Shopping trips to South Africa may in the next few months
become a thing of the past.
The Business Economic Empowerment Forum (BEEF) has proposed
the establishment of 20 mega warehouses at Beitbridge Border Post in a bid to
curb unnecessary and illegal crossing into South Africa for basic goods.
BEEF president, Solomon Matsa told Two Nations in an
exclusive interview that his organization has come up with a 10-point plan to
deal with increasing illegal border crossings and establish a price control
mechanism.
He said the plan revolves around the establishment of
Beitbridge as a special industrial zone where at least 20 investors can build
warehouses which import tax free goods from South Africa.
A business expert told Two Nations that it will become virtually
unnecessary for people to travel to South once goods are available in
Beitbridge. He said such a business model will serve Zimbabweans a lot of time
and money.
The warehouse owners will then pay Government at least 2%
of their sales and VAT after selling their products.
Matsa said the warehouse owners would be required to
gazette their commodities in stock and their prices. The prices will have a
baseline after considering transport and warehousing costs which in turn
entails the provision of cheap products nationwide while deterring people from
illegally crossing the border into South Africa.
“Most Zimbabweans are illegally crossing the border into
South Africa for different economic reasons. The Government can curb this by
establishing a tax free import industry in Beitbridge since the investors pay
VAT after selling the goods.
“The investors can also pay 2% of their sales to
Government. The prices will have a baseline considering transport and
warehousing costs,” said Matsa.
The BEEF 10-point plan
Allow Zimbabwean companies to build warehouses for South
African products at Beitbridge. (It will take a maximum of 2 months to build
such a warehouse)
Give investors in the Special Zone import incentives of
zero duty and zero vat. Vat will be paid to the State after sales.
Remove Bureau Veritas to reduce cost of goods.
This will avail cheaper goods to Beitbridge that will be
sold in the rest of the country instead of people crossing the Limpopo.
Allow trucks carrying the special zone goods maximum time of
6 hours for clearance. The goods must move in as express logistics.
Fix maximum mark-up margins
Give, say a maximum of 20 licences for this special zone to
Zimbabweans only.
A total of 2% of these companies’ sales must go to the
State monthly, say after the first 12 months in order to recover site
establishment costs.
Government can also buy goods from these companies and this
will reduce corruption.
These companies must gazette weekly their commodities in
stock and their actual prices. Masvingo Mirror
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