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Africa Moyo Deputy News Editor

Zimbabwe’s diamond sector says it put up a good show during the recent Kimberley Process review visit and is confident of getting a positive report.

A KP review team was in the country recently to check on the diamond industry’s compliance levels with the set KP requirements.

Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamonds Company (ZCDC) chief executive Mr Mark Mabhudhu told The Herald that while the industry was already in compliance, this review had to be undertaken in keeping with regulations.

KP review visits are done every five years and the last was done in 2012.

However, due to the outbreak of Covid-19 across the world, the visits had to be shelved.

Said Mr Mabhudhu: “As Zimbabwe in general and ZCDC in particular, we put up a good show, which represents how we run this business. By the time we got this review visit, we were already in compliance.”

Mr Mabhudhu said reviews had to be done because historically, diamonds were known as a mineral that funded conflicts since they are easy to convert to cash.

So, when a KP team visits for a review, it checks on levels of compliance in ensuring that there are no leakages of diamonds such that they end up in wrong hands and potentially fuel conflicts or used to overthrow governments.

This means that the KP team’s checks start from the mine right up to the selling process, which in Zimbabwe’s case, would entail checking on the Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe (MMCZ) then ports of entry and exit and the security situation.

Said Mr Mabhudhu: “They check on the weaknesses or loopholes in the system and when they check, they check on everyone in that country.

“In the case of Zimbabwe, they checked on us as ZCDC, then Murowa (Diamonds), the MMCZ and the ports of entry like the RG Mugabe International Airport. All minimum requirements have to be in place, including the extent to which our KP Certificate meets the requirements.”

Zimbabwe was elected vice chair of the KP during a plenary in Moscow last year.

The country is also vice chair of the African Diamond Producers Association (ADPA), and will assume chairmanship of both institutions next year.