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Former Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe is to appear before Parliament for questioning next month on the whereabout of the $15 billion diamond revenue.
It will be Mugabe’s first public appearance since last November when he was deposed by the army in a de facto coup and replaced by President Emmerson Mnangagwa after nearly forty years in power.
The 94-year-old said in a television interview last recently that Mnangagwa had betrayed him and assumed the presidency illegally.
Mugabe 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 Marange gem fields, more than 400 km (250 miles) 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 state diamond company was set to auction 1.56 million carats of diamonds from Marange in March and April, the first time since March 2017 it has held such sales.
In 2006, over 20,000 illegal diggers descended on the Marange fields, prompting the government to deploy the army to stop panning and smuggling. Rights groups say security forces committed atrocities during their crackdown.
Diamond watchdog Partnership Africa Canada said in 2012 at least $2 billion of Marange diamonds were stolen by people linked to Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party. But the government has since denied the charge.
REUTERS
