Afrimond to fill diamond skills gap

KEIKANTSE LESEMELA
Correspondent | Friday February 3, 2012 00:00

 

Speaking at a diamond beneficiation workshop recently, the Managing Director of Afrimond, Todd Majaye, said these services were essential to Botswana and many other African countries. The institute was established in South Africa in 2000 in response to diamond and mineral producing African countries' knowledge and skills needs.

With the establishment of diamond cutting and polishing factories and the Diamond Innovation Hub, Botswana was now at an advanced stage of diamond production. Training by Afrimond would therefore increase competitiveness in the global economic arena and create employment for Batswana, reducing poverty, ignorance and other social ills.

Majaye said Afrimond would add value to the wellbeing of the nation because its mandate was to up-skill Batswana.  Because Botswana was the largest diamond producer by value, Afrimond would   access the whole African market from Botswana 'and service the continent from here', said Majaye.'Previously, Africa mined and sold diamonds wholesale to developed countries, therefore benefiting those countries more than Africa,' he noted.Realising this, some African countries such as Botswana, South Africa, Namibia and Angola developed diamond beneficiation policies to enhance their diamonds value addition.

Botswana went further to establish itself not only as a diamond polishing country, but a global diamond beneficiation centre that would be able to compete with major diamond manufacturing centres in the world, both quantitatively and qualitatively, Majaye said.