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Midzi was about to expose Marange diamond looters?

by Kassim Dube
10 Jun 2015 at 08:13hrs | Views
Former Zanu-PF minister and Ambassador to the US, Amos Midzi, was reportedly in the process of compiling an intelligence report exposing leading political leaders in the country, who have been implicated in the mass looting of Marange diamonds in Manicaland, The Telescope News reported.

According to a senior executive of a listed mining company, Midzi had reportedly come close to handing over a dossier containing the chief culprits behind, the pilaging of Zimbabwe's diamond wealth in Marange, thought to run into billions of dollars to the press and an unnamed diamond watchdog, and that backers of former VP Joice Mujuru, were allegedly keen to use the expose as a weapon against Zanu-PF's leadership ahead of the 2018 presidential and parliamentary elections.

Midzi was yesterday officially reported and suspected, of having committed suicide by the government controlled press machinery, yet is is coming to light that the former diplomat could have stepped on powerful shoes, after it was recently established in President Robert Mugabe's administration circles, that Midzi could have been brewing a shocker, to name and shame individuals behind diamond looting in Chiadzwa, who according to the mining executive include top military chefs, and some serving cabinet ministers with personal relations to Mugabe.

The former Zanu-PF Harare provincial chairman, was also allegedly in trouble for shooting down the approval of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) and the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) applications to mine diamonds in Chiadzwa during his tenure as mines minister from 2002- 2009, other sources said.

"Amos Midzi knew a lot about diamonds, since they were discovered under his watch in September 2006," said the executive who spoke from the company's offices in South Africa. "You could not easily corrupt him, and he was against the militarisation of the mineral. We also understand that he was holding confidential revelations from his late predecessor, Edward Chindori Chininga, on the same subject."
 
Chininga was very critical of Zanu-PF, and had run out of favour after it was alleged he had leaked sensitive information to the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

Ironically, Chininga who was a chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Mines and Energy, died on June 19 2013 in a traffic collision under disturbing circumstances at the age of 58, after presenting a damning report on diamonds showing that, government was not receiving nearly as much money from the precious stones as it should. However Chininga did not name names of those involved in the looting.

Midzi died yesterday (June 9 2015), and authorities immediately labelled the tragedy as suicide.

Zanu-PF officials declined to comment, and could not say if or not Mugabe and the party's politburo will declare Midzi a national hero, since he had just been suspended from the ruling party.


Source - The Telescope News