The full details of ‘mega
deals’ that President Mugabe is said to have been signing during his state visit to China are yet to emerge. From
the snippets that we have read in the state controlled media, these deals range
from infrastructural investments pacts through to a greater number of memorandums of understanding.
The latter will require feasibility studies while the former
are largely related to Chinese corporations investing in our railways, roads
and in the extraction of gas from Gwayi-Shangani in Matebeleland North.
The reception to these deals has been dual in tone. The
state media has generally lauded these deals not only by describing them as
major, but also referring to them as historic. The private media has urged caution
and also sought to emphasise the point of how the country may now be beholden
to the Chinese by mortgaging the meagre mineral resources that we have.
For ruling party supporters these bilateral investment agreements are something
that they have celebrated even amidst their own factionalism. While on the
other hand opposition party members and supporters have decried what they have
referred to as the ‘selling of the country to the Chinese’.
Some civil society activists have also sought to frame these investment in the same manner as the opposition
but perhaps for different reasons given the general public suspicion of the
role of China in assisting Zanu PF maintain a repressive state apparatus.
There is however a third way of looking at these Chinese investment
deals. And in order to do so, a key
departure point is to consider the economic inevitability that, like our sister
African countries, we would turn to China for economic assistance. Whether Zanu Pf celebrates or the opposition castigates
the deals, the truth is that we have to engage and
court Chinese investment.
Our only particular uniqueness in SADC and the African Union is
that we do not have the political capital to also court such deals with the
West. Largely due to the good governance and neo-liberal conditions the latter
insist on. This is as opposed to the Chinese who do not put governance
conditionalities to their aid even though they pursue neo-liberal frameworks couched
in the rising hegemonic ideology of state capitalism.
What we must accept as Zimbabweans is that China is here to
stay. Primarily because of its long history of direct support to our liberation
struggles but also in search, as is the case elsewhere on the continent, for
natural resources and new markets for its booming economy.
The problem that has always emerged with these sort of deals
in Zimbabwe however is the ineptitude of our government in either implementing
them according to specific development plans and allowing them to become part of our generally
corrupt culture around state tenders, mining concessions, infrastructure development and elite aggrandisement via the state.
Add to this the utilisation of such investment deals to distribute
political patronage has led to failure before launch of most of these
investment packages or loans. The caseof the City of Harare loan from China for the refurbishment of Morton Jaffray waterworks is just one case in point
at local government level.
The more pertinent issue is therefore not so much that these
deals should not be made with China. Given the fact that every other country is
flocking to the same seeking investments or intending to invest there, it is folly to argue plainly against Chinese investment in our economy.
The main problem instead has been how
our government has not only negotiated these deals but even more importantly
how they have been implemented.
Particularly with regards to infrastructural investments which
should basically be self evident in their impact on our society. For example if we get investment (though not
from the Chinese) for the dualisation of the Joshua Nkomo Highway from Harare International Airport in order for
it to be ready before the world cup in South Africa in 2010, it must be completed. It is a road that five years after that and
another world cup tournament in Brazil, is yet to be completed.
So it is not in itself a bad thing that President Mugabe is
signing investment deals with China on behalf of the country. And the Chinese
hold no brief for those that come to it seeking assistance. In the end they want their returns, in as far
as we have promised those returns and by way of mutual agreement.
What matters is that these investments are used for what
they are intended for instead of political patronage after the money comes
or the tender application processes are opened.
The Zimbabwean government has to depart from its unfortunate culture of
cronyism, corruption, inefficiency and elitist economics if these ‘mega deals’
are to have any domestic meaning.
*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity (takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com)
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