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| author/source:Zim Online (SA) |
| published:Fri 1-Jul-2005 |
| posted on this site:Fri 1-Jul-2005 |
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| Article Type : News |
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| Mujuru will offer Tehran and Al Shams officials huge concessions in the mining sector |
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Harare - Zimbabwe Vice-President Joyce Mujuru will next week travel to Iran to beg for oil as a five-year fuel crisis that worsened in recent weeks threatens to ground the southern African nation. A senior government official, who cannot be named, told Zim Online that Mujuru will head a delegation comprising Energy Minister Mike Nyambuya, his permanent secretary Justin Mupamhanga, and senior Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe officials to Tehran to seek funding for fuel purchases. The exact date of Mujuru’s departure was not immediately clear yesterday. According to the official, Mujuru’s delegation will attempt to negotiate a long-term fuel supply deal with the government of Iran besides also meeting officials of a private Tehran-based firm, Al Shams, to negotiate a stop-gap US$100 million oil supply facility. “There is hope that she (Mujuru) might seal these deals which could see the country getting a loan from Iran, as well as this stop gap measure (Al Shams funding) needed to stabilise the situation,” the official said. In return for funding, Mujuru will offer both Tehran and Al Shams officials, huge concessions in the vast coal reserves in southern Zimbabwe and other investment opportunities, especially in the lucrative mining sector.
Mujuru and Nyambuya were not available for comment with officials in their offices saying they were busy attending meetings. Mupamhanga refused to take questions on the matter. Zimbabwe, which has leapt from crisis to crisis in the past five years, is steadily grinding to a halt after a long-running fuel shortage deteriorated in the last four weeks with now only a handful of garages across the country selling petrol or diesel. The fuel crisis began soon after the International Monetary Fund withdrew financial assistance to Harare six years ago after disagreeing with President Robert Mugabe on fiscal policy and other governance issues. Mugabe’s controversial farm seizure programme in the last five years that destabilised the major export-earning tobacco sector only helped worsen the fuel crisis as forex inflows dwindled. An oil supply deal between Zimbabwe and Libya, similar to the one Mujuru will pursue in Tehran, collapsed about two years ago after Tripoli later demanded hard cash payments instead of properties and cheap investment opportunities in the southern African country. The Iran government is already supplying Harare with tractors and other agricultural equipment required to revive Zimbabwe’s crumbling agricultural sector, while Al Shams has in the past supplied buses to the state-owned Zimbabwe United Passenger Company.
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