HARARE – Some members of the boards of two firms mining diamonds at Zimbabwe’s controversial Marange diamond field were once illegal drug and diamond dealers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Sierra Leone, parliamentarians have said. 

Members of Parliament’s special committee on energy and mines also accused Mines Minister Obert Mpofu of illegally appointing members to the board of one of the two mining firms formed last year to exploit diamond deposits at Marange in the east of the country.

The government-owned Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation (ZMDC) last year partnered little known Grandwell of South Africa to form Mbada Investments which is mining diamonds at the Marange field that is also known as Chiadzwa.

The ZMDC also partnered another little known South African firm Core Mining and Minerals in a joint-venture operation trading as Canadile Miners to exploit the Marange deposits.

Kimberley Process

The joint ventures were formed as part of measures to bring mining of diamonds at Marange in line with standards stipulated by world diamond industry watchdog, the Kimberley Process (KP).

However in an example of how operations at Marange remain at best murky and shadowy despite KP pressure for transparency, legislator for Bikita East constituency Edmore Marima accused ZMDC of failure to diligently vet people before forming partnerships with them to mine the Marange diamonds.

Marima, from Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC party, said some members of boards of Mbada and Canadile were “drug dealers and diamond dealers in DRC and Sierra Leone.”

The legislator did not give names of the board members that he claimed trafficked drugs and diamonds in the two countries that have over the years seen war and strife in part fuelled by their vast diamond resources that rebels mined to fund conflict.

ZMDC acting chairwoman Gloria Mawarire denied that there were former illegal drug and diamond dealers on boards of the two firms. She said research by ZMDC did not yield any information to suggest that members of the Mbada and Canadile boards once pushed illegal drugs and diamonds.

Mawarire and Deputy Mines Minister Murisi Zwizwai appeared before the parliamentary committee on Monday. Mpofu is expected to come before the same committee next week.

Illegal appointments

Simbaneuta Mudarikwa, an MP from President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU PF Party quizzed Mawarire why Mpofu appointed three people to sit on the board of Mbada, including the chairman of the board, when the law does not permit him to do so.

The ZMDC chairwoman said she was powerless to stop the appointments. “I was a mere recipient of the letter (announcing the board appointments by Mpofu). It is unfair to ask me to respond to that. Maybe it was a matter of the minister misinterpreting the Act,” Mawarire said.

Under the law, Mpofu can appoint the chairperson and deputy of the ZMDC board but has no authority to name people to sit on boards of joint venture companies formed by the state mining corporation and other entities.

Committee chairman Edward Chindori-Chininga quizzed Mawarire why former Airforce of Zimbabwe helicopter pilot Robert Mhlanga -- who has interests in Grandwell -- was named by Mpofu to represent the ZMDC on the Mbada board as chairman.

“When he is on the Mbada board …. whose interests will he be representing, will he be representing himself or the ZMDC,” asked Chindori-Chininga.

In response Mawarire at first said the ZMDC informed Mpofu about the “irregular or uncomfortable” situation of having Mhlanga representing the state firm on the Mbada board.

Helicopter pilot

But she later claimed ignorance, saying at the time Mbada was formed and its board appointed the ZMDC did not know that Mhlanga was part of a company called Lipam which teamed-up with another firm called New Reclamation to form Grandwell.

According to diamond.net, Mhlanga was Zimbabwe’s first black helicopter pilot and worked as a courier for Mugabe’s late first wife, Sally.

Mhlanga is said to have made a fortune through various projects in Africa and was active in the DRC's diamond trade when Zimbabwean troops fought there.

The Mbada chairman is known to have close ties with Zimbabwe’s military establishment that is accused of stealing millions of dollars worth of diamonds from Marange and offloading them onto the foreign black market for precious stones. 

Mhlanga was a key witness in an attempt to frame then-opposition leader Tsvangirai for treason in 2003, testifying that he had contact with an Israeli spy who claimed he was hired by the MDC leader to kill Mugabe.

Tsvangirai, who was cleared of treason by the courts, later became Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister after forming a power-sharing government with Mugabe last February.

Zwizwai told the parliamentary committee that one of the people appointed to the Mbada board by Mpofu was in fact the mines minister’s personal assistant. Zwizwai, who told the committee he preferred appearing before it in the presence of Mpofu, also said the mines minister had no legal authority to appoint people to the Mbada board.

Scrap metal

The deputy mines minister said Mpofu never consulted him on issues regarding the Marange diamond claims and denied ever taking bribes from firms seeking permission to mine diamonds. 

The parliamentary committee is expected to quiz Mpofu about the apparently illegal board appointments and about his orders to the ZMDC directing the corporation to form joint ventures with no other firm except Grandwell and Canadile.

The two firms are not known names in the diamond industry with for example Grandwell known to have been involved in scrap metal dealing in South Africa before they came to mine diamonds at Marange.

Marange 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 a British firm 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