HARARE – Zimbabwe’s Vice-President John Nkomo today visits the controversial Chiadzwa diamond field to assess operations by two mining firms – Mbada Investments and Canadile Miners – two weeks after police barred parliamentarians from touring the area.

Mbada and Canadile are two joint venture firms formed by state-owned Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation (ZMDC) and some South African investors to exploit the Chiadzwa deposits, also known as Marange.

Nkomo who in December took over the post left by the late Vice-President Joseph Msika – who died last August after a long illness – will also during the visit meet with the local villagers of Chiadzwa and other government officials, his office said yesterday.

Parliament’s mines and energy committee, chaired by ZANU PF legislator Chindori Chininga, was denied access to the area to acquaint itself with operations of the two firms exploiting the resource and to convene a public hearing with the locals.

The parliamentary committee is probing among other things how and why Mbada and Canadile were licenced to exploit the Chiadzwa deposits without following proper procedures.

Mines Minister Obert Mpofu has admitted that his department did not follow proper procedure when it allowed the two firms to work the Chiadzwa claims but said it was because the government was in urgent need of cash from the diamonds.

The committee earlier this week urged the authorities to allow the parliamentarians to visit Chiadzwa, in a statement that also called on the Executive to uphold the principle of separation of powers.

“It is the committee’s stand that the relevant authorities should uphold the principle of separation of powers and cooperate with Parliament in facilitating the granting of the clearance and allow the committee to exercise its oversight responsibilities so that it can compile and table its findings in Parliament without further delay for the interest of the nation,” said the statement.

“The committee has taken note, with concern the challenges and unsuccessful efforts by the Acting Clerk of Parliament to secure approval of the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development to authorise police to grant the clearance for the to visit the restricted and reserved Chiadzwa diamonds fields.”

The statement said in upholding the principle of the separation of powers among the arms of state, the committee will not probe the issue before the courts relating to claims or special grants ownership dispute between ZMDC and London-based African Consolidated Resources (ACR) who hold legal claim to the deposits.

Mbada and Canadile were brought to Chiadzwa in a bid to bring operations at the notorious field in line with standards stipulated by world diamond industry watchdog, the Kimberley Process (KP).

However, the two companies’ operations in the field are shrouded in controversy, amid revelations that some members of the boards of the two firms were once illegal drug and diamond dealers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sierra Leone.

Some of the directors of the two firms are also known to have close ties with Zimbabwe’s military establishment that is accused of stealing millions of dollars worth of diamonds from Chiadzwa and offloading them onto the foreign black market for precious stones.

Chiadzwa is one of the world’s most controversial diamond fields with reports that soldiers sent to guard the claims after the government took over the field in October 2006 from ACR that owned the deposits committed gross human rights abuses against illegal miners who had descended on the field.

Human rights groups have been pushing for a ban on Zimbabwean diamonds but last November, the country escaped a KP ban with the global body giving Harare a June 2010 deadline to make reforms to comply with its regulations

By Zimonline