Zimbabwe has capacity to mine diamonds-Midzi 22-6-07

Mining Development Company in terms of funding and technical
expertise.
Gono’s comments last week in Bulawayo, the country’s second largest
city, which were widely publicised, deplored government’s approach to
diamond mining and accused the ZMDC of lacking capacity for “gainful
extraction programmes in the diamond sector”.
Gono said the ZMDC has no technical or financial capacity to extract
diamonds in Marange, necessitating the need for a foreign technical
partner.
Earlier in the week, instead of devaluing the Zimbabwe Dollar to boost
the country’s foreign currency base in the midst of a flourishing
black market, Gono just raised the producer price of gold in local
currency in a move analysts said would make gold producers competitive
on the informal source of forex to boost their imports of gold
processing inputs.
Midzi claimed ZMDC had so far extracted 30,000 carats of diamonds over
the past three months.
Midzi spoke amid growing concerns that the broke Mugabe regime lacked
the financial muscle to extract the precious stones.
“There have been certain assumptions that ZMDC is unable to carry out
mining in Marange, but evidence shows that it has the capacity,” Midzi
told The Zimbabwean. “Obviously like any other company there are some
constraints, especially foreign currency to purchase modern equipment
like the one used in separating the diamonds from the rubbles.
“Since April this year when ZMDC moved to Marange it has moved over
1,000 tones of ore producing about 30,000 carats of diamonds.”
Midzi declined to reveal how much had been earned from the extracted
diamonds claiming the calculations were complicated.
Midzi said ZMDC was prospecting for the occurrence of more diamonds
away from the epicenter, which he said he been ring fenced by state
security agents.
Zimbabwe has vast mineral deposits that have sparked a fierce dogfight
within the ruling elite.
Senior government officials hand army generals have been implicated in
illicit extraction and smuggling of diamonds.