"We need cyanide in gold processing and when we went out to tender the Chinese realised that we had no other source from whom we could import and so they raised their price for it,” said one of the bosses from the company.
"I cannot quantify exactly how much this is costing us, but what I can simply say is we are paying more than US$5 million for cyanide importation alone from the Chinese, which is a significant increase from what we used to pay."
The Manager said the cyanide could, however, also be imported from the Republic of Ireland but it was easier to import it from China.
Zimbabwe and China have signed what is known as the Favourable Nations Status which enables the Chinese to virtually "dump" products into the country without question.
The ZIMRA Commissioner General, Gershom Pasi, confirmed that the Chinese were causing problems for his team based at border and entry points around Zimbabwe. Pasi said, however, that the issue was political and not much could be done about it because of the FNS arrangement.
Post published in: Business