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Tawanda Musarurwa Senior Business Reporter
Government says it is engaging the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) for its support on Harare’s imports management programme. Under the import management programme, Government came up with a number of interim statutory measures aimed at restricting imports to enable local industry to recover after performance had been immensely affected by the influx of foreign products.

The most notable intervention was the removal of a number of products from the Open General Import Licence through several Statutory Instruments including SI-64 of 2016 and SI 20 of 2016, which regulated the importation of selected products.
Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Enterprise Development permanent secretary Abigail Shoniwa last week said they had presented a “special dispensation” to Sadc over the matter.

“We have already submitted a special dispensation to Sadc. This special dispensation is a special derogation request for us to be allowed to take the measures that we are taking so that we can re-industrialise,” she said, adding that Government would like the private sector’s input as negotiations with the regional bloc continue. We would want industry players to come with Government to attend the technical meetings that we will be having to discuss this.”

SI-64 was gazetted in June 2016 following a recommendation from the local industry which was based on an extensive study and consultations with respective sector players on the locally available manufacturing capacities, and imports were only allowed on instances where the local producers could not able to satisfy local demand.

Ms Shoniwa admitted that the protection measures were a stop-gap measure, and not necessarily complaint with trade regional protocols that Zimbabwe is a party to.

“The import management programme is not compliant, but when your house is on fire sometimes you have to take a bucket of water to douse the flames. So that is what the country decided to do,” she said.

“The import management programme and some of the tariffs that are announced in the budget go against what we committed to in the early 2000s under the Sadc Trade Protocol. But then things were different. We went through an experience which we all know.”

Zimbabwe is a signatory to the Sadc Protocol on Trade, which seeks to promote regional integration through free trade.
As such, Zimbabwe has specific bilateral trade agreements with specific Sadc members which seek to promote free trade in terms of the Sadc Protocol on Trade. The country’s trade partners in the region registered their consternations over SI-64.
Zambia, for instance, registered a formal complaint with the Sadc and Comesa Non-Tariff Barriers over SI 64 and which called for its withdrawal arguing the restriction limited the volume of imports of products exported by Zambia to Zimbabwe. The instrument requires import licences from the Ministry of Industry and Commerce before importation of a wide range of products.