ROB ROSE: Behind the Zim border fiasco
A cloud of suspicion looms over Zimborders, which won a 17-year contract to operate the tolls at the Beitbridge border post with SA. So how does it justify levying toll fees to citizens of a bankrupt country?
04 November 2021 - 05:00
It’s a phrase that has echoed across five decades, form-fitting so many extractive ventures into African countries that it has become a cliché. It has its origin in the UK parliament in 1973, where Liberal Party MP Jo Grimond asked then prime minister Edward Heath if he would "condemn unequivocally the sort of goings-on that we have all read about at Lonrho."
Lonrho — the London and Rhodesian Mining & Land Co — was one of the largest companies in Africa. It later became Lonmin, which gave SA the legacy of Marikana, before being bought by Sibanye-Stillwater in 2019...
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