Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Budget, Finance and Investment Promotion chairperson Paddy Zhanda on Tuesday blasted the country’s financial sector for lack of discipline and demanded that the sector urgently compensates all people who lost their Zimbabwean dollar savings during the switch-over to the multi-currency system.
Debating the Finance Bill in the House of Assembly, Zhanda said a lot of people had lost confidence in the banking sector after they lost out on their savings.
“They thought it was safe only to be told their money was no longer there and to assume people will go to the same door and leave their money there is a lie,” Zhanda said.
“This is where the human hand is missing and this is not a time to play politics.
“Some of the things happening in the financial services sector are criminal and for government to fold its arms and not take action where transactions took place, I think government is not doing enough.” Uzumba MP Simbaneuta Mudarikwa (Zanu PF) echoed Zhanda’s sentiments.
“We have serious problems in the financial services sector as there is lack of discipline, and if I draw you back to the time when people lost money during the hyperinflation days — and it only happens in this country and it will only happen in this country for people to just wake up in the morning and find nothing in their banks, but still continue to behave as if nothing has happened to them,” Mudarikwa said.
“In countries like Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan where there is war, people die and homes are destroyed but people’s money is still in the bank, yet in our case to just assume these issues before us will vanish into thin air and go away is daydreaming because they will never go away since there are people who lost money and they will never forget that.
“It is important that the Zimbabwean dollar compensation be paid and we should start by paying people in the rural areas and we pay them at whatever rate so that when they die they do not come back to us.”
