LLD: The diamonds are there, let the factories get them

The Government of Namibia could not be making itself any clearer. They want Namibian diamonds to be cut and polished here in Namibia so that jobs and incomes are created locally. In April 2005 LLD Diamonds were a step ahead by inviting the new President of Namibia to their factory in Windhoek’s where show him hundreds of young Namibians cutting and polishing rough diamonds – a far more vivid display for a politician than any number of clever arguments or even money flowing into government coffers (which even those at the very highest level appear to regard as money wasted anyway).
We spoke to LLD’s CEO Kombadayedu Kapwanga confidently in a recent conversation.

Who supply the factory with rough diamonds at the moment?

At the moment we are supplied less than half of what we polish by NDTC and we import the rest from outside the country. We didn’t build this factory to target other countries’ diamonds. Following the introduction of the Diamond Act in 1999, many cutters and polishers arrived in the country only to be disappointed that they couldn’t get their hands on Namibian rough.

What size diamonds does your subsidiary company SAMICOR mine in general?

Many of the stones mined by our sister company Samicor have proven too small to be profitably used at LLD. Samicor diamonds are small sizes, averaging 0.3-0.35 carats per stone so these are sold to other factories.

What size of diamonds do you generally polish in your factory?

It is most economic viable to polish diamonds from1,2 carat and above.

We know that you are private company and are not obligated to disclose all the information but is there any numbers you can proudly share with us?

We can’t share a lot, but I will tell you this: the factory was build for 550 people; the capacity is to polish 25,000Ct per month if there is a constant supply of the right rough. In the last 3,5 years we have been polishing what we can get and concentrate more on training the local people. So when we get enough diamonds we are prepared. At the moment we don’t get enough diamonds in Namibia, that’s why we are importing and the factory does not work at its full capacity.

How many local people have you trained already?

We trained more than 550 people so far but the more diamonds we get to polish the more people we will be training. Right now we have about 500 people working. This year we are planning train additional 30 students.

Obviously you are one of the biggest diamond factory in Namibia, did you feel an increase in competition when NDTC announced 11 new sightholders?

We are hit by the competition we are getting only a small part of NDTC cake. NDTC approved many factories to compete for insufficient amount of rough. There is also a new problem created by the establishment of the new factories. Instead of training new polishers, they are poaching our highly trained polishers.

In 2005 you have said that your goal is polish 25000 carats a month, or 12000 stones as you prefer, did you reach that goal?

We can’t reach the goal, because we are not given enough of the local rough that we need.

How does the government support your developments?

The government is behind us because we provide local beneficiation and employment. We hope that it will do something very soon in order to keep our employees. For example, we have about 500 workers and we get equal to factories which employ only 100 employees, which keep them fully busy while our trained employees sit idle. The government is not interested in only the money, it mostly want us to provide skills transfer and employment.

Do you feel that a lot of the people in the diamond industry are not satisfied now?

The government vision of creating the Diamond Industry in Namibia is been killed by the whole process of not providing sustainable supply to the existing local polishing factories. The diamonds are there, let the factories get them.

Reported by Veronica Novoselova,
Rough&Polished Africa Bureau Editor in Namibia