The Mineral Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe has announced that the country has grossed US$19,6 million from diamond sales during the first seven months of the year.

Is this meant to be some sort of boast - as it fails miserably!

Only $19,6 million? At $800 per carat, this only accounts for 24500 carats. Gono has stated that the loss to the Zimbabwean economy is much more than that every week. Gono quantified it by saying that the country was losing $200 million a month through illegal diamond deals.

The sum result is that in seven months, the legitimate turnover on diamonds is less than 50% of the estimated loss in any week...

“The Kimberley Process, the global diamond watchdog, estimates that last year Zimbabwe produced $43,8-million worth of diamonds.

In a public report, the watchdog accused the Zimbabwe army of illegal mining in the Marange diamond fields, where it said civilians are subjected to “horrific” violence.”

Okay - if the Kimberley Process’s estimate is more accurate than the guesstimate by Gono, then there is still some $24 million to be accounted for.

If Gono’s estimate of lost money at US£200 million per month is accurate, then there is a deficit of some US$1400 million less the paltry US$20 million that the MMCZ has announced.

So where has this money gone? I know I have asked this question many times before, not only on this page, but also on “The Bearded Man“. The Zimbabwean authorities will not allow the Kimberley Process team to audit their books, and refuses to allow the body access to the diamond fields.

They claim that there is nothing to see in the fields or in the books - if indeed there are any books… If there is nothing to hide, then why hide it?

How desperately does the country need that money! And yet it has been pilfered by Mugabe-ites, used to feather their own nests...

Another report a few months ago stated that buckets of diamonds that had been held in the vaults of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe have mysteriously disappeared. If the country is the law abiding community as Mugabe would have us all believe, then why are the pro-Mugabe Zimbabwe Republic Police not investigating this obvious and blatant theft?

Mugabe’s legacy is littered with the bodies of his foes, not only political, but those who perished in the poverty that his rule has led the country into...

The country is on its knees financially - the government has no money, Mugabe’s party is broke, and the people are destitute. And yet Mugabe and company pocket any turnover they can, ensuring that the Zimbabwean people will never have the strength to resist the ZANU PF debilitating rule.

Robb WJ Ellis
The Bearded Man