ch-vaunted Look East policy.
It is a year in which Mugabe’s isolated government steadfastly mortgaged national assets to Communist China, Iran and some of the former Soviet states in return for stop-gap fuel, electricity and grain supplies in a move that critics say gave a graphic illustration of his administration’s unbridled failure.
Mugabe entered into at least 15 deals with the Chinese, Iranians and other Asians last year alone, mostly on fuel, mining, electricity and communication.
All these deals were “secured and leveraged” with mineral exports from
Government signed an agreement with China National Construction and Agricultural Machinery Import and Export Corporation for development of a coal mine in Dande and two thermal power plants with a combined 1,200 megawatts capacity.
The US$800m power sets will be fed coal from a concession in the area.
Zimbabwe Mining Development Company (ZMDC), a state owned company, also signed an agreement with Star Communications of China that will result in a joint venture chrome mining company.
Critics however said all these deals were part of a ruse by failed politicians as government lacked the capacity to embark on such projects and that it was highly likely that these deals would join a long inventory of schemes that have remained on the drawing board and never implemented.
Mugabe has however not only looked to the East only, but has also engaged European countries that have not taken a hard-line stance against him.
The central bank last year secured and signed a pact with a European bank for a US$50-million revolving fund to import fuel to ease a crippling fuel crisis gripping the southern African state.
Reserve Bank of
The loan deal was underwritten with mineral exports from
However, the Chinese appear jittery with property rights abuse in
Legal expert, Tendai Biti, who is also the opposition MDC secretary general, said the deals that Mugabe cut last year under his Look East policy amounted to asset-stripping and mortgaging of the country’s resources.
All this must be brought to parliament for approval, he said.
“What these people (government) are doing is mortgaging the country’s resources, but in order to do that they need parliamentary approval.
“No reasonable parliament in the world would allow outright asset-stripping like this, but again this a Zimbabwean parliament,” said Biti. He said the Look East policy – which Mugabe adopted after being thrown out of the Commonwealth four years ago – was in fact, contributing to Zimbabwe’s catastrophic economic decline by decimating the manufacturing base as many industries were forced to close after losing market share to mostly cheap Chinese-made products, colloquially known locally as “zhing zhongs.”