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This article participates on the following special index pages:
Marange, Chiadzwa and other diamond fields and the Kimberley Process - Index of articles
Opacity
haunts diamond mining’s Treasury remittances
Hazel Ndebele, The Independent (Zimbabwe)
November 15, 2013
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/2013/11/15/opacity-haunts-diamond-minings-treasury-remittances/
Controvesy continues
to hog the
diamond mining sector with conflicting reports from the Finance
and Mines and Mining Development ministries over remittance of diamond
mining revenue, as was the norm in the inclusive government era.
Chinamasa told parliamentarians
in Victoria Falls at a 2013 Budget Review Seminar a fortnight ago
that out of a targeted US$40 million expected from diamond sales,
nothing had been received as at September 2013.
But Mines and Mining
Development minister Walter Chidhakwa told Zimbabwe Independent
on Wednesday his ministry has been remitting funds to treasury.
Such conflicting
statements were the order of the day between 2009 and the
July 31 elections this year when Obert Mpofu was Mines minister
while MDC-T secretary general Tendai Biti held the Finance portfolio.
Then, there were allegations funds were being diverted to fund Zanu
PF’s campaigns and sabotage Biti, who bemoaned diamond mines
were under-remitting funds to Treasury. Chidhakwa insisted diamond
revenue was finding its way to Treasury and he was constantly communicating
with Chinamasa, whom he said has never raised the issue with him.
“I am in discussion
with the Minister of Finance very regularly and he has never mentioned
that issue to me; in fact he knows what is coming from the mining
sector not just from diamonds but right across the sector, including
gold,” he said. He declined to reveal how much had been remitted
since September.
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