All the mining companies were experiencing viability problems because the surface diamonds they had been extracting were drying up. Worse, the mining companies could not adequately account for the revenue generated from the diamonds, amid reports that they were smuggling them out of the country and using them to fund Zanu (PF) at a time when little was going to the national treasury.
In fact, some of the companies, particularly Anjin and Mbada Diamonds, had the cheek to ask for more mining plots!
Today, the situation at Chiadzwa remains pretty much the same. There still is opaqueness around mining operations, against a background of insiders colluding with individuals to smuggle the little that remains into such countries like Mozambique, Botswana and South Africa.
More worrying, there is no word about the fate of the offending companies. Last year, Chidhakwa indicated that the companies would be collapsed into one establishment that would partner with government. He said this was necessary in order to bring effectiveness, competitiveness, efficiency and transparency into the sector.
Many months later, nothing of the sort has happened and we do not know if it is still on the cards at all. We are not sure what action government is going to take against those who diverted the diamonds to the illegal market and starved the economy. We await an audit of how the diamonds were exploited and sold.
Could it be that Chidhakwa has, all of a sudden, lost steam? We hope not. There remains a big possibility that his principals have talked him out of his combative stance. This is possible because many fat cats seem to have been involved in illegal acts at Chiadzwa. These apparently include key figures in government and the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), which reportedly benefited from the looting at the diamond fields. An audit would open a huge can of worms, while realigning the ownership structure would also expose some nasty detail.
Be that as it may, the public needs to be informed of government decisions and actions in the diamond fields. The world also needs to know in order to improve the perception and image of the country, particularly given the scandals that rocked the diamond sub-sector in previous years. No meaningful investment of any nature is likely to happen if the opacity we are witnessing today persists – and that would remove any chance of our embattled economy recovering.
Post published in: Editor: Wilf Mbanga