Zimbabwe loses $770m diamond money

Zimbabwe lost about $770 million in potential revenue between 2008 and 2012 through undervaluation and transfer pricing of its gems from the Marange diamond fields.

A report by Partnership Africa Canada on illicit financial flows in the diamonds industry said the gems were being exported to the United Arab Emirates mostly Dubai.

The report was on the agenda of the just-ended Kimberly Process Scheme Intersessional meeting in Shangai, China.

The three day meeting ended yesterday.

The UAE allegedly imported Zimbabwean diamonds cheaply but exported them at much higher prices.

Meanwhile, the alleged $3 million diamond scam involving a Mutare-based businessman, Mudassar Khan, has taken a new twist with police forensic experts ruling that a document at the centre of the scandal which was previously dismissed as fake is in fact genuine. 

In  March this year two prominent Mutare lawyers, Chris Ndlovu and Rangarirai Mubata, were detained at Mutare Central Police Station for allegedly forging an affidavit in which one Albie Marima wrote that some people in Mutare were extorting money from Khan under the name of senior Zanu-PF officials and government officials.

After writing his affidavit, Marima went on to distance himself from his document which alleged that another Mutare businessman, Tino Machakaire, had extorted money purportedly to give it to Defence minister Sydney Sekeramayi, Police Commissioner-General Augustine Chihuri and Central Intelligence Organisation boss Happyton Bonyongwe.