Zim News Blog -NEWS NETWORK

Foreign investors on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange are likely to take a huge foreign exchange loss on their investments, but at least they can now have their money back following a new directive by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.

Source: Foreign investors can finally take money out of Zim, but at a huge discount | Fin24

Foreign investors on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange are likely to take a huge foreign exchange loss on their investments, but at least they can now have their money back following a new directive by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) for commercial banks to prioritise 15% of all foreign payments towards disinvestment by portfolio investors on the ZSE.

For years, foreign investors on the ZSE have been struggling to take out their investments – now amounting to more than $120m – out of Zimbabwe, but the latest move by the RBZ should come as a huge relief.

In an exchange control circular released on Friday, the RBZ said commercial banks must prioritise 15% of all foreign currency payments toward disinvestment by portfolio investors on the ZSE.

While the latest directive from the RBZ must come as welcome news from foreign investors whose funds were locked in Zimbabwe, they will, however, have to deal with foreign exchange losses, as their holdings are no longer at a 1:1 with the Zimbabwe currency, but at a new market rate as determined by the new market driven foreign currency trading system.

For investors who invested in Zimbabwe since October 2016, their US dollars where being converted at 1:1 with the local bond note, but now they will have to convert the local bond note, now called RTGS dollars, at a market driven rate, currently at US$1:RTGS$2.5.

An investor who invested US$1 000 will now only be able to repatriate approximately US$400, a 60% reduction.

Of late, investors have been using the fungible Old Mutual stock to repatriate locked funds from Zimbabwe.

An investor would buy the Old Mutual share on the ZSE and sell on the JSE. This was, however, still at a loss, as they had to buy the share on the ZSE at a 350% premium to the price on the JSE.

But this is now set to change as the RBZ has revised guidelines on utilisation of foreign exchange to accommodate remittance of disinvestment proceeds from sale of shares on the ZSE.

According to the central bank’s latest directive to banks, proceeds from the sale of shares done before 20 February, can now be processed through the interbank market, the official market for foreign currency trading.

According to the directive, those that seek to repatriate the full value of their investments, should first register such balances with their administering Authorised Dealers as part of the legacy debt and foreign liabilities, after which they will expunge their debts through the interbank market.

Authorised Dealers are also advised that new portfolio investment inflows received after 20 February 2019, should be liquidated at the prevailing market exchange rate to enable the purchase of the shares in RTGS dollars.

According to the directive, thereafter, proceeds from sale of such shares will be sourced from the interbank market at the prevailing exchange rate.

But because of the potential exchange losses, the RBZ has since directed Custodial Banks to first obtain the mandate from their clients to participate on the interbank foreign exchange market at prevailing rates which are no longer at par with when they invested.

The post Foreign investors can finally take money out of Zim, but at a huge discount  appeared first on Zimbabwe Situation.

Source: JUST IN: New rules for teachers | The Herald March 5, 2019

Felex Share Senior Reporter
Government is working on establishing a Teaching Profession Council (TPC) that will see teachers applying for registration and being issued with a teaching practice certificate.

The proposed changes are contained in the Teaching Profession Council Bill which is expected to provide for the regulation of the educators, their practice and professional conduct.

Public hearings to solicit views on the Bill started today.

More to follow…

The post JUST IN: New rules for teachers  appeared first on Zimbabwe Situation.

MDC-Alliance leader Mr Nelson Chamisa is being funded by former president Mr Robert Mugabe to outfox his internal rivals ahead of the party’s congress scheduled for May, The Herald can reveal. The Herald is reliably informed that Mr Chamisa’s sojourn to Ghana is also part of a desperate fundraising initiative from some of his college mates there. Mr Chamisa is likely to face the party’s

Source: Commercial courts open countrywide | The Herald March 5, 2019

Daniel Nemukuyu Senior Reporter
THE newly-established Magistrates Commercial Courts and small claims courts opened their doors to the public yesterday across the country’s 10 provinces and are mandated with expeditiously resolving commercial disputes and making Zimbabwe a safe investment destination in line with Government’s Transitional Stabilisation Programme (TSP).

The TSP is underpinned by structural reform measures to mitigate the challenges and risks faced by the economy.

The measures include deepening the ease and cost of doing business, reforms to improve competitiveness and establish a One-Stop Shop Investment Centre, public enterprise reforms and labour law reforms.

