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Deputy Minister Moyo

Golden Sibanda in BULAWAYO
GOVERNMENT is confident newly formed Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Company will register significant growth in monthly diamond output, as the consolidation of firms that operated in Chiadzwa gathers pace.

Three mines out of the six whose claims were repossessed by Government over lack of meaningful production and returns to Government, have so far been consolidated into the consolidated entity.

Speaking in an interview on his 92nd birthday President Mugabe said less than $2 billion out of $15 billion believed to have been earned from Chiadzwa was realised by the Treasury with the rest suspected to have been stolen.

He said the fact that only a pittance had trickled into Treasury was the major reason Government had repossessed diamond claims of companies that mined in Chiadzwa to consolidate their operations in order to enhance transparency and accountability as well as benefit to the State.

Deputy Minister of Mines and Mining Development Fred Moyo said in an interview at the ongoing Zimbabwe International Trade Fair that results so far are pleasing and output is projected to peak up significantly in the coming months.

He said Government now has a schedule it is following in terms of compensating foreign companies it had partnered on a 50-50 joint venture basis to form the various companies that mined gems in Chiadzwa.

Deputy Minister Moyo said in each of the instances where the Government settles obligations to its former partners, it immediately consolidates them into ZCDC, in which it now holds the entire shareholding, but plans to allow private investors to buy half the shares in future.

“In the first quarter it was largely Marange Resources. The consolidated company has only started now and will maybe show its full potential by midyear with the coming on board of Gye Nyame, Kusena and Marange.

“We actually have a schedule where we have said by this time towards the third quarter we would have completed the consolidation, the figures look quite good,” the deputy minister said.

He said the value of equipment ZCDC will require is not yet known, but that what is certain is the fact that production from the consolidated entity’s operations will grow.

“In terms of the equipment we want to acquire, we are still in the process of valuing that and I do not know how it will sit on the balance sheet.”

The mines deputy minister pointed out that after consolidation of the companies, Government expects better performance by the company from an efficiency, standards, co-ordination and supervision points of view.

Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Wednesday said a forensic audit is underway against each of the firms that operated in Chiadzwa and those implicated by the audit will have to account for what is missing.