The diamond industry-backed Kimberley Process is investigating a complaint that Zimbabwe is exporting rough diamonds without proper certification.
Chairperson of the Antwerp-based World Diamond Council, Eli Izhakoff, said on Wednesday the council had expressed concern that rough diamonds from Zimbabwe were being smuggled into South Africa.
The Kimberley Process is a set of regulations designed by diamond producers and marketing organisations to prevent trade in ”conflict diamonds” — gems mined and traded to fund conflict in Africa.
”The European Commission, which holds the rotating chair of the Kimberley Process, is looking into the allegations and has received cooperation from the Zimbabwe government,” the council says.
”The complaints relate to two incidents in which the government has allegedly seized privately owned diamond mines.”
These were the Bubye mine near the southern town of Beitbridge, since renamed River Ranch and apparently owned by retired army general Solomon Mujuru, husband of Zimbabwe Vice-President Joyce Mujuru; and an operation in the Marange region of Zimbabwe owned by British-based African Consolidated Resources.
There are allegations that production from River Ranch is being mixed with diamonds from the nearby Democratic Republic of Congo.
”All rough diamond exports from Zimbabwe should be suspended until the matter is resolved,” Izhakoff said.
The council also reported that Ghana, also accused of not meeting the requirements of the Kimberley Process, intended to clean up its act.
”We plan to meet all Kimberley Process requirements by March,” Minister of Lands, Forestry and Mines Minister Dominic Fobih is reported as saying. ”We will clean our image.”
Meanwhile, the council also reported that Angola would produce 10-million carats of rough diamonds in 2008, compared with about 8-million carats in 2006.
Chairperson of the state-owned diamond mining company Endiama, Arnaldo Calado, said the government had achieved all of its goals for the diamond sector in 2006.
Angola has risen to become one of the major sources of rough diamonds in the world since the end of its civil war in 2002. De Beers, Alrosa, the Leviev Group and other diamond mining majors will prospect in eight new provinces during 2007. — Sapa