One of the World’s Top Diamond Producer by output: Alrosa Earmarked to Capitalize $12 Million in Zimbabwe from 2020 to 2022

By Abdul Rahman Bangura–

NEW AFRICA DAILY NEWS (NADN) Freetown, Sierra Leone- A certain top diamond producer – Russia’s Alrosa (MCX:ALRS), has started up exploring and prior expedition works for deposits in Zimbabwe as part of a cooperation with the nation’s Consolidated Diamond Company (ZCDC). This is an acceptable upswing to the Southern African nation’s endeavors to expand diamond mining revenues. Zimbabwe foremost commenced permitting foreign companies to dig up precious stones in 2018, opening the door to private investors.

Mines minister Winston – Chitando noted at the time that his office was contemplating allowing foreigners hold majority stakes in local operations on the condition that part of their output is reserved for domestic downstream industries.

Alrosa opened an office in Zimbabwe’s capital Harare in 2018. First employees entered early 2019 and the combined enterprise with ZCDC was formalized in December.

“Following the signing of a joint venture agreement with Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Company to develop diamond deposits, we are progressing well towards the initiation of the full-scale prospecting works this year,” Alrosa’s Deputy Chief Executive – Vladimir Marchenko, explained in the statement. Most of Zimbabwe’s diamond fields are in Marange, in the eastern part of the country where production is overseen by ZCDC.

In 2008, hundreds of artisanal miners were murdered and thousands had to flee their homes as the military, under the former government of Robert Mugabe struck them to leave Marange. International advocacy groups accused Mugabe of looting about $2 billion from the diamond-rich fields. The European Union lifted sanctions that curbed diamond exports from Zimbabwe at the end of 2013.

Nevertheless, in the first half of 2016, Mugabe ousted all diamond miners after they ebbed to merge with ZCDC.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa, assumed office in 2018, has changed positions to end the country’s international isolation and entice foreign investment to improve an economy in that has been in tatters.

Campaign group and accountability watchdog – Global Witness has stated that Mnangagwa’s approach of the nation’s diamond industry would be the maximum tryout for his obligation to economic reform and anti-corruption.

According to the organization, good governance of the country’s diamond sector is a barometer of the direction that Zimbabwe is taking further, sizably in the post-Mugabe era.

“It will attest to the credence of President Mnangagwa’s claims of a zero tolerance approach to corruption and transformed economic governance,” Sophia Pickles, Campaign Leader at Global Witness, let out.

For New Africa Daily News Abdul Rahman Bangura Reports,  Africa Correspondent

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