FINANCE Minister Patrick Chinamasa is Wednesday expected to unpack the much-vaunted ‘mega deals’ that Zimbabwe signed with China two weeks ago.
President Robert Mugabe a fortnight ago led a high powered delegation to Beijing amid reports Harare was seeking a US$4 billion package to breathe life into Zimbabwe’s comatose economy.
On Tuesday, Chinamasa is said to have invited business leaders and interested Zimbabweans to the Harare International Conference Centre to witness what he said was the unpacking of the deals.
Chinamasa recently traded accusations with agitated MPs who felt the country's exchequer chief was trying to hide imprudent transactions between a desperate government and the commercially shrewd Asians.
“What we have been able to achieve was serious engagement with the Chinese authorities and serious commitment at the highest levels to fund bankable, viable projects that we put and we submit to them," Chinamasa said, much to the dismay of legislators.
Pressed further, Chinamasa did little to explain himself, saying the deals were all about funding the country's battered infrastructure, increasing the country's power generation capacity, highway and railway rehabilitation and water management systems.
His hard-to-get stance has also elicited a strong reaction from outspoken MDC-T politician, Obert Gutu, who felt the current Zanu PF-led government could no longer be trusted with the country's economic affairs.
"I am thoroughly uncomfortable with the secrecy that surrounds the nine or so 'mega' deals that Zimbabwe signed with various Chinese state corporations recently," Gutu said in a Facebook posting.
"These 'mega' deals should be scrutinised by Parliament as a matter of urgency, failing which they should promptly be classified as odious and illegitimate; thus rendering them unenforceable at law."
Gutu added: "The Zanu PF government cannot and indeed should not be trusted with the onerous and technocratic task of negotiating debts on behalf of the nation without Parliamentary oversight.
"This is simply a recipe for colossal and unmitigated looting of national resources. The government's record of both macro and micro-economic mis-governance and corruption since 1980 is legendary and both documented in the public domain."
Zimbabwe gave Chinese businesses unfettered access to the much sought Marange alluvial diamonds amid reports that billions were racked through mining the gem.
Meanwhile, the nation still wallows in poverty with no indication it is endowed with one of the world's richest diamond deposits.