Mutambara On ZISCO Deal: We Were Blind, Deaf And Dumb

Deputy Prime Minister Professor Arthur Mutambara is critical of the Ziscosteel deal that resulted in Essar buying into the entity.

The major stake was bought for around US$700 million amid loads of fanfare. Professor Mutambara bemoaned the ‘bad deal’ given that asset is worth about $30billion.

New Zimbabwe quoted the DPM as saying

It was as if the value is zero and yet back in India, Essar listed their acquired asset in Zimbabwe as valued at over US$20 billion… In terms of Essar, the story is that the iron ore involved is to the tune of US$30 billion of asset and the investment from Essar is a maximum of US$700 million.
How do you give an asset worth US$30 billion in exchange for US$700 million?

The question is, why do we get into bad deals? Why is it that we allow things of this sort to happen? Mutambara says cabinet was ‘blind, deaf and dumb’ but we like to think they simply weren’t interested or just inept.

A deal that was signed with such fanfare cannot be put down to a mistake. While they were busy arguing over what positions in government are being held by who, who is not being nice to who from the other party, the Indians were buying the future for a song. We obsess about the state of health of the President, the Prime Minister’s promiscuity, how much a certain minister is worth, what some church leader is up to and the like. Meanwhile the work that really needs to be done goes under the radar.

You can’t schoolboy errors on something this major. Some of that stuff is basic and elementary.

The sad thing is, if the masses were serious there would be an outrage over this. Given that they probably won’t care, they deserve no better than a leadership that does that to them. The blind lead the blind and remain deaf to reason. When found out they act dumb. There you have it, blind, deaf and dumb.