CHITUNGWIZA – Finance Minister Tendai Biti said all the contracts and mining leases that government has awarded to mining firms in the controversial Chiadzwa diamond field should be cancelled as they were awarded fraudulently.

Biti also painted a grim picture on the state of revenue emanating from Chiadzwa saying government had not received any revenue from the troubled mining area.

“There is nothing coming from Chiadzwa. There is nothing coming to the fiscus from Chiadzwa,” Biti said at a rally yesterday.

“Chiadzwa represents the biggest find of alluvial diamonds in the history of mankind. In the interest of transparency, all mining licences, leases, special grants that have been given in Chiadzwa must be cancelled forthwith. All mining operations must cease. There must be a new diamond law in Zimbabwe.”

Biti’s statement that government had not received any revenue from Chiadzwa is in sharp contrast to the announcement by Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation (ZMDC) boss Dominic Mubaiwa who told lawmakers in January that government had been given a dividend of US$800 000.

“There is nothing, we did not get any US$800 000,” said Biti whose announcement also comes at a time when government has shortlisted 20 firms to extract diamonds in Chiadzwa.

The shortlitsing of the five firms also comes at a time when a Kimberley Process (KP) monitor Abbey Chikane has already begun assessing operations in Chiadzwa and Zimbabwe has also hired a Namibian consultant to train locals and help clean up its diamond industry to meet KP requirements, suggesting Harare was keen to remain part of the KP despite threats by President Robert Mugabe to pullout out of the grouping.

Currently, two firms Mbada Diamonds and Canadile Miners – both joint ventures the government’s ZMDC formed with two South African firms last year – are mining diamonds at Chiadzwa.

The ZMDC controls some 69 000 hectares of the vast diamond field.

The joint ventures were formed as part of measures to bring mining of diamonds at Chiadzwa in line with standards stipulated by world diamond industry watchdog, the KP.

Chiadzwa is one of the world’s most controversial diamond fields with reports that soldiers sent to guard the claims after the government took over the field in October 2006 from a British firm that owned the deposits committed gross human rights abuses against illegal miners who had descended on the field.

Human rights groups have been pushing for a ban on Zimbabwean diamonds but the KP last November declined to suspend the country and instead opted to give Harare a June 2010 deadline to make reforms to comply with its regulations. – ZimOnline