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Minister Walter Chidhakwa appears before the Parliamentary Committee on Mines and Mining Development and Energy in Harare yesterday. — (Picture by Innocent Makawa)

Tinashe Makichi Business Reporter—

The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Mines and Energy has raised a red flag over the appointment of a Botswana-based company to carry out valuation of Marange diamonds without going to tender.This comes amid concern that Mines and Mining Development Permanent Secretary Professor Francis Gudyanga is running a one-man show at the ministry and going against good corporate governance.

Reports say that the permanent secretary picked an unnamed Botswana company to evaluate the Marange diamonds which are now under the Zimbabwe Consolidate Diamond Company but in his defence Prof Gudyanga said it was not a company but rather a team of individuals were appointed for the job but denied that a fully fledged company was hand-picked for the job.

Prof Gudyanga is chairman of ZCDC and is also the only member of the Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe.

“We don’t have a company that is evaluating (the diamonds) but we have individuals from Namibia and some from Botswana. The situation is that some of the valuators we had were dismissed after investigations pointed them to the leakages of diamonds and management found it appropriate to dismiss them.

Committee chairperson Dr Daniel Shumba while interrogating Mines and Mining Development Ministry officials yesterday insisted that Prof Gudyanga was not being truthful because they were invoices that were paid to a fully fledged Botswana company and not to individuals.

“The valuators are from Botswana and they employ foreigners. The individuals who used to do the valuation were fired despite them being sought after the world over. They were the ones in charge during the time when we sold diamonds at our peak.

“In spite of their expertise, ZCDC board went on to hire a private company, and this is the company you pay monthly. The Mines and Energy Committee is concerned by allegations that the commission being paid to the company is crawling back into the pockets of senior people in the Ministry including the Permanent Secretary,” said

“Investigations are however taking place both in Zimbabwe and South Africa over the issue of payment of senior officials and we are surprised that the Minister is not aware of this as no tender process followed. Again the recruitment of those individuals as highlighted for the valuation of diamonds was never advertised,” said Dr Shumba.

Mines and Mining Development Minister Walter Chidhakwa noted that he was not aware of some of the tender irregularities that were happening within the Ministry and promised the Committee that further internal interrogation was to be made to get to the bottom of the issues.

Prof Gudyanga however proposed that Committee Chairperson Dr Shumba must consider recusing himself from presiding over the matter as he was an interested party.

“My Minister has mentioned that parastatals have contracts with various companies whether its Marange, ZCDC or MMCZ and I am put in a difficult situation at the moment Chairman because one company providing services to Marange is aligned to you and we have issues with it. You chairman are one of the principal directors of that company and I would expect you to recuse yourself,” said Prof Gudyanga.