Last year when Professor Mthuli Ncube presented his last budget he made another painful change. Duty for a select number of items would now be paid in forex. This includes duty for motor vehicles.
Many people in general, and civil servants in particular, who earn RTGS$ and do not have a way to legally access foreign currency were incensed. It effectively means most will not be able to buy a car. For the longest people have been pressuring Mthuli Ncube to change this. He is having none of it however, late last week he had this to say over the issue:
Look, I don’t want to chop and change policies too much. Every other week you change policy because you have this and that; it’s not very good.
I am sticking to the payment of duty in the forex; basically in the currency someone has acquired the vehicle, it could be in Rand, it could be in US dollars, whatever currency you acquire it in, pay in that currency. Vehicle imports have been rising exponentially since 2009 from US$250 million to upwards of US$800 million in 2010.
