An organisation representing Vendors Initiative for Social and Economic Transformation (VISET) says Zimbabwe’s 2021 budget presented by Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube does not capture the views of the people.
The Finance Minister last week presented to the parliament a ZWL$421.6 billion for 2021.
“VISET, along with its partners, had also undertaken a series of pre budget seminars throughout the country and is disappointed that the views as expressed by people are not captured in the budget statement,” the organisation says.
“Whilst acknowledging the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on this year’s budget formulation process, we believe expediency should be no excuse to failure of ensuring citizens’ aspirations are the centrepiece of such critical processes.”
Ncube’s budget also seeks to widen tax regimes for self-employed professionals
VISET says the widening of the country’s tax base should not be at the expense of the ordinary citizens.
“Rather, Government should come up with policies that ensure there is a plugging of loopholes that unscrupulous people make use of in the smuggling of gold and other mineral resources, thereby depriving the country of revenue that could be channelled to the provision of social services,” the organisation says
“As VISET our attention is drawn to the proposed US$30 per unit collected by landlords for small and medium enterprises operating from business premises and view this as an assault on the ordinary man and woman trying to eke a living in these challenging COVID-19 times when most are yet to recover from losses incurred during lockdown. It goes without saying that landlords will simply pass on this tax to vendors and informal traders who are then forced to hike prices in response to this new cost.”
The VISET also feels that the proposed tax regime undoes any advantage given by the doubling of tax free threshold to ZWL$10000 as well as the increase in funding to the social ministries.
“It is also disheartening to see that judging from the allocation to the Ministry of Public Service and Social Welfare of ZWL 6 929 million, there does not appear to be provision for a comprehensive social protection programme to protect the vulnerable, implying that no lessons were learnt from the Covid-19 induced lockdowns when many households were left economically vulnerable,” VISET says.
“Given that we are still in the throes of a global pandemic, more resources should also have been channelled to the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare to better equip our health services.”
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