‘Parly bystanders on economic decisions’

MOSES MATENGA

 

Parliament has been shut out of key decisions that affect the country’s economic policies with existing laws giving more powers to the President and the Finance Minister, it has emerged.

Lawyer and former Finance Minister Tendai Biti this week said the lawmakers need to take back powers to act on policies that affect the economy as most done in the past have had consequences to millions of people, mainly pensioners.

He said the recent ruling in the High Court where judge Justice Martin Mafusire ordered Central Africa Building Society (CABS) bank to pay an architectural company, Stone/Beatie Studio US$142 000, ending a dispute that has been raging for seven years, will benefit many if confirmed by the Constitutional Court.

“The majority and by far the majority of laws affecting the economy in Zimbabwe have not been made by Parliament but through Statutory Instruments,” he said.

“Some of them by the President using the Presidential Powers (Temporary Measures) Act. Parliament has been reduced to being an innocent bystander. They are laws used to bypass Parliament. We are watching from the terraces as Parliament,” Biti said.

The High Court ruling came after business partners Penelope Douglas Stone and Richard Harold Stuart Beatie, represented by Biti took CABS (first respondent), the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) (second respondent) and the Ministry of Finance (third respondent) to court over US$142 000 deposited in its business account.

“However, all balances that were in US$ became RTGS immediately and this meant, anyone with a bank account with US$ suddenly became a holder of a local currency account. My clients said no, we deposited US$ and suddenly we cannot have a creature called the RTGS,” Biti said.

“The case they presented in court was that if we leave you with my cow and ask you to look after it, you cannot give me a goat in return or mangoes. Many Zimbabweans were saying the same thing. The court then ruled to say a cow is a cow,” the former Finance Minister in the inclusive government said.

Biti said they attached a press statement by President Emmerson Mnangagwa in May 2022 that said people had to be compensated.

The judgement, Biti said, is now awaiting the Constitutional Court to confirm it and once done, a lot of people affected, mainly pensioners will benefit.

“We had pensions paid in US$. They (pensioners) woke up receiving RTGS balances and this judgement, if it is confirmed by the Constitutional Court, will benefit them tremendously. They are people who made investments and bought shares in US$, this judgement will help them, it will help a lot of people.”

“They are people who have been paying US$ pensions since 2009, they will also benefit.”

“My clients are two architects in Harare and run a studio that deals in designing buildings and they have designed many big buildings. In 2018, they had US$142k sitting in their bank accounts and as you know, in 2018, we were using the US$ as legal tender. They are fairly elderly so I would have thought they would treat that as pension money.”

“On the first of October 2018, the central bank released an exchange control directive number 120 of 2018 to advise banks on know your customer basis to separate Foreign Currency Account Nostro and RTGS Nostro. My clients were worried and said are we not back to 2007/8 and they wrote to CABS and said “freeze our money, do not touch it, do not do anything and keep it as US$.”

Biti said in 2019, the central bank issued Statutory Instrument 33 of 2019 that introduced the local currency called RTGS which is one to one with the US$.

 

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