A Belgian diamond expert Filip van Laere, who advised Harare on ensuring compliance with the Kimberley Process (KP) said in September 2010 that diamond output from Marange fields were expected to reach 40 million carats by 2013, helping the country generate about $2 billion in revenue per year.
"Zimbabwe has been propelled to the number one spot as the world's most important player and it will be number three in value,” he was quoted as saying at the time by Reuters.
Van Laere even richly said that Zimbabwe could outshine leading diamond producers like Russia, Botswana and South Africa.
Dear reader, I am sure you probably fell from your chair as you read the aforementioned projection.
Looking at the predictions in hindsight makes one wonder if these were made under the influence.
Clearly under the hex of such toxic advise, the then mines minister Obert Mpofu announced boldly to the world that Zimbabwe was poised to earn $2 billion per annum from its diamonds in Marange and would never beg anyone for help.
“We are going to unleash our worthiness to the world. Zimbabwe won’t be begging to anyone,” he said after the lifting of the KP embargo.
"Our current diamond production is estimated by volume, to be in excess of 25 percent of the world production, and going by the values realised to date per carat, Zimbabwe is set to earn in excess of $2 billion annually in gross revenues."
Chaim Even-Zohar, president of the Tel Aviv-based diamond consulting service, Tacy also said in November 2012 when I sat down with him in Victoria Falls that Zimbabwe had the potential to produce eight to 10 percent of the global gem production.
Some unnamed geologists cited by a local Member of Parliament, Eddie Cross, who claimed to have done a thorough research on Marange, reported that the fields contained between 2 and 7 billion carats of raw diamonds.
Not to be outdone, Charles Stanley Securities of the UK said in February 2012 that Zimbabwe’s “huge” diamond reserves were set to “shape” the global diamond industry over the next few years.
Kieron Hodgson, a commodities analyst with a UK securities firm, was quoted by New Ziana news agency as saying that although the exact resource base of the Marange diamond fields remained unknown, official figures pegged it between 60 000 and 70 000 hectares.
“Zimbabwe really does have the potential to upset the applecart,” he said at the time.
Hodgson said the southern African country was also expected to produce between two and three million carats per month at peak for around 20 years.
‘Failure’
However, Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe said recently that diamond mining in the country had ‘failed’.
“Diamonds are a failure,” he was quoted as saying recently to a group of former freedom fighters.
This tacit admission of ‘failure’, in what some say was a massive plunder of the country’s diamonds, makes a sad reading.
Mugabe claimed earlier this year that illicit trade in Zimbabwean diamonds cost the economy more than $13 billion, forcing the state to create a new company, the Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Company.
He said without providing a timeframe that the state had earned about $2 billion from gems worth about $15 billion that were generated by the industry.
“Lots of smuggling and swindling has taken place and the companies that have been mining, I want to say robbed us of our wealth,” Mugabe told a state television station.
“That is why we decided that this area should be a monopoly area and only the state should be able to do the mining in that area.”
Mugabe’s admission of the pillaging of Marange diamonds left many a people livid as they had hoped that the gems would help resuscitate the comatose economy.
So what caused this epic ‘failure’ in Marange?
Firstly, revenue was salted away, while state coffers remained largely dry.
No efforts were made to invest in machinery for underground mining, unlike the alluvial mining they were involved in that is not capital intensive.
The mining companies often clashed with the then finance minister in the unity government, Tendai Biti, over the diamond revenue.
Strangely officials from Mugabe’s party appeared to side with the mining companies, only to start complaining of truncated diamond revenue when they took control of the government after the 2013 elections.
Secondly, the country allowed too many companies, some of them fly-by-night, to mine in Marange, making it a fertile ground for looting.
There were eight miners in Marange, including Anjin Investments, Diamond Mining Company, Jinan, Kusena, Marange Resources and Mbada Diamonds.
Thirdly, the trade embargo by KP and sanctions imposed by the U.S and EU didn’t help matters, as officials often threw a blanket over diamond mining in the country and revenue accrued in fear of sanctions.
This promoted nocturnal diamond dealings and smuggling.
However, having noted these factors, it’s not far-fetched to say that is still hope.
With political will, right policies, exploration and reputable mining companies (in partnership with the state as is the case in Angola, Botswana and Namibia) willing to go underground, something can be salvaged from this mess.
Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished
