Published by the government of Zimbabwe
Thupeyo Muleya in Beitbridge
13 July 2009
Harare — Government is addressing recommendations made by the Kimberley Process review team that recently visited the country, Mines and Mining Development Minster Cde Obert Mpofu has said.
Speaking after touring River Ranch Diamond Mine, 22km outside Beitbridge on Thursday, Minister Mpofu urged mines across the country to ensure that local communities also benefited from natural resources in their areas.
"As Government we are working on addressing the recommendations made by the Kimberley Process review team that visited the country recently.
"We have committed ourselves to meet the standard requirements on the global protocol.
"We are still studying some of the recommendations though we have started making adjustments especially at Chiadzwa, where we have since courted a foreign investor to explore mining.
"We expect the investor to be on the ground any time soon. However, there is a lot of work to do in terms of beefing up security and handling of the diamonds," he said.
Minister Mpofu said Government was looking at partnering at least six investors to develop the area.
The Chiadzwa diamond field covers an area of 77 000 hectares and was home to over 3 000 families.
He said they were working on the modalities of relocating the families, adding that Government had since acquired sufficient resources for the exercise.
Minister Mpofu said they had reached an agreement with the families and their traditional leaders over the issue.
He commended River Ranch Diamond Mine for installing state-of-the-art security at the mine to curtail diamond smuggling and the proliferation of the resource on the illegal market.
The mine uses an imported four-tier security system that covers a total of 7 000 ha along the Limpopo River, which is 50 km away from South Africa's Venetian Diamond Mine.
He also applauded the existence on the Indigenisation bill which he said was investor friendly urging local and foreign investors to take advantage of its existence.
Minister Mpofu was accompanied by Home Affairs co-Minister Kembo Mohadi, Matabeleland South Governor Angeline Masuku and a number of traditional leaders from the area.
He reiterated that Government was working flat-out to curb the rampant smuggling of minerals out of the country with the introduction of a mop-up exercise that seeks to recover minerals from unregistered dealers.
The minister said they had so far budgeted US$2 million for the project and had so far recovered 50kg of gold from the illegal market in a period of four days.
The Kimberley Process Protocol is a world agreement that regulates the sale of diamonds on the legal market.
The review team was in the country to apprise themselves on the way diamond mines operate in Zimbabwe.
Their visit is a follow up to the work done by an assessment team from the same organisation that was in the country in March.
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