Eleventh hour deals and lifetime ‘wins’ :: Mmegi Online

Thirty minutes before the expiry of the June 30 deadline, teams from De Beers and government reached common ground after five years of negotiations. Where the 2011 agreement brought the diamond world to Botswana, the latest one promises to take Botswana to the world and into a transformed future, notes Staff Writer, MBONGENI MGUNI

President Mokgweetsi Masisi was at his oratorical best in Sese on Wednesday, taking a full kgotla down a colourful, idiom-laden journey into the history and the present of the country’s diamonds and the extraction of value from them. The President, fresh from a legacy-building agreement with De Beers, is on a countrywide round of kgotla meetings, which he occasionally conducts to share information and developments with Batswana, while also gathering their views and concerns.

The selection of Sese as the President’s second destination in his planned tour, is significant. The village, lying in the shadow of Jwaneng, is one of the places in the country cited when the question of whether diamonds are benefiting the communities around them, is asked.

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