Spotlight Zimbabwe recently revealed that China will be providing a multi million dollar security surveillance system through technology company Huawei.

This could explain the large number of Chinese nationals that have entered Zimbabwe recently, with estimates putting the Chinese population in Harare at 20 000.

Huawei was also recently granted a tax exemption status by the Zimbabwe government for more than 10 years.

Spotlight Zimbabwe says Huawei was the winner among three Chinese companies to provide $100 Million worth of equipment, together with 2 other Chinese companies Hikvision and Cloud walk Technology that will provide facial recognition software.

A number of Western companies lost out to the Chinese companies and leaked details of the deal.

US$20 Million will be spent on the initial phase, a massive police state surveillance grid.

Under the deal, Beijing through Huawei, and several other Chinese companies such as CloudWalk Technology and surveillance specialist firm HikVision, will provide the technologies, software and hardware required by the Zimbabwean government, for their ambitious Smart Cities Project.

A Smart city is an urban area that uses different types of electronic Internet of Things (IoT) sensors to collect data and then use insights gained from that data to manage assets, resources and services efficiently.

Hikvision will provide facial recognition software for smart financial services and intelligent security applications at airports, railway and bus stations, while Cloud walk will provide AI technology, to be used for international border posts, state points of entry, and airports.