The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Mines and Energy led by Temba Mliswa has started collecting evidence in order to sue the world’s largest diamond company De Beers. De Beers is being accused of illegally mining and exporting diamonds from the Marange area between 1993 and 1999 when it only held a licence to explore. It’s also being accused of illegally extending its licence to explore, the Exclusive Prospecting Order (EPO) to 2006. Farai Maguwu of the Zimbabwe Environmental Lawyers Association told the committee that it was possible to sue De Beers based on the present evidence.
Said Maguwu,
The Marange scandal did not start in 2009, but must be traced back to 1993 when De Beers acquired an Exclusive Prospecting Order for Marange, not that they wanted to explore anything, but they were mining.
De Beers illegally extended its EPO against the laws of this country beyond 1999. Section 94 of the Mines and Minerals Act is very clear on the length of exploration in this country.
It said no order shall be granted for a period in excess of three years, but an order may be extended for a further six months by the minister under the recommendation of the board
A company that does exploration for a period of three years will be violating the law and that was criminal since De Beers did exploration for 13 years. During this time, De Beers was not exploring but it was mining. Was Government not aware of this scandal?
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