JOHANNESBURG, South Africa – The Moti Group said it was dismayed on Monday over state media reports in Zimbabwe claiming a chrome export licence for its subsidiary, African Chrome Fields (ACF), had been cancelled because the company was “milking the country.”

The allegations are “untrue”, the South African company told ZimLive in a statement.

The Moti Group announced last week that it had scaled down operations at its chrome mine near Kwekwe because of the tough business environment linked to currency instability.

The mine was opened in 2014 as a joint venture between the Moti Group and Sakunda Holdings.

Ashruf Kaka, the legal adviser to the Moti Group and its chairman Zunaid Moti, said Zimbabwe had become a “bad investment destination”.

The forthright comments appeared to have stung Zimbabwean authorities who responded in kind on Sunday, accusing the South African company of “conducting business in a way which bordered on looting.”

Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe (MMCZ) general manager Tongai Muzenda told the Sunday Mail that they had declined to renew ACF’s export licence.

“They have been milking the country and we cannot continue to allow nonsense like that, because if you do the numbers you will realise that the country has been subsidising their operations. They (ACF) claimed that they had a ferry chrome plant in South Africa for further processing the ore (but) we do not believe they have,” Muzenda said.

“What is really unacceptable is that they were exporting chrome ore, alluvial and stuff for onward beneficiation in South Africa but we are of the view that they were not beneficiating, they were just exporting and the country was getting nothing.

“The other unfortunate part is that somewhere along the way, someone, I really don’t know what they were thinking, gave them national project status and why they got it I just don’t know but we will sort it out.”

The Moti Group on Monday said it was seeking an urgent meeting with the MMCZ over the matter.

“We are surprised at the contents of the allegations that we understand were allegedly made by the MMCZ in the media over the weekend. We categorically state that these allegations are untrue and accordingly we have engaged the MMCZ urgently to discuss same,” said Natalie Graaff, a company spokesperson.

At its peak, African Chrome Fields boasted that it was Zimbabwe’s biggest exporter of chromium, employing 1,600 workers with an output of 30,000 tonnes annually. Over a thousand workers have been retrenched or left, turning the US$250 million investment into a white elephant.

Moti is a close ally of Zimbabwe’s vice president Constantino Chiwenga, who is currently hospitalised in China after falling ill in May.

ZimLive understands Moti fell out of favour with Mnangagwa in late 2017 when the then vice president was sacked by President Robert Mugabe and needed to flee the country. Mnangagwa reportedly asked Moti to allow him use of his private jet but the businessman baulked, fearing Mugabe’s wrath.

Mnangagwa later conspired with the military then headed by Chiwenga to oust Mugabe, before returning and being installed as the president.

Relations did not improve when Moti was arrested in Germany last year on an Interpol red notice warrant, accused of defrauding Russian citizen Alibek Issaev out of several million dollars in an alleged bogus mining deal. The alleged incident took place in Lebanon in 2013.

He was also accused of stealing a rare US$35 million pink diamond.

Kaka told the Sunday Times last week that he personally went to see Mnangagwa to ask for help to get Moti released but “nothing came of it.”