The Sunday Mail
Panashe Mabeza
ZIMBABWEANS living outside the country should be included in the economic revival matrix, Speaker of the National Assembly, Advocate Jacob Mudenda has said.
In his closing remarks at a recent pre-Budget seminar in Victoria Falls, Advocate Mudenda said there was need to attract Zimbabweans living abroad to invest back home.
“We need to take a leaf from countries like Ethiopia, which sold US$56 million worth of infrastructure bonds to its Diaspora population to finance the 6 450 megawatts Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) being built on the Blue Nile river”, he said.
“I am still to be convinced on why we have not established a Diaspora Directorate within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade to tap into this fountain of foreign currency.”
Advocate Mudenda said the austerity measures prescribed by Government were not a new phenomenon as they had been implemented in other jurisdictions.
“Let me hasten to mention that austerity measures are not peculiar to Zimbabwe. In 2014, the European Union (EU) imposed austerity measures on Greece during its debt crisis,” he said.
Last week, President Mnangagwa said the austerity measures will soon be a thing of the past.