The specialised courts are expected to dispense world class justice without delay.

They are a product of the Ease of Doing Business Reforms being spearheaded by the Office of President and Cabinet, in partnership with the World Bank and other stakeholders, including the Judicial Service Commission (JSC).

This comes hard on the heels of a recent World Bank announcement, ranking Zimbabwe 155th out of 190 countries, an improvement from position 159 which the country held in 2017.

Last week 32 magistrates, designated to run the specialised courts, underwent a two-day refresher course on how to preside over commercial disputes.

JSC acting secretary Mr Walter Chikwana confirmed the development saying the courts were now operational.

“On Friday and Saturday, selected judicial officers were training on how to properly deal with commercial disputes.

“Today, they started operating in all the 10 provinces,” said Mr Chikwana.

Officially opening the training workshop on Friday, Deputy Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet Dr Ray Ndhlukula urged the judicial officers to play their part in boosting the investor confidence through dispensing quality justice within reasonable time.

“JSC comes in to resolve commercial disputes expeditiously. Your role is simply to deliver quality justice with speed.

“Quality decisions and expedience boosts people’s confidence in the justice system and attract investors to Zimbabwe.

“The Judiciary also has to enforce the controls and protect minority investors. There are lots of commercial disputes. For example, a shareholder with 33 percent may want to push around minority shareholders with two percent or less while others have two percent. Laws should be in place to protect those investors,” he said.

Dr Ndhlukula hailed the Judiciary for cooperating in coming up with ease of doing business reforms.

“I am happy to say, we have received maximum cooperation from the Judiciary as far as ease of doing business is concerned.

“I remember as far back as 2016 when we approached the then Judiciary boss, the late retired Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku about the need to establish these commercial law courts.

“He was so enthusiastic and he undertook to establish the courts as per request. Today, as we sit here, that reality is manifesting,” he said.

Speaking at the training workshop, Mr Chikwana said JSC intended to take the commercial courts down to every district in Zimbabwe.

“We are going to introduce small claims at every provincial centre and any other district centres in Zimbabwe. We have started renovating our courts to implement this position.

“We have identified judicial officer to man these courts. I wish to advise you, deputy chief secretary, that the crop of judicial officers you see here, is the first one that we have identified,” he said.

Mr Chikwana said the Judiciary was ready to play its part in achieving the national goal of being an upper middle income economy by 2030.

“While we appreciate Government’s position of improving ease of doing business and to create environment where matters are disposed of as quickly as possible, we as the Judiciary, are also doing this to achieve our own mandates in terms of the Constitution and our strategic planning.

“We train our magistrates to finalise matters as expeditious as possible, then we will be able to meet our constitutional mandate that matters should be finalised expeditiously,” he said.

Expeditious and quality judgments, Mr Chikwana said, also help the Judiciary to meet one of its mandates in terms of the strategic plan.

He urged magistrates to take the new task seriously for the development of the nation.

“I would advise our magistrates here that if you look at the quality of resource persons that we have invited, it speaks to the seriousness to which we are taking this training.

“It also speaks to the journey that we are beginning today, to create a crop of magistrates whom we believe have the capacity to deal with matters of commercial nature and resolve commercial disputes expeditiously with the quality of justice that the people of Zimbabwe want,” he said.

Zimbabwe has so far made strides in making it easier to deal with construction permits by reducing time for processing permit applications.

According to the World Bank, Zimbabwe made dealing with construction permits faster by adopting a one-stop shop for building plan approvals.

The World Bank also acknowledged the country’s efforts on improving the sharing of credit information after it “introduced bureau or registry credit scores as a value added service”.

Zimbabwe according to the World Bank, also made positive strides making it easier to start a business by reducing the time needed to obtain a business licence.

Getting credit information has also improved through increased coverage of the credit registry and providing consumer and commercial credit scores to banks and financial institutions.

Zimbabwe also made enforcing contracts easier by making judgments rendered at the appellate and Supreme Court level in commercial cases available to the general public online.

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FORMER Local Government minister Saviour Kasukuwere, who is facing charges of abuse of office for allegedly illegally parcelling out of State land, has filed heads of argument at the High Court challenging procedures adopted by regional magistrate Hoseah Mujaya and the appointment of Harare lawyer Zivanai Macharaga to act as prosecutor in his trial. In his heads of argument filed on February