Customs and Excise (General) (Amendment) Regulations, 2024 (No. 123)

The Minister of Finance has repealed and replaced section 144I of the Customs and Excise (General) Regulations, 2001 (S.I. 154 of 2001), the section that grants the National Railways of Zimbabwe a rebate of duty.

The rebate now covers engine spares, special purpose motor vehicles and components of the NRZ, and it runs from 5 August 2024 to 4 August 2026. Because the instrument was gazetted on 8 November 2024, the rebate is backdated by about three months.

What has changed in substance is the list of eligible tariff headings, which the new section 144I sets out in full — several hundred headings and subheadings spanning lubricants and paints, explosives and detonators, plastics and rubber goods, hand tools and cutting tools, engines, pumps and compressors, computers, cabling and electrical switchgear, lamps and semiconductors, locomotives and rolling stock (chapters 86.01 to 86.07), works trucks, and measuring and control instruments. The rebate is expressly subject to whatever conditions the Commissioner-General fixes.

Because the old section 144I is not reproduced, the instrument does not show which headings were added or dropped. Anyone claiming the rebate should check the specific heading against the list printed in this instrument rather than relying on an earlier version.

The rebate is granted to the NRZ; it is not a general rebate available to private railway operators or to suppliers importing on their own account. The extract carries a stray page header reading "S.I. 67 of 2024", which is a printing artefact.