ZELA partners Parly

TENDAI BHEBE IN BULAWAYO 

The Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association (ZELA) has entered into a strategic partnership with legislators as part of efforts to curb the adverse effects of illicit financial flows (IFFs).

The partnership comes at a time Zimbabwe is losing millions of United States dollars through IFFs, especially in the mining sector.

ZELA’s economic governance officer, Tafara Chiremba, said the organisation has a programme focusing on building the capacity of lawmakers on IFFs and taxation.

“The role of the committee is to play an oversight role when it comes to curbing money that goes out of the country through illicit means”, Chiremba said.

He said funds were going out of the country through smuggling of gold.

“The mining sector in Zimbabwe is very significant in terms of its contribution to the economy. But, smuggling is rampant in the sector, especially the gold subsector. So,the idea (of the committee) is to ensure that we strengthen systems of oversight and parliament comes into play,” Chiremba said.

He said the training programme would build oversight institutions capacity to develop motions or questions which lawmakers can” ask the executive when it comes to curbing IFFs”.

Zimbabwe’s mining industry is one of the top foreign currency earners .

Government is targeting to have a US$12bn mining industry by 2023.

Under this drive, the gold sub-sector is expected to contribute US$4bn.

“As an organisation we are happy to say there is so much energy within this , which in our view has got a big role to play.

So, we hope that at the end of this programme,  the members will be able to raise motions in Parliament,” he said.

Chiremba said natural resources are central to Zimbabwe’s economic recovery.

The contribution of mining to revenue mobilisation and sustainable development in resource rich  Zimbabwe and other African countries has been under constant threat from problems related to governance.