via Zim tourism tax reprieve – an ‘ad hoc solution’ by Dorine Reinstein for TourismUpdate 23 Wed, Oct 2013
The Zimbabwe government recently announced that it was extending a tax reprieve for the tourism industry to enable the sector to retool. The reprieve allows the industry to import duty-free capital goods for hotels and restaurants and boating equipment and motor vehicles for the safari industry. Tourism industry players have called it an ad hoc solution and that a more permanent incentive is needed.
Tourism Minister, Walter Mzembi, said it would help revive the tourism sector and was quoted in local newspapers as saying: “The reprieve is government’s own capital contribution for the revival of the tourism sector.”
Emmanuel Fundira, President of the Zimbabwe Council for Tourism and Vice Chairman of the Safari Operators Association of Zimbabwe, told Tourism Update the measure was a good idea and positive news for most operators but warned that its success largely depended on implementation.
Fundira added that the ideal solution would be to provide a permanent incentive rather than ad hoc solutions. He said most operators missed the opportunity to take advantage of the reprieve due to timing issues and lack of suitable funding methods.
COMMENTS
As Fundira says, all very well if the operator has the funds available to spend, otherwise it’s a waste of time and space. Situation normal then for mugabe&co.
With the level of corruption we have got accustomed to in Zim,the system will be abused long before there is any real benefit to the Tourism Industry.Wait until you see Hammer motor vehicles and other similar escaping payment of the much needed duty in the Treasury.The exemption must be in the form of refunds whereby the items qualifying for such exemption are clearly itemised at entry and a discounted duty of ,say 50% is payable but this would be refunded after an audit period conducted after a specified time depending on the item being imported:the 50% would help defray the cost of policing the whole process.Without such or similar safeguards our past record clearly leads one to conclude that this is a system with ‘abuse’ written all over it-treasury will lose millions of dollars in duty exemption.The solution to the Tourism industry is less corruption,rule of law and political stability period!