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Daniel Nemukuyu in KIMBERLY, South Africa—
The High Court on Monday failed to locate the two diamond mines that Core Mining director Lovemore Kurotwi allegedly showed the Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation’s board members five years ago when he said they were part of his operations in Kimberly, South Africa.
This emerged during an inspection-in-loco by the High Court here, in a case in which Kurotwi and former ZMDC chief executive Dominic Mubaiwa are charged with defrauding the Government of Zimbabwe of US$2 billion through misrepresentation.
They allegedly misrepresented that Core Mining was a special purpose vehicle of reputable mining giant, BSGR, and that it had vibrant mining operations in Kimberly that could assist in financing diamond mining operations in Chiadzwa. Through that misrepresentation, ZMDC formed a joint venture company called Canadile Miners with Core Mining; before it turned out that Core Mining had no capacity to finance operations.
Earlier on, the court was told that Core Mining, which later allegedly duped Government into signing a joint venture agreement to extract diamonds at Chiadzwa, had vibrant operations in South Africa’s Vaal Bosch area, but the court did not find anything.
The court was taken to place that appeared to be a game park as close as 80km to Kimberly, but the witnesses could not show the court the exact place where mining used to take place when the due diligence was conducted five years ago. The witnesses only indicated to the court that they had arrived in the area where they had been taken to by Core Mining representatives in 2009, but they could not pinpoint the exact place.
One State witness, former ZMDC chairperson Ms Gloria Mawarire, said: “I can confirm that this is the general area where Core Mining representatives took us, but I cannot tell the exact place where mining was taking place because it is now five years and it was my first time to visit the place while being driven by other people.”
The other board members present concurred with her.
Further, there was no indication where exactly in Kimberly Core Mining said it had offices with the witnesses saying they had met at premises belonging to Pikwane Diamonds in the same town.
Justice Chinembiri Bhunu, who presided over the inspection-in-loco with the assistance of Kimberly chief magistrate Mr OM Krieling, thanked the South African government for assisting the court.
“We have successfully held it (the inspection), but we have not been able to observe some of the evidence which we sought to observe,” he said.
Before the inspection-in-loco, Kurotwi’s South African lawyer Advocate Shem Symon contested the procedure in which it was going to be conducted and successfully barred any leading of evidence during the exercise.
Another of Kurotwi’s lawyers, Ms Beatrice Mtetwa, questioned the Kimberly chief magistrate’s role, which the court explained was simply a facilitatory one.
The court will continue with the trial in Zimbabwe with Chief Law Officer Mr Chris Mutangadura expected to call the last three State witnesses, including Mr Clever Pikwane whose offices were used for convening Core Mining and ZMDC board meetings during the 2009 due diligence.
Online Reporter