Mugabe government sabotaged mega-deals - official says

Zimbabwe could have sabotaged itself in the China's much-vaunted multi-billion dollar mega-deals in various sectors of the economy by  tasking officials  with negotiating mega deals had little bargaining power and lacking experience.

This is according to a senior official in the Office of the President and Cabinet (OPC) Anderson Chiraya, the director of implementation, monitoring and evaluation.

Presenting a paper at a United Nations media workshop on development reporting at Troutbeck Inn on Tuesday, he said the country could have got a raw deal from such partnerships, as it sent lean teams to the negotiation table.

"During negotiating for such deals, some partners came with a barrage of lawyers, while on our part, there may be a minister and the permanent secretary only and if they do not understand, we get a raw deal.

"Yet the other parties come with lawyers and people that are well versed," he said.

Asked what the government would do about it, Chiraya said: "We are really correcting that. Next time if there is a deal to be negotiated for, there should be some lawyers, including the Attorney-General as well as experts in that field."

Three  years after President Robert Mugabe's government announced and signed a number of much-hyped "mega-deals" with Zimbabwe's supposed all-weather friends China and Russia.

Mugabe signed nine so-called landmark agreements with China in August 2014, which were touted by government spin doctors at the time as imminent and massively significant for investment-parched Zimbabwe.

However, there were tell-tale signs a year later that all was not well when Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa had to make a follow up visit to Beijing to discuss the multi-billion deals further — as tongues wagged and crisis-weary Zimbabweans questioned whether they were not in fact another ploy by Zanu PF regime to hold on to power by promising "heaven on earth".