Mugabe faces diamond probe
Ousted president has to answer on whether Zimbabwe was deprived of R180bn from gems
Zimbabwe's parliament has ordered former leader Robert Mugabe to answer questions next month about whether the state was deprived of $15-billion (about R180-billion) in diamond revenue.
It will be Mugabe’s first public appearance since last November when the army deposed him and he was replaced by President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
Mugabe, 94, said in March 2016 the country was robbed of wealth by diamond companies, including joint ventures between Chinese companies and the army, police and intelligence services whose operations were shielded from public scrutiny.
Specifically, he said Zimbabwe lost $15-billion in revenue from the Marange gem fields, more than 400km east of the capital. He expelled those firms last year and replaced them with a state-owned diamond company.
Themba Mliswa, who heads parliament’s mining committee, said the panel had interviewed former Marange mining executives as well as the police, army and intelligence services and now wanted to talk to Mugabe.
“The committee resolved that the former president should appear on May 9 so that he can explain the disappearance of the $15-billion,” Mliswa said.
Diamond watchdog Partnership Africa Canada said in 2012 at least $2-billion of Marange diamonds had been stolen by people linked to Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party. The government denied the charge.
Meanwhile, a farm owned by Robert Mugabe’s wife Grace is at the centre of a legal dispute after hundreds of illegal gold miners invaded parts of the property and started mining gold.
A Reuters photographer saw hundreds of illegal miners digging for gold at the Smithfield citrus farm using picks and shovels.
Once guarded by armed police, the farm is now dotted with illegal diggers whose quest for gold has left open shafts and tunnels and uprooted some fruit trees at Smithfield, 40km north of Harare.
In a sign of how the once powerful Mugabe and his wife have fallen, the illegal miners at Smithfield last month told Grace that she no longer had any power to evict them, the privately owned NewsDay newspaper reported.
“We are not going anywhere. We are artisanal miners and we will be contributing to the survival of the economy since we will be selling our gold to [state-owned] Fidelity [Refinery and Printers],” one of the diggers told Reuters at the farm two weeks ago.
Britain said yesterday it would strongly support Zimbabwe’s re-entry to the Commonwealth and praised President Emmerson Mnangagwa for impressive progress since Mugabe was toppled in a military coup.
Zimbabwe left the Commonwealth network of 53 mostly former territories of the British Empire in 2003 after Mugabe, who had ruled Zimbabwe from its independence in 1980, was criticised over disputed elections and land seizures from white farmers.
“The UK would strongly support Zimbabwe’s re-entry and a new Zimbabwe that is committed to political and economic reform that works for all its people,” the Foreign Office said.
As Harare looks to rebuild its international ties, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson met his Zimbabwean counterpart Sibusiso Moyo and ministers from other nations over breakfast on the sidelines of the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in London.
Johnson said July’s election would be a bellwether for the direction of a new Zimbabwe.
“The Zimbabwe government must deliver the free and fair elections the people of Zimbabwe deserve and which it has promised,” he said.
Zimbabwe has said it will invite Western powers to monitor its national elections for the first time in more than 15 years.
“President Mnangagwa has been in power for 150 days and while Zimbabwe has made impressive progress, there is still much to do,” Johnson said.
“That’s why Britain, the Commonwealth and the wider international community will do everything it can in supporting Zimbabwe on its path of reform.” – Reuters