MINERALS Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe (MMCZ) boss, Richard Chingodza was on Monday grilled by the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Mines and Energy on how Zimbabwe lost $15 billion worth of diamond revenue.
BY VENERANDA LANGA
Chingodza had appeared before the Daniel Shumba-led committee to speak about his suspension as MMCZ acting general manager. Shumba then asked him to give his personal view on the missing $15 billion.
“My personal view on the $15 billion is that after the discovery of diamond claims in Marange, the government transferred claims to the Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation, which started to mine gems, and at that point we had no knowledge of diamond mining and it was proper to leave it to an entity that was able to control diamond mining,” Chingodza said.
“We overlooked the fact that alluvial diamonds are easy to mine and also easy to steal, and that they needed proper controls.
“At that point, we had conflicting needs in finances and we started losing the value of our diamonds by selling them dirty (unpolished) because we were desperate for money as a country, and it was only in 2013 that we started cleaning the diamonds.”
He said, at that time, the government was still trying to understand the footprint of the Marange diamonds, and it was after some years that State recieved feedback that some of the diamonds they were selling raw had a higher value.
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“Cleaning of our diamonds is one of the resolutions we applaud our principals for implementing. At one point, we suggested that we should have a diamond museum, where we keep unusually big stones of fancy colours, so that they are not immediately sold. We had a huge appetite for cash and they had to be sold and they lost value,” Chingodza said. He said another mistake was that there were no government representatives on the boards of companies mining diamonds in Marange.
“Even with 50% shares, if one requested for production of minutes and statistics, and even audit reports from those companies, they were not forthcoming. Maybe it explains the leakages,” Chingodza said.
“We have had value of unusually big stones, but they were not very spectacular stones that we can talk about according to our records as MMCZ.
“It is mining and shipping of diamond ore that are the most delicate processes, but unfortunately, as MMCZ, we were not 100% there, and we only come in after diamonds are locked in boxes and are ready for shipping.”
