HARARE – Only one board member of Mbada Investments – one of the two companies mining diamonds at Zimbabwe’s controversial Marange diamond field – turned up for a parliamentary hearing to probe the affairs of the firm on Monday, forcing the lawmakers to postpone the matter to next week.

Mines and energy committee chairperson Chindori Chininga was forced to reschedule the hearings to next week after only Mbada board chairman Robert Mhlanga turned up.

But Chininga said Mhlanga would not be able to answer all the necessary questions.

“We need to have the whole board here, those that represent Grandwell and ZMDC, all those who represent Mbada should be here,” said Chininga.

“I do not think that you will be able to answer all questions sufficiently, as such we should reschedule the meeting to next week,” he added.

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.

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).

But the two companies’ operations in the notorious diamond 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 (DRC) and Sierra Leone.

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.

Mbada was last month forced to abandon a planned sale of 300 000 carats after it emerged that the firm had failed to follow laid down procedures.

The firm's management has also been dogged by allegations that they are "fronts" of certain named politicians within President Robert Mugabe's ZANU PF party.

Chininga said his committee wanted to expedite investigations surrounding the aborted auction of diamonds by Mbada in January as well as its other operations for the country to start generating revenue from the precious gems.

“When Parliament calls you, we would have done thorough research on your operations, and we expect you to answer sufficiently,” said Chindori Chininga.

“We want to quicken the process so that Zimbabwe gets what belongs to its people.”

Last week, ZMDC board members appeared before the same committee to answer questions on the aborted sale and its representation in Mbada, but requested that they put some of their answers in writing.

However, during the hearing the ZMDC revealed that it had four members on the Mbada board instead of the required five, a situation the committee said undermined government’s interests as a shareholder.

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. – ZimOnline