HARARE – Former deputy Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, advocate Obert Gutu has said that China is not wholly to blame for Africa’s predicament.
He said that former colonial masters contributed immensely to the state of affairs. Posting on Twitter, Gutu said:
Before we start blaming China for all the socio-economic woes currently bedevilling Africa, take a moment to think about the role of our former colonizers in robbing Africa’s natural & human resources. A colonizer is a colonizer, whether from the East or from the West.
His remarks come amid increasing criticism of African initiatives in Africa which have been dubbed strategies of neocolonialism.
China’s economic, infrastructural and trade dominance has been rising in Africa in the recent past and most of the projects and programmes the Asian giant is implementing are part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) an “ambitious” strategy to connect the whole world through land and sea.
The Asian giant which has in the past been viewed as Africa’s all-weather friend is being accused of giving unsustainable loans to African countries and these loans are usually repaid by natural resources.
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