President clarifies diamond mining position

Cletus Mushanawani News Editor
GOVERNMENT was not in a position to control smuggling and cheating in the diamond industry by those given the mandate to mine the precious gems hence the decision to take over all mines.

This was said by President Mugabe while addressing Zimbabwean students studying at Fort Hare University last Friday.

“We now want more earnings for the State in the line of specialisation. We have consolidated diamond mining because we were not able to control the smuggling and cheating that was being done by players in that sector.

“We are working on establishing cutting and polishing of diamond entities. We have sent 25 students to go and study cutting and polishing of diamonds in China.

“Another 25 will follow soon and the last group will follow later to have a total of 75 students,” said President Mugabe.

He said smuggling was not only concentrated on diamonds, but also in the gold sector.

President Mugabe said most of the gold was being smuggled into South Africa.

“We have gold almost everywhere across the country. There are organised smuggling syndicates being fronted by some whites from here (South Africa) who are flying small planes that land in rural areas where they cannot be dictated by radars and carry the parcels. At times these parcels are being carried by cars across the border. We are trying to stop that, but it is not easy. We have stopped all alluvial gold mining. This is now the duty of the State to carry out alluvial gold mining,” he said.

Turning to the liquidity challenges facing the nation, President Mugabe said the country was finding it difficult to have enough United States of America dollars in its reserves due to control measures being put by the USA government.

“It is not easy for us to get new dollars coming into the country and we use all kinds of roundabout systems to get the dollar to our people.

“This has resulted in people preferring to keep money in bags at their homes.

“After going through that period when the Zimdollar was hay-hailing people now seems fearing to put their money in banks.

“Women now prefer to keep money on their waists. Disposable incomes are there, but there is little more to save,” said President Mugabe.

He said the liquidity challenges and affirming of the dollar had affected trade with South Africa.

“The dollar is now expensive since the rand has depreciated. If people from here want to import our products they are now very expensive for them. Tourism has also gone down because paying for hotels using rands is expensive.

“South Africans are no longer coming to Zimbabwe in their large numbers like what used to happen before.

“That is the reason why we opted to introduce the new bond notes which are being supported by a $200 million bond from the Africa Export-Import Bank.

“Resistance of the bond notes is being experienced from some sectors, but it,” he said.

President Mugabe hailed women for their resilience and working hard to feed their families.

“Women have proved to be hard workers. They can sell anything to provide food on the table. When a man is faced with difficulties and if he loses his job he becomes so miserable and can hang himself, but a woman will say what can I do with my hands to bring food on the table,” said President Mugabe.