So, it's just one person to be fair, so I'm not going to play a game of "whataboutery", but a Dutch contact (involved with developing country infrastructure) that I have within the EU said that his friends have been involved with the Boris government in negotiating, and that it's simply a tactic by the EU to try and fortify the UK Remain campaign by trying to undermine the efforts of the current government, by claiming that they haven't been engaging/no progress has been made.

We get lots of EU employees/employees of associated entities in Africa that come to bargain infrastructure in return for access to resources, and they're mostly very negative about the project.

Again, another reason why people outside of the UK/EU are so confused.