Staff Reporter
Zanu PF has strongly criticised economist and former member of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe’s (RBZ) Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), Eddie Cross, for his recent claims about Chinese nationals in Zimbabwe.
The party’s Director of Information and Publicity, Farai Marapira, dismissed Cross’ allegations as xenophobic and damaging to the country’s economic progress.
Speaking to the media, Marapira accused Cross of spreading falsehoods and undermining Zimbabwe’s open-door investment policy.
“They (critics) must be more objective in the assessment of issues. We have attacks coming from all and sometimes surprising people. I will give an example of Eddie Cross. He wrote a full article and spent a lot of energy writing spurious lies, maliciously attacking the open-door policy of the President, throwing in false figures, stating that we have 85 000 Chinese when we have only 25 000, and these are in the mining sector,” said Marapira.
He defended Government’s relationship with Chinese investors, emphasising their role in Zimbabwe’s economic development.
“These are here at the behest of the President as he has stated that Zimbabwe is open for all. So, these malicious attacks need to stop. These attacks are trying to circumvent our natural progression which we are aspiring for as a people. They need to stop. We cannot expect educated economists to be giving out articles which are less than bar talk or pillow talk,” he added.
In an article on his website, Cross claimed that more than 85 000 Chinese nationals are currently residing in Zimbabwe, alleging that they aim to exploit the country’s mineral resources before returning to China.
He accused Chinese investors of transferring environmentally harmful industries to Africa and cited their involvement in the extraction of Zimbabwe’s raw materials, particularly diamonds from Marange, which he claimed has yielded US$30 billion in raw diamonds since 2008.
Cross alleged that these resources have benefited only Chinese entities and senior Army Generals, while leaving the people of Marange in poverty.
He also claimed that Zimbabwe possesses 9 billion tonnes of untapped chrome deposits valued at a conservative US$100 trillion.
Marapira, however, said that Cross’ claims were baseless, sensational and should be ignored.
