The Zimbabwe government torched a diplomatic fiasco on Tuesday after China disputed Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube’s claim that Beijing was one of the smaller foreign donors during the past year.
In his 2020 national budget presentation last week, Ncube announced that China had only contributed US$3.6 million out of the US$194 million received from donors during the first nine months of 2019.
The Chinese embassy in Harare responded on Tuesday by saying the amount mentioned by Ncube was “very different from the situation on the ground”.
“According to our record, from January to September 2019, the actual bilateral support provided to Zimbabwe by China is 136.8 million USD,” the embassy said.
It said the US$136.8 million excludes “other bilateral supports such as the expense of expert assistance, embassy’s donations to local vulnerable groups and so on.”
“The embassy wishes that the relevant departments of the Zimbabwean government will make comprehensive assessments on the statistics of bilateral supports and accurately reflect its actual situation when formulating budget statement,” it said.
The China has been one of Zimbabwe’s main financial backers since the southern African country adopted a “Look East” policy at the turn of the century following a diplomatic tiff with the West over governance issues.
JN/APA