Mov­able prop­erty to be col­lat­eral, says Pres­i­dent Live­stock, cars, fur­ni­ture to be used for bank loans ac­cess

Chronicle (Zimbabwe) - - National News - Lloyd Gumbo Harare Bureau

EN­TREPRENEURS with­out im­mov­able prop­erty like houses will soon be able to ac­cess loans from fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions us­ing their mov­able prop­erty such as ve­hi­cles, live­stock and fur­ni­ture as col­lat­eral security once the pro­posed Mov­able Prop­erty Security In­ter­est Bill is passed into law.

Pres­i­dent Mu­gabe re­vealed this as he of­fi­cially opened the Fourth Ses­sion of the Eighth Parliament in Harare yes­ter­day where he set the leg­isla­tive agenda for Mem­bers of Parliament dur­ing the new ses­sion.

The en­vis­aged Bill is one of the 35 pieces of leg­is­la­tion that the Head of State and Govern­ment and Com­man­der-in­Chief of the Zim­babwe De­fence Forces said would have to be con­sid­ered by the leg­is­la­ture dur­ing this ses­sion.

Some of the Bills are com­pletely new while oth­ers are Acts that will be amended such as the In­di­geni­sa­tion and Eco­nomic Em­pow­er­ment Act that will be aligned with Pres­i­dent Mu­gabe’s clar­i­fi­ca­tion of the law in April this year.

“The Fourth Ses­sion of the Eighth Parliament comes at a time when the process of re­align­ing our laws to the Con­sti­tu­tion is still work in progress,” said Pres­i­dent Mu­gabe.

“As such, several Bills will be brought for align­ment by Parliament dur­ing this Ses­sion. Bills to be brought be­fore Parliament in­clude the Con­sti­tu­tional Court Bill, the Ru­ral District Council Bill, the Tra­di­tional Lead­ers Bill, the Pris­ons Bill and the Mar­riages Bill. The Coroner’s Of­fice Bill, which will pave way for the set­ting up of the Coroner’s Of­fice re­spon­si­ble for medico-le­gal in­ves­ti­ga­tions, will also be brought be­fore this au­gust House.”

Pres­i­dent Mu­gabe said Small Claims Court, the Com­mer­cial Court and the High Court Bills would be merged into the Ju­di­cial Laws Amend­ment (Ease of Set­tling Com­mer­cial and other Dis­putes) Bill 2016.

The Zim­babwe In­vest­ment Author­ity Amend­ment Bill, to pro­vide le­gal un­der­pin­ning to the One-Stop-Shop In­vest­ment Cen­tre, will also be brought to Parliament dur­ing this ses­sion.

Pres­i­dent Mu­gabe said some amend­ments had been made to the Spe­cial Eco­nomic Zones Act af­ter its pas­sage in Parliament.

“These amend­ments, which will soon be tabled herein, per­tain to some labour law pro­vi­sions de­signed to pro­tect work­ers in the Spe­cial Eco­nomic Zones. The leg­is­la­tion will boost the coun­try’s ca­pac­ity to at­tract world-class in­vest­ment, em­ploy­ment cre­ation, tech­nol­ogy transfer and in­no­va­tion in strate­gic ar­eas of the coun­try’s econ­omy.

“This Ses­sion of Parliament will also con­sider the Mov­able Prop­erty Security In­ter­est Bill, which seeks to in­crease ac­cess to credit for the ma­jor­ity of our emerg­ing en­trepreneurs.

“A col­lat­eral reg­istry will be es­tab­lished to fa­cil­i­tate the use of mov­able prop­erty, in­clud­ing cars, live­stock and fur­ni­ture, as col­lat­eral for loans.

“The In­sol­vency Bill and amend­ments to the In­sur­ance Act, the Pen­sions and Prov­i­dent Funds Act, and the In­sur­ance and Pen­sions Com­mis­sion Act will be tabled in this Parliament, as Govern­ment moves to in­cor­po­rate in­ter­na­tional best prac­tices and to also pro­tect pol­i­cy­hold­ers and mem­bers of pen­sion funds,” said Pres­i­dent Mu­gabe.

He said the Mi­cro-fi­nance Act will also be amended to in­cor­po­rate the regis­tra­tion of de­posit tak­ing mi­cro-fi­nance banks, in view of the evolv­ing role of such in­sti­tu­tions in the pro­vi­sion of credit and the mo­bil­i­sa­tion of sav­ings.

The Pres­i­dent said funds had al­ready been ear­marked for the cap­i­tal­i­sa­tion of the Small and Medium En­ter­prises De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion.

The long-awaited Mines and Min­er­als Amend­ment Bill, the Min­er­als Ex­plo­ration and Mar­ket­ing Cor­po­ra­tion Bill that will in­te­grate the Min­er­als Mar­ket­ing Cor­po­ra­tion of Zim­babwe and the Min­ing Pro­mo­tion Cor­po­ra­tion are also ex­pected to be tabled in Parliament dur­ing this ses­sion.

An­other Bill estab­lish­ing the Na­tional Com­pet­i­tive­ness Com­mis­sion to re­peal the Na­tional In­comes and Pric­ing Com­mis­sion Act but co­or­di­nate the craft­ing and im­ple­men­ta­tion of mea­sures to im­prove the com­pet­i­tive­ness of local com­pa­nies will also be in­tro­duced dur­ing this ses­sion.

Parliament will also be seized with a Bill that seeks to

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