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While De Beers, gov’t negotiate, new threats emerge

Bruce Cleaver and Masisi PIC: DIAMOND DO GOOD
Bruce Cleaver and Masisi PIC: DIAMOND DO GOOD

In discussions over several days in Las Vegas recently, where more than 30,000 diamond professionals, from miners to jewellers and consumers, met for the industry’s main calendar event, Staff Writer, MBONGENI MGUNI, found that other issues are foremost in the industry’s minds, beyond the talks between Botswana and De Beers

It would have been natural to assume that the 30,000-plus diamond industry professionals who gathered in Las Vegas, USA for the annual JCK Show recently, would have, uppermost in their minds, the ongoing talks and tensions between government and De Beers on a new deal.

After all, as has been repeatedly pointed out, the 54-year old deal between the two partners is the diamond industry’s single most important covenant, each year producing the world’s highest production of rough diamonds by value.

Editor's Comment
The State apparatus must be sanitised

When the State cannot rely on its own machinery to pursue suspected wrongdoing, repairing that machinery must become a national priority.The establishment of a Special Investigations and Asset Recovery Task Force may help government respond to the immediate challenge. However, Botswana cannot afford to leave the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEC) and the Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP) struggling whilst building...

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