eBusiness Weekly
The Ministry of Defence, Security and War Veterans has cleared the army’s name dissociating it from alleged shadowy diamond dealings that took place prior to a 2015 consolidation of the seven diamond firms that operated at Chiadzwa. This is despite findings of a 2016 investigation that Anjin Investments emerged as the biggest loophole through which proceeds of Chiadzwa diamonds were spirited out of the country amid indications, at the time, that the company never remitted any of the proceeds to Treasury.
Ministry of Defence, Security and War Veterans permanent secretary, Martin Rushwaya came out guns blazing before the Mines and Energy Parliamentary Portfolio committee yesterday dismissing as baseless, allegations that Anjin had been a shadowy operation whose operations were not monitored and could have been used as a vehicle for looting of national resources.
Rushwaya said the company had during its subsistence of about five years grossed $332,7 million in earnings from the sale of 9 022 million carats. He said the army can account for every cent earned through Anjin operations. Some of the money, he added, was used to acquire military hardware.
Anjin was the biggest operation, but Mbada Diamonds by 2014 declared revenues in excess of $1 billion in four years of operation, three times more than what Rushwaya announced.
Government consolidated the diamond firms amid allegations of lack of transparency and accountability as well as under declaring of proceeds from operations. The government at the time claimed the operations of the diamond firms had not been beneficial to the economy especially after claims by former President Robert Mugabe that $15 billion worth of diamond revenue had not been accounted for.
Mugabe was to later say the $15 billion figure was not based on an evidence or scientific method.
Accountability and transparency lacked in Zimbabwe’s diamond mining operations in the face of western sanctions which prompted Government to initiate sanction busting strategies that threw transparency out the window.
But the army- which was a 50-50 partner with the Chinese in Anjin, was one of the seven companies that were operating in the diamond rich Chiadzwa area of Marange in Manicaland province before the government announced it was consolidating the firms into one company now known as the Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Company (ZCDC)- yesterday said such claims were false.
Rushwaya said the operations were world class and under closed circuit television as per requirement of the Kimberly Process.
“After the mining process, the whole team (of government officials) would take the diamonds to the sorting house and MMCZ would determine the price before the auction was done,” he told the committee.
“Certification of whatever Anjin sold was done by the Minister of Mines. Every single carat was sorted in the presence of officials, sold by MMCZ on behalf of mining companies in the presence of that team.”
MMCZ is the Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe which was sorely responsible for marketing the gems.
“To say Anjin was mining and nobody else knew about its operations is not true,” said Rushwaya.
“All taxes and fees were collected before the mining company was given its share. We only got the change after government took its share. It is not true that we did not pay tax, maybe there were other motivations.”
Of the amount earned, $62 million had been paid to the government in the form of royalties and taxes. All in all, Rushwaya said Anjin spent over $86 million in social responsibility programs and still owed its workers over $1.3 million.
“We can account for every cent of the money. Other than these, we had other military hardware commitments that we paid and we can give you to the last cent all the money that we used,” Rushwaya said.
In Chiadzwa, it is reported that mining companies created an intricate and obscure layer, which had multiple shelf companies with multiple listings in places such as Hong Kong, Dubai and Israel. This enabled the companies to cover the trail of diamond sales and proceeds including the construction of an airstrip which facilitated the shipment of the mineral out of the country direct from Chiadzwa.
“At best, Government would get about 20 percent of declared proceeds which includes 15 percent royalties due to the tax collector, Zimra,” said a source.
The sector’s contribution to fiscus since 2010 to 2015 amounts to $637 335,956, an amount which was at one time projected to be the expected contribution for a single year. 2011 saw the highest contribution at $168.54 million while 2015 had the lowest at $23.5 million. — New Ziana/Business Writer
