The Zimbabwean High Court has just set aside Statutory Instrument 205/2018 which dealt with the 2% transaction tax. The case was argued by
Tendai Biti of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights before Justice Zhou who ruled in favour of the plaintiff.

So many pressing questions

The suspension brings with it some many questions including:

  • Will the government appeal this ruling?
  • They probably will but what happens in the meantime?
  • Do we continue to pay the tax?
  • Even if the government is found wrong again on appeal will they ever pay us back our money?
  • How did the judge arrive at this ruling?
  • This is important because it might have implications for other laws that have been passed similarly as statutory instruments.

In any case, the damage wrought by the gazetting of the IMT tax as it is known is already done. It is unlikely prices will come down anyway. We can also speculate that if this is a matter of procedure regarding how the law came into effect the ZANU PF led parliament will rubber-stamp a similar Act in no time.