If it’s true that some miners at Chiadzwa are declaring poor quality diamonds for public auctions and sneaking out high quality gems into the underworld for personal profit, then we have a scandal of frightening proportions.
It would mean that the high public expectations that Chiadzwa would provide revenue for immediate economic turnaround and greater development as the mineral has done to Botswana, Namibia and Angola, have painfully turned out to be a mirage.

We have sold millions of carats at Antwerp and Dubai exchanges, yet our socio-economic conditions as a people have remained unchanged, if not deteriorated in places.
Zimbabwe earned only $170 million from 2,5 million carats sold through formal international diamond tenders. Prices ranged between $38 and $78 per carat at both Dubai and Antwerp. Ironically, these markets earn other countries thousands of dollars per carat.

About 960,000 carats were sold for $60 million at the last Dubai auction. In contrast, Angola fetched $117 million after selling 780,000 carats in June.  This means that Angola earned more than we did even after selling fewer carats than us.

Weekend reports attributed the low revenue to the fact that our best diamonds are being smuggled out by foreign racketeers working with local miners.  It goes without saying that the grand theft is perpetrated by well-connected, wealthy individuals for whom a $1 million bribe to those who want to play to the rules is small change.

In the end there is nothing coming from Chiadzwa to make the economic impact we expected. The nation continues to look to tobacco to alleviate its liquidity challenges, the government continues to struggle to pay its workers and we need Chinese money to build our roads, electricity generation plants and railways.

Some six mining companies are operating at Chiadzwa – Mbada Diamonds, Jinan, Diamond Mining Corporation, DZT-OZGEO, Marange Resources and Kusena. Recently, Anjin said it was halting operations as its claims weren’t as rewarding as they initially promised.

The government has received the report of possible corporate theft being committed by some among the six miners as Mines and Mining Development secretary, Professor Francis Gudyanga confirmed.

“What we can do as a ministry is find out the footprint of what we have sent so far,” he told our sister paper, The Sunday Mail. “If you give me up to next week, I will be able to find that out and determine whether such allegations are true or false.”

Despite all these years of securing (it turns out we didn’t secure anything) our diamond mining and trade, high-level commitment to normalising the sector and punishment on some (it turns out they are only the small fish) who were caught stealing diamonds, we still have daring thieves continuing on their ways. It’s mafia-like business conduct which must be defeated.

Chiadzwa is a national asset, which must benefit all Zimbabweans, not the elite into whose hands we entrusted the responsibility to mine on our behalf.
The government must hammer this message home by holding all the miners to account for their actions and bring to book the transgressors.

President Mugabe is right to say that we need one mining company at Chiadzwa in which the government is the majority shareholder.
It is more difficult to manage the mining, processing and selling of the gems when six companies are involved as is the case now.  Therefore, we expect immediate consolidation of operations.

Antwerp World Diamond Centre chief executive, Ari Epstein, warned us in March that some diamond mining firms were defrauding the country. No one listened. We thought his remarks were Antwerp’s sour grapes at a time when the government was opening an alternative market at Dubai.

“The KP monitor made a footprint of your mines,” Epstein said. “A footprint is a DNA of your mines, so he knows exactly what mines produce. So we know exactly what your production footprint looks like and we use that footprint to see if the producers have sent us their full production as demanded by the Zimbabwean government and almost all of them did, except one producer.

“He took off the most beautiful stones. I am not going to shame and blame. You can ask your ministry. It is known in your ministry. I am not a politician; I am a businessman, so I think the politicians need to be able to do politics. Everybody knows which one it is.”

No one has disputed his remarks, which suggests that whatever he said was true. Our question now is, if the person/s are known, why is it that we have not seen action against them?

Meanwhile, we await the findings of the investigation that Prof Gudyanga alluded to and see who the culprits are. It is an urgent matter needing drastic corrective action for diamonds to be the miracle they promised.

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