FINANCE minister Patrick Chinamasa last week admitted before Parliament that the economy was in tatters, but blamed the rot on economic sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by the West 10 years ago.
SENIOR PARLIAMENTARY REPORTER
Chinamasa equated the economic quagmire in Zimbabwe to a person knitting a jersey and a mad person destroying the knitted jersey afterwards.
However, the MPs challenged him to be explicit in his economic policy proposals and explain how he intended to ensure small and medium enterprises would turn around the economy as mainstream industries were closing down.
Kuwadzana East MDC-T MP Nelson Chamisa also challenged Chinamasa to explain if the government would be reshuffled given the failure to turnaround the economy.
“We are aware that our economy is not stable and that industries are down, and what are you doing as a ministry to help the nation as the majority of people believe that there would be a change,” Chamisa said. “Is the government going to be reshuffled because ministers have failed to turn around the economy?”
But Chinamasa, in response said: “First of all, I would like to thank the MDC-T members for admitting that our economy is down due to sanctions. One of the major problems is that we can equate this to a jersey that is being knitted by an insane person – whereby one does the knitting and then the other is undoing the knitting.
“I did not say who the insane person is, but when we are talking about the development of Zimbabwe, there are some who are there to develop and others are there to complain and destroy. These are the same people who are requesting that sanctions should be imposed.”
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When Chikomba Central MP Felix Mhona (Zanu PF) asked him to explain what policy interventions government had to ensure the informal sector deposited money in the banking sector and whether there would be attractive interest rates and tax incentives for that, Chinamasa said the government was doing studies to find out the size of the informal sector and how they could formalise it.
He said the 2012 national census showed that there were 5,8 million people working in the informal sector.
