Maravi

(NEWZIMBABWE) Rhodes an angel compared to Anjin: Biti

COMMENT - Let's see if Tendai Biti is going to go after Anglo-American too, though I doubt it.

Rhodes an angel compared to Anjin: Biti
26/07/2012 00:00:00
by Staff Reporter

FINANCE Minister Tendai Biti has again laid into the China-controlled diamond mining firm, Anjin Investments, claiming the company was ripping the country off adding its murky operations were reminiscent of settler-colonial exploitation.

Biti told legislators that although diamond production had increased from 2,5 million carats to 4,5 million carats this year, revenues had been stagnant at US$41 million and singled out Anjin for particular criticism.

He claimed that the Chinese firm, the largest of the five companies operating in the reputedly rich diamond fields at Marange, was taking most of the revenues out of the country.

“It can’t be a one way traffic of extraction (without benefits to Zimbabwe) that would make Cecil John Rhodes look like an angel…we are going to continue speaking about diamonds,” he said.

Biti said while Mbada Diamonds – a much smaller company - had contributed US$2 million in Pay As You Earn, Anjin brought in just US$200,000.

“Where we got US$41 million we should have got US$285 million. To accept US$41 million it means we are stupid, we are fools; we are idiots,” he said.

“The Chinese are saying to themselves that we found our fools in Zimbabwe. In other countries they are building freeways, dams, real development and not these hotels they are building here.”

Biti was reacting to concern from MPs over the state of the country’s economy after he was forced to cut his growth forecast for the year and concede that the US$600 million expected from diamond sales would no longer be realised.

But Anjin has previously dismissed Biti’s criticism, accusing the Minister of over-estimating potential revenues from diamonds when he presented his 2012 budget.

“It is either he is untruthful, incompetent or illiterate. He made the blunder and miscalculated. He must be man enough and admit that he made a mistake,” Anjin board member Munyaradzi Machacha said last month during a visit to Marange by EU envoys.

“He (Biti) is scapegoating companies like Anjin for his miscalculations. He is persecuting a cash cow because he made a blunder.”

Still, MPs urged the government to find ways of ensuring diamond revenues were not diverted away from Treasury.

Said Bulawayo East MP Tabitha Khumalo: “The money from Chiadzwa must go to Treasury, Chiadzwa must be owned by the State, We have money but we have misplaced priorities.

“If the Cabinet does not want to deal with the question of Chiadzwa then I am going to urge the people of Zimbabwe to go and invade Chiadzwa.”

Anjin Investments is one of the five companies presently operating at the Marange diamond fields.

Deputy Mines Minister Gift Chimanikire recently revealed that the Zimbabwe Defence Industries (ZDI) has a 40 percent interest in the company while the state-run mining firm, ZMDC, owns 10 percent. The balance is controlled by the Chinese Defence Industries.

Labels: CHIADZWA, NATIONALISATION, TENDAI BITI

posted by MrK @ 11:16 PM