HARARE - Government has gazetted the Sovereign Wealth Fund of Zimbabwe Bill and the Biological and Toxin Weapons Crimes Bill, clearing the way for the bills to be tabled in Parliament.
Cabinet in November last year, approved the Sovereign Wealth Fund of Zimbabwe Bill which will fund the Government’s economic blueprint Zim Asset (Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation).
The Fund will be anchored by the country’s mineral resources.
The latest Government Gazette published last Friday, carries the Sovereign Wealth Fund of Zimbabwe Bill and this means it is now set to be tabled before parliament for debate.
According to section 13 and section 14 of the draft Bill, a portion not exceeding 25 percent of royalties payable in accordance with Chapter VII (Mining Royalties, Duty and Fees) of the Finance Act (Chapter 22:04) in respect of minerals such as gold, diamonds, coal, methane, nickel, chrome and platinum will be pooled in the Fund.
Also, 25 percent of the “special dividend on the sales of diamonds, gas, granite and other extractable minerals by or on behalf of the Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe that is payable by the Corporation to the Consolidated Revenue Fund pursuant to section 33 of the Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation Act”, will be harvested for the Fund.
The sovereign wealth fund will finance identified State enterprises that will be key in facilitating economic growth.
In the manufacturing sector development finance institutions such the Infrastructural Development Bank of Zimbabwe, the Industrial Development Corporation, and the Small Enterprises Development Corporation will be financed.
For the agriculture sector, the Grain Marketing Board, the Agriculture Marketing Authority, Agribank and the Agriculture Rural Development Authority will be recapitalised to stimulate productivity and safeguard food security.
In the mining sector, the Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation and Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe will be capacitated.
The Biological and Toxin Weapons Crimes Bill seeks to prohibit the development, production, manufacture, possession, stockpiling, acquisition, importation, exportation and use of certain biological agents and toxins and of biological weapons.
This is in compliance with the United Nations Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological and Toxin Weapons and on their destruction signed on April 10, 1972 to which Zimbabwe is a signatory.