By Takudzwa Changadeya
Ruling Zanu-PF spokesperson Christopher Mutsvangwa has rubbished and denounced opposition Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) vice president Tendai Biti’s utterances in an incendiary documentary by Al Jazeera and called him a ‘dimwit’.
The documentary titled ‘The Laundry Service’, the first of four episodes, aired on Thursday, exposes illicit gold dealings being facilitated by a coterie of high ranking officials from the ruling party, including Ambassador at Large Uebert Angel and the Zimbabwe Miners Federation president Henrietta Rushwaya, who is also president Mnangagwa’s niece.
In the documentary, described as tendentious by Mutsvangwa, Biti appears reproaching illicit out-flows of gold being peddled by government officials, arguing that it’s robbing the country of it’s resources and impeding development.
Talking to BustopTV, Mutsvangwa scoffed at Biti and described him as a detractor.
“There is the coterie of lost national soul Hopewell Chin’ono, the incorrigible settler racist David Coltart, the jilted Ewan Macmillan who cannot countenance the new gold trade exploits of Scott Sakupwanya, his erstwhile garden boy.
“Finally there is the financial illiteracy of dimwit Tendai Biti.
“They can huff and puff in the cacophony of fellow detractors. One thing is sure. Gold is now the anchor stone of our national currency to the delight of the rescued citizenry,” he said.
He said ‘the whole gold hullabaloo about illicit gold is plain codswallop and balderdash’ and the denunciations in the documentary are of no effect and incapable of changing the ‘virtuous national currency scenario.’
“The fulminations in the Al Jazeera documentary won’t change an iota of that virtuous national currency scenario.
“Zimbabwe is back to the future of gold.
“The national currency ingenuity is well ahead of the ongoing hiatus of the Saudi Arabia threatened United States Petro-dollar, the fledgling Chinese Petro-yuan and the prospect of the Indian Petro-rupee,” he said.
He added that even ancestors are happy with how gold is being handled in Zimbabwe.
“The Munhumutapas and Changamire royal ancestors can only be smiling at this new ingenuity by their posterity offspring,” he added.
However, in contrary to what Mutsvangwa said, the documentary video reveals that the central bank, Reverse Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) doesn’t have enough money to buy gold from the small scale miners, who produce more than half of the country’s gold exports.
Under that background, according to the documentary Ewan “Mr. Gold” Macmillan, and Kamlesh Pattni would chip in and buy the gold from small scale miners on behalf of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ), smuggle it to Dubai, come back with cash (USD) and get gold selling licences in return.
This way the government, whose money has no international value, is alleged to be utilizing the plan to bust sanctions imposed by the west.
