Vusumuzi Dube
Vusumuzi Dube
Online News Editor
ZIMBABWE’S Ambassador to the Middle East, Mahomed Jassat has taken a swipe on the Aljazeera “gold mafia” documentary describing it as a morally corrupt crusade to tarnish the image of the country and sour the diplomatic relations with the United Arab Emirates.
The Government recently ordered an investigation into allegations raised in the documentary which was being serialised on international television. The documentary purports to be exposing the looting of gold reserves and money laundering by cartels in the country.
The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) also froze the assets of four officials who were implicated in the gold smuggling, money laundering, bribery and other corrupt activities whose alleged self-incriminating comments are contained in the documentary.
In an interview on the sidelines of the just ended Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF), Ambassador Jassat said there was a need to come up with an alternative informative documentary clearly stating the business dealings and engagements between the two nations. He said Dubai was Zimbabwe’s biggest trading partner in gold hence there was no need to smuggle gold to the Middle East country.
“I think the most important thing is to try and make the people of Zimbabwe and the region understand that the documentary was very biased and what we need to do is produce a factual documentary. For instance, if we exported two or three tonnes of gold to Dubai, we want to show what exactly we exported, how it was exported, the figures in terms of money that came back because having undercover reporters who are posing as criminals is untold of, the whole documentary started with a lie,” said Amb Jassat who also acts as the Chief Advisor to the President on Middle East affairs.
He said the documentary was a definite ploy against Dubai in that they were trying to portray Dubai as a hub for criminals and illegal activities.
“The other thing is that in terms of the reporting I believe it was very sensationalised, nobody actually understands that the UAE is our biggest trading partner in gold and that is well-documented. There is no need for Zimbabwe to smuggle gold to the UAE, we are doing it legally and we are getting paid obviously in cash because of sanctions against us.
“The truth of the matter is that the documentary was sensationalised and it was really documented to try and say our President was involved, and yet they were coercing the people into saying what they wanted them to say. If you study that documentary well there is nothing to prove that anything is happening with any of our senior ministers including the President who stays far away from these shenanigans,” said Amb Jassat.
Regarding his diplomatic engagements and the reaction of the government of Dubai to the contents of the documentary, the ambassador revealed that the government would not allow the documentary to sever ties between the two nations.
“The people of Dubai are really upset at the way Dubai was portrayed. I think it was extremely unprofessional to portray Dubai as a city of fraudsters and criminals. They have a proper banking system, yes, they have a duty-free system where you can come in and bring products duty-free. They are obviously the biggest buyers of gold in the world so they welcome buying of gold and pay for it. To say they encourage money laundering and smuggling and dealing with criminals is definitely not the case.
“If you watch the documentary well you can see there is a lot of editing, if you look at it in context you see that some things are edited into it, that’s my own opinion. Nothing proved anything and we didn’t even see the money so it was based on assumptions and you can’t defame a country based on assumptions, that is very unfair,” he added.
Online Reporter