his Ministry was working with other stakeholders that included international financial institutions and promised that come end of January the financial package will be available to provide loans to operators.
“We need to set a deadline for re-tooling and for re-packaging but, that, however, can only be feasible if operators have access to loans,” said Minister Mzembi.