Handling of Zimbabwe diamonds must be transparent

The Kimberley Process meeting this week in Kinshasa offers a welcome opportunity for an agreement to be reached between the KP and Zimbabwe on the sale of the Zimbabwe diamonds on the international market.
 
The people of Zimbabwe in general and the civil servants in particular would tremendously benefit from the revenue generated from the sale of diamonds. To this end, the MDC said it's position is that Zimbabwe should be compliant with the International requirements. This unmitigated compliance with the international requirements would ensure that there is uninterrupted flow of revenue into the country.

Although considerable progress has been made towards compliance, MDC-T says it calls upon the government to ensure that all the domestic obstacles to full compliance are removed.

MDC-T says it calls on the KP to offer practical assistance to Zimbabwe in order to ensure that it is fully compliant with its requirements. It is clear if the diamonds are traded legitimately this would assist in the economic recovery of Zimbabwe.

MDC-T says it believes diamonds and other mineral resources belong to the people of Zimbabwe and must be exploited for national benefit in a transparent manner. The current system under which the military is heavily involved in the mining and marketing of diamond with revenues undeclared to the national fiscus is clearly unacceptable.