Source: Diamond audit stalls | The Financial Gazette August 31, 2017
Minister of Mines, and Mining Development, Walter Chidhakwa
MINES and Mining Development Minister, Walter Chidhakwa, last week revealed that a forensic audit to establish the quantity and value of diamonds that Zimbabwe could have lost through leakages at the Chiadzwa diamond fields has stalled due to missing data.
Chidhakwa told The Financial Gazette that he is set to meet Finance and Economic Development Minister, Patrick Chinamasa, to discuss the issue.
“I was not feeling well, but I am back at work now. So, I need to catch up with the Finance and Economic Development (Chinamasa) to find out the latest (on the forensic audit). So, I am arranging a meeting with Chinamasa who appointed four companies to do the (forensic) work at Chiadzwa. But I was told their work (auditors) has stalled because some critical data was missing,” Chidhakwa said on the sidelines of a Mining and Agriculture interface breakfast meeting held last week.
Chinamasa had appointed four chartered accounting firms, including BDO Zimbabwe, HLB Zimbabwe and Pricewaterhouse Coopers, to look investigate the alleged looting of diamonds from Chiadzwa diamond fields.
The audit was put into motion after President Robert Mugabe last year said diamonds worth more than $15 billion had been looted from Chiadzwa.
Several companies, which included Mbada Diamonds, Marange Resources, Anjin Investments (which was jointly owned by the Chinese military and their Zimbabwean counterparts), Diamond Mining Company, Jinan, Rera, Kusena and Gye Nyame, mined diamonds in Chiadzwa.
The companies, however, hit hard rock after alluvial deposits had been depleted. But several reports suggested that the diamond mining companies had accelerated looting at the fields ahead of the amalgamation of operations.
Government evicted the diamond mining companies from Chiadzwa in 2015 to form the Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamonds Mining Company (ZCDC), which now exclusively mines the area.
The creation of ZCDC was meant to create transparency and accountability in the mining and trade of diamonds.
Chinamasa and Chidhakwa have agreed with former finance minister, Tendai Biti, that there was no transparency in the handling of diamond proceeds by miners operating in Chiadzwa.
Most of the country’s diamond revenue has reportedly been unaccounted for, and leakages were said to be rampant, with individuals benefiting at the expense of the nation.
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