Government of Zimbabwe is working on setting up a $10 billion compensation fund to settle disputes and bring closure to the fast-track land reform exercise. On Wednesday, MDC-T legislator Eddie Cross told the visiting IMF head of Delegation Domenico Fanizza that government was working on a commercial farm compensation fund. He said the comprehensive document was given to legislators on March 1. The document was inserted in legislators’ pigeonholes at Parliament. In an interview on Friday, Cross said legislators were given the document and that the compensation included land, improvements, immovable assets, cattle and tractors.

“The purpose of the fund is to provide resources for the payment of compensation to former farm owners whose farms were acquired by the state under the land reform programme and to enhance productivity on allocated land. The fund shall be administered by the secretary responsible for land and rural resettlement.” he said.

Lands and Rural Resettlement minister Douglas Mombeshora, however, said he was not aware of the document as he was not responsible for compensation, which falls under the purview of Treasury.

(Resource of picture: http://sztqb.sznews.com/html/2009-06/14/content_660372.htm)

Ronald Chitotela (centre) addresses a Zambia
School of Management Studies meeting on the minimum wage in Lusaka

Government says it has sourced funds to facilitate the creation of 500,000 jobs for youths in the country. Deputy Minister of Youth and Sport Ronald Chitotela disclosed this on March 6, 2016 during the Kwacha good morning Zambia programme on Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC) in Lusaka.

Mr Chitotela said government intends to create 500, 000 jobs for youths through entrepreneurship before the end of this year.

Mr Chitotela pointed out that thousands of youth across the country have already applied to be considered for the youth empowerment fund in order to start up new and boost old businesses.

Government( Zimbabwe) has cut financial support to some parastatals as part of the efforts to deal with pressures on the fiscus and to force rapid formulation and implementation of turnaround strategies by the State-owned entities, sources have said. While the actual number of the affected companies could not be ascertained, the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development has already communicated that position.

Finance and Economic Development Minister Patrick Chinamasa said it was time to put under those parastatals who were not performing well, and we should learn from the successful experience of Asian tigers economies which include China, Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea to let the state-owned entities play a better role.

The implementation of Government’s new pre-shipment regulations under the Consignment-Based Conformity Assessment (CBCA) programme took off with a host of challenges on Tuesday morning. The new regulations, which were gazetted in December last year and require that goods be tested for conformity with required standards prior importation into Zimbabwe, took effect on March 1^st.

However the new developments have seen cargo piling up on the south side of the border with most importers failing to produce the required transitional certificate of conformity.

Bureau Veritas was appointed by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce for the verification and the assessment of conformity of goods in exporting countries. Its liaison officer for Zimbabwe, Mr Tendai Malunga said his organization was ready for the implementation of the CBCA programme.

Finance Minister Alexander Chikwanda says government is putting in place various measures to ensure mining companies declare correct profits and pay corresponding taxes.

Mr. Chikwanda says the measures include increasing coverage and scope of audits, recruitment of mining engineers in the tax audit team and increasing capacity for officers through specialized training among others.

Speaking during the questions for Oral answer session in parliament this evening, Mr. Chikwanda revealed that the specialized training will focus on complex things such as transfer pricing and use of copper prices on the London Metal Exchange.