ZMDC to take an active role in mining of diamonds says Mugabe

President Mugabe has said Government, through the Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation, will now take an active role in the mining of diamonds and will ban all raw platinum exports until companies in the sector build a refinery to ensure the country earns significantly from its resources.

Addressing the 94th Ordinary Session of the Zanu-PF Central Committee meeting in Harare yesterday, President Mugabe said Government was strengthening systems in the mining sector as it was one of the key sectors expected to fund Zim Asset, the Government economic blueprint crafted to turn around the economy in the next five years.

"We already have big companies mining and we must be present in the operations," President Mugabe said.

"What is our ZMDC doing? It does not seem to be present in the management of the operations of these mines at all.

"It is folding its arms wanting to be given dividends at the end of the day. Whether it is Mbada, Anjin or the Lebanese – the three big mining companies – we are going to look into these systems."

President Mugabe said former Mines and Mining Development Minister Dr Obert Mpofu had given platinum miners a two-year ultimatum to set up a refinery in the country, but nothing had materialised.

"Let us close our doors immediately and say no raw platinum will go to South Africa," he said.

"The former Minister gave them two years and we must see them now arranging to build a refinery. If they have not started building a refinery after that warning, then when the time comes for us to demand that all refining has to be done here they should not blame us."

President Mugabe said all raw gold should now go through Fidelity, while illegal gold panners should be legalised as small to medium enterprises.

"Don't tell us we do not have money to steer Zim Asset," he said. "We have gold everywhere and it is going to South Africa through makorokoza. Kune tumagroups, ndege dzinomhara musango and there are people ready to receive those boxes of raw gold. That must stop."
President Mugabe said the 51 percent shareholding equity in companies meant that locals should have a say in the day to day running of the firms.

"This is not what has been happening, we say 51 percent and stay aloof," he said. "We want 51 percent of active participation and not just of stretching hands. We mean 51 percent of what we worked together. If you are not there in the operations they hide a huge chunk of proceeds from you and that, we do not want."

President Mugabe said the pledges Zanu-PF made to the people during the elections campaign should start being seen.
"Zim Asset must start unfolding and work must start," he said. "Travel less, meet less and more action. That is Zanu-PF, otherwise people will start asking you where are the pledges you said you would fulfil.

"What is happening in agriculture and industry – there is no change, the roads and railways are still the same. Where is your Zim Asset which you preached to us? The country is ours and we have the resources, but we have to turn them into work and it means action."

President Mugabe said it was the party's election manifesto that saw people dumping the MDC-T to back Zanu-PF. "We presented real, solid and tangible promises to the people while our contestants, with the backing of their Western masters, tried to sell a dummy to the electorate," he said.

"The people realised that Team Zanu-PF offered them a more realistic chance of improving their livelihoods. They were able to separate the genuine from the bogus. We, as servants, we must work to get people enriched."

Everyone, the President said, should shun corruption to ensure that Government achieved its goals.
He said Zimbabwean problems would only be solved by local people not whites who still wanted to see themselves as superior compared to blacks.

President Mugabe said it was sad that the MDC thought that the British and Americans would bring salvation to the country and hence together with their Western masters claimed Zanu-PF rigged the harmonised elections.

"We do not look outside for the source of our own thinking, political ideology," he said. "If you give them a chance they come, as history has shown, and establish restrictions, rules and regulations that exclude indigenous people from even entering their forests calling it trespassing. Those people are good, as Kwame Nkrumah said, when they are six feet down."

Added President Mugabe: "Kozouya chinoti chinoda kuchinja maitiro ekuti ana Chimoto (black people) vadzokere kwavanga vari. You go to London, Washington and in your own ignorance you think the matter can be decided at the United Nations.

"The matter is never decided there. People are in control. You sit down and listen to the voice of the nation. It is saying we are now a sovereign and independent people. Zimbabwe will never be a colony again."

President Mugabe thanked the people for voting resoundingly in the harmonised elections, saying they had ensured that Zanu-PF no longer had any competitor.