This content was first published on IGR – Italian Gemological Review no. 4 in 2018. The information provided here is therefore current as of the original publication date.
Precious raw materials determine the political fate of African leaders forcing them to take a stand. The recent removal of Mugabe, the ninety-four-year-old powerful politician of Zimbabwe, made emerge the old issue of the inefficient management of the huge wealth of the country represented by diamonds. “We have not received much from the diamond industry at all. I don’t think we have exceeded $2 billion, yet we think more than $15 billion has been earned”. This is what Mugabe said in 2016, a decade after the fireworks that followed the launch of the extraction of diamonds in the country that has remarkable reserves of such material. He has certainly paid a price for his declaration. Once lost the control of the country, the old politician was called to appear before the Parliament in May 2018. He will have to explain, as a witness, the origin of this big hole in the accountabilities of diamonds. The use of Marange deposits was marked by the involvement of military and governmental officers controlling the research activities. Too late had Mugabe tried to regain the direct state control of deposits after a period of collaboration with various international companies, among which two Chinese. Before his removal, Mugabe had candidly admitted that he hadn’t been able to find inspiration from the most careful managements of diamonds in the neighbouring countries like Botswana.
It is true. The problems of the diamond industry in Botswana are certainly not inefficiency or corruption. Mokgweetsi Masisi, the new president, took office on 25th March 2018. In his opening speech he dealt with another problem, that of the historical dependence of the economy of the country on diamonds, that still today account for 20% of the GDP. Many don’t notice a detail. Botswana is not at all a poor country. It is classified by the World Bank among the countries with a medium-high pro capita income like China, Brazil and Portugal. These economical levels were reached thanks to the diamond industry that, over the post-colonial fifty years drove the economy of the country (as wide as France with 2.6 million of inhabitants) pushing a growth rate that, still today, is equal to 6% and is overcome, in the long period surveys, only by South Korea and China. In May 2018, the new President Masisi invited De Beers to relaunch the pact that led to the rise of Botswana and that is due to expire in two years. “There is a way of actually achieving a win-win for both, and that’s what we desire”.
Botswana was able to reinvest the income deriving from diamonds and to negotiate with western partners urging them to shift the investments from diamonds to new technologies. This is obviously not Mugabe’s Zimbabwe.
Gem News by Trasparenze News, published on IGR – Italian Gemological Review #4, Summer 2018.
