Bad moon rises on battered mineworkers

When the global recession reached local shores in the summer of 2008, it resulted in industry-wide work suspensions and closures within months, cut 1,000 mining jobs in six months and by the end of 2009, had shrunk the economy by nearly eight percent.

In 2009, mineworkers’ colleagues in the then fledgling diamond cutting and polishing sector saw 689 of their ‘comrades’ bite the dust, as firms cut costs in light of reduced throughput from the Diamond Trading Centre Botswana (DTCB), the cost of excess capacity and constrictive credit obligations to banks.