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The Securities and Exchange Commission of Zimbabwe (SECZ) says the Investor Protection Fund (IPF) decreased to $5,8 million as at September 30, 2015 from around $6,2 million last year owing to poor performance of the market. Chief executive officer Mr Tafadzwa Chinamo in an interview said this had not happened since inception of the fund and this shows a shift in the country’s money market. “The fund has gone down to $5,8 million as at September 30 due to poor share performance. “However, this is the first time that the fund has shown a drop since its inception and that is why we have shifted focus to safer investments like the properties,” he said.
The fund which was temporarily suspended last year as Government sought to boost the performance of the local bourse and the Central Securities Depository resumed operations in June and has its contributions amounting to 27 000 as at September 30. Mr Chinamo bemoaned the higher transaction cost on trading saying they were deterring investors.
“We have a problem of higher transaction costs on the market which are deterring investors. There is need for a review of those. At the moment it costs 1,693 percent when buying shares and 2,443 percent when selling which is too high when doing investments,” he said.
Mr Chinamo also indicated the that SECZ was eagerly waiting for the National Budget to see if the issue of capital gains on withholding tax will be addressed as this issue has continued to be a problem to investors.
“At the moment the capital gains on withholding tax is still not being charged on actual gains. “We are looking forward to the National Budget as we have made submissions on several occasions and we hope this time around the issue will be addressed in our favour,” he said. Currently the capital gains tax is being charged whether an investor makes a gain or not. — Wires.
Online Reporter