Anjin Investments has denied reports that it was stockpiling diamonds despite being certified by the Kimberly Process, as it did not want to remit tax to the Finance ministry, which is led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC party.
Mining companies were required to remit 15 percent income tax, 10 percent withholding tax on remitted dividends and a three percent royalty.
Anjin board member, Munyaradzi Machacha said the company was selling its diamonds periodically through an auction system.
“Sales are being made and there is no stockpiling taking place. We are not selling buns in some supermarket where people will just walk in and buy. We have to go through a tender process which requires that we first advertise,” he was quoted as saying by New Zimbabwe newspaper.
Meanwhile, Machacha denied that Anjin was extracting as high as 40,000 carats a day.
“I can’t give you the exact figures because they are not constant. We get in the range of 1,000 and 2,000 carats daily,” he said.
Machacha also claimed that the Zimbabwean army had no shares in Anjin.
“What I know is that Anjin is owned by government, I have never heard of the army having shares. It’s part of the popular fiction that people are throwing around,” he said.
Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished
