By Skhumbuzo SK Ndiweni| Dear Professor Mthuli Ncube. Congratulations on your new appointment as Minister of Finance.
We as Zimbabweans in Zimbabwe and in the Diaspora are shocked by the recent regimes of taxes you and your fellow colleagues President Dambudzo Mnangagwa and Dr John Panonetsa Mugudya have unleashed to already suffering masses of Zimbabwe.
Prof. Ncube, we in the Diaspora are also surprised that you, our brother who was with us for so long in the Diaspora
have turned a sharpened sword on US, with New Diaspora Tax. While the need for government to raise revenue is
understood, taxing the people to death can’t be correct, this comes with new 2% fees per every $1 for transactions
of $10 and above, the crowd funding phenomenon, the toll gates etc, this is too harsh considering the already
impossibly harsh economic conditions we live under as a nation.
Prof Ncube, we reject these new Taxes in their current form.
Allow me to rename your new taxes, Toilet paper Taxes, because that’s where they belong, not in the land of Zimbabwe. The Diaspora Tax is the worst of the Toilet paper tax regimes because:
• we were never consulted
• we are denied our voting rights
• we do not receive services from the government directly or through embassies
• we were never assisted in getting employed or to access the relevant documentation in our country of
residences.
We as Zimbabwe Diaspora Community therefore reject the proposed Diaspora tax with all contempt. The diaspora
community is already contributing between $1.5 – $2billion per Annum into the economy, so to put a new tax is
illegal double dipping.
Before attempts to tax the diaspora community, we must have been at least be afforded our constitutional right to
vote. We have a long list of grievances here in the Diaspora and this D Tax is like rubbing salt in our wounds Prof Ncube. Some of didn’t leave the country for greener pastures, we were pushed out, we are political refugees, economical refugees, some of us are stateless and All you seat and dream fit is taxes over our well-being?
The taxes including those at home are in our view immoral and must be reviewed or cast aside.
If we as a nation can’t put our house in order political, investment won’t start flowing as you wish, but reverting to
punishing already poor people with New Toilet paper tax regime is heartless and unimaginable.
Prof Ncube, more than 4 million in the Diaspora, we demand you engage us first in future please.
Give us our rights as citizens first, not threatening us from onset. We need to look into a number of issues we are
left out ON i.e. Voting rights, Documents like permits, passports, birth certificates for our children, access to Land, business etc.
In conclusion we are full citizens, remember the threats you are uttering don’t intimidate us, if we come to our
country of birth, with our children born in or out of Zimbabwe, will you deport us? To where? just because of D Tax
and greed from your government? it won’t work, it’s a bad dream, wake up and tell your cabinet to engage us in Diaspora and other citizens at home before pronouncing on your dreams.
How can we trust a government that repeatedly implements policies that fail, a government that does not listen
to its citizens? The bond note has clearly FAILED. Maybe you should consider the below:
• Eradicate the use of surrogate currency as it is fuelling looting of forex
• Government ministers to declare the source of their wealth and their assets.
#We Say No to Toilet paper, taxes & Toilet Economics.
By Skhumbuzo SK Ndiweni