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could have looted gems worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
De Beers spent eight years exploring diamonds at the fields, but later claimed that it failed to get anything meaningful. These are the same fields that Mbada, Marange Resources and Anjin Investment are operating on viably today and extracting millions of carats.
Mines and Mining Development Deputy Minister Gift Chimanikire yesterday confirmed a probe was already underway.
“We have requested a full report on De Beers and their operations from our officers,” Deputy Minister Chimanikire said.
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Asked what Government intended to do on completion of the probe, he said: “We investigate in order to have information and make decisions.”
He said Government was not privy to the operations of De Beers, hence the investigations to establish what actually transpired.
Deputy Minister Chimanikire said it was worrisome that De Beers spent eight years prospecting for diamonds at Chiadzwa, but “left records showing that they found nothing”.
“Years later, an ordinary farmer came along the diamonds yet they (De Beers) had taken hundreds of tonnes of samples to South Africa.
“We want a full report on De Beers. We want to find out what happened. We want to gather information and find a way forward,” he said.
Deputy Minister Chimanikire said Government would only sue De Beers “based on information made available.”
De Beers has always been on a collision course with the Government.
In 1991 the then Ministry of Mines cancelled its diamond claims near Beitbridge following a two-year wrangle in which De Beers refused to market its diamonds through the Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe.
This was after De Beers had failed to develop the claims and maintained its policy that all gems from its claims be sold through the De Beers central selling organisation and not MMCZ. De Beers is the world’s biggest diamond producer.
Peter Tanyanyiwa
Online Reporter