Defence minister Emerson Mnangagwa has told Parliament that the Chinese would challenge the money through Treasury for the completion of the Robert Mugabe School of Intelligence.

He told the Senate this week that the "$98million loan" was "for the construction of the college which is ideal for addressing the current global challenges. It is not clear how and when the money is to be repaid by the government of Zimbabwe.

The college will provide senior military officers with intellectual tools to address complex defence and national security challenges which in turn will contribute to national security, said Mnangagwa.

Construction of the National Defence College is now underway and we hope to complete the project in the next three years. This college will act as a think tank for providing research on military, defence and national security for the National Security Council, Ministry of Defence and other government organizations. But he also said only invited candidates would be enrolled which is unsurprising given Zanu (PF)s penchant for absolute control of all forms of power and information.

Construction started in 2007.

A mid-ranking intelligence source told The Zimbabwean that the College, which will recruit from the entire SADC region, would produce Cryptologic Linguists, Signals Intelligence Analysts, Human Intelligence Collectors, Military Intelligence (MI) Systems Maintainers and Integrators, Counterintelligence Agents, Imagery Analysts, Common Ground Station (CGS) Analysts, Intelligence Analysts, Signals Collectors or Analysts. And all this expertise will be provided by Chinese instructors.

Mugabe has said in the past that the country can no longer afford to rely on "mediocre officers" to counter the "growing threat" to his rule.

The College will reportedly offer a Bachelor of Science in Intelligence and a Master of Science in Strategic Intelligence and is poised to annually award both graduate and undergraduate degrees in Intelligence. It will work closely with the Political Administration division at the University of Zimbabwe.

The loan underlines China's growing foothold on Zimbabwe, where it is heavily involved in mining diamonds and chrome, as well as in the retail sector.