Firstly I would like to commend the GOZ and particularly the Ministry of Finance and the ICT Ministry for coming up with this innovative website. I call this being people centred. Now the leaders and those that they lead can at least communicate on specific matters such as the one on customs duty on cars which many people feel is rather harsh. I am sure you will agree with me that we need to redefine what we are calling luxury goods. Firstly, it is not a luxury, even within the Zimbabwean context to import a Mazda Familia 1.5 litre sedan to ferry children to and from school and to transport oneself to work and be productive for Zimbabwe, neither is it a luxury for a business executive to buy an Isuzu twin cab for use to and from his place of work be it a mine or a bank and to use it to ferry samples and other goods for business and personal use. Duties and other taxes being levied on even some of the most modest vehicles such as the Mazda Familias and the Toyota Corollas are just too high. We need to redefine what we are classifying as luxuries. We could use both engine sizes and models to come up with a position and certainly levy higher duties such as the current ones on truely luxurious vehicles. In a developing country like Zimbabwe where avarage annual per capita income may be below USD150 how does one justify a person buying a car at a price thrice the price at which it is sold in first world country like say Japan with an average per capita income with is more than 15 times! We certainly need to relook at our duty tarrifs and rationalise them without necessarily ignoring the need to protect our small auto industry. In fact at the moment we may need to critically analyse what we are protecting. Are the vehicles coming off our assembly lines currently affordable to any Zimbabwean earning an honest income? Who amongst Zimbabweans can afford those units especially whan one considers that there is no credit currently available.

First and foremost Zimbabwe does not have an Automobile Industry to protect. We assemble for the Japanese so that they can distribute their cars easily in the region. So Minister, spare us the excuses.

Second, there are different classes of people in our country. There are those who will never be able to afford a simple Mazda assembled at Willowvale even at the production cost but can afford a decent second hand Japanese import.  Then we have those who choose to buy a Hammer, a Mecedes benz, a high spec Volvo, Jarguar etc which costs x fold the Mazda because they want to be different. The latter class of people fall in the Luxury type life cartegory so in that case you can be justified to tax them highly but do not not come up with excuses of protecting our automobile industry. 

Last but not least, what black governments do not realise is that what they inherited from the Former Colonial Masters was meant to deny black people lots of things hence the classification of certain goods as a Luxury. We then come along blindly and just carry on without re-evaluating anything.

Zimbabwe does not have a decent and reliable public transport system and this makes a car a basic necessity. Most people have to rely on kombi's and buses which are usually poorly maintaned and at times unsafe. It seems like our government does not understand the basic fact that Zimbabweans need a better quality of life. The duties levied on imported cars are very exhorbitant to say the least and this makes owning a vehicle an impossibilty for most people. I remember at one time being charged import duties of 165% (including sales tax). What that meant was that when I  imported car, I almost paid for 2 for the govt. At that time, Zambia charged a flat rate of 45%. In my opinion, there is even no need to distinguish between a luxury car and one thats not since the duty is charged as percentage of the value of the car. Since luxury cars cost more, they will attract higher duties. So just having a flat rate of say 40% will actually simplify the calculation of duties. From my understanding, the govt actually lost a significant amount of  revenue when they raised import duties on cars because of the fewer cars  that were now imported. So lower import duties could actully mean higher revenues as more people will afford to import cars.  It is important that the govt collects revenues through import duties in order to provide basic servies for the public but these dutes should be reasonable and fair to its citizens. I hope that Hon Minister Biti is going to review this issue.