14 Oct 2013

Debswana managing director remains optimistic despite the depressed diamond market and uncertainties surrounding the US shutdown.

Briefing the media on the company’s performance, Mr Jim Gowans said the company recovered 20.2 million carats in 2012 and planned on increasing production this and next year. He said although challenges remained especially in India over the Rupee, projections showed modest increases on the backdrop of market improvement.

Mr Gowans said there had been a steady growth in the US while markets were gaining strength in Japan. Talking about the US shutdowns and concerns that it might default, he said although it was still early, so far there had not been an impact but there could be unpleasant after-effects.

Debswana, a joint venture between De Beers and Botswana government, owns and operates four diamond mines in Orapa, Letlhakane, Damtshaa and Jwaneng. Mr Gowans said of the company’s 4 772 employees, 2.9 per cent were expatriates. He said 20.4 per cent of all the workers were females although the majority of them were in the non-core areas.

He said they would like to increase the number of women involved in mining activities such as operators of heavy plant machinery and mining engineers. The MD said they spent P88.7 million representing 52.9 per cent increase in training their employees in various programmes such as entrepreneurship and leadership.

Debswana, being the biggest private sector in the country, was crucial in the economic spheres of the country in a number of ways other than revenues accrued from mining. The company supported entrepreneurship through their supply chain management.  

Last year , for example it spent P2.981 billion on locally based companies. Out of that amount P521 million was spent on citizen-owned companies and 195 new citizen companies were registered in the supply chain, said Mr Gowans.On safety, Mr Gowans said it remained a major issue of concern especially following two fatal accidents last year.  

He said in one incident, an employee was struck by lightning while using a radio communication device while another employee died following the collapse of land. Mr Gowans said they had various programmes through which they trained their employees on safety to reduce loss time injury frequency rate.

There were several projects that were undertaken during the year amongst them Cut 8 in Jwaneng. The MD said the project was concluded on schedule, including the establishment and hand over of workshops for earthmoving equipment.

Morupule coal mine has been extended to supply coal to Morupule B Power Station and Mr Gowans said it had increased Botswana’s coal mining capacity from a million tonnes to 3.2 million tonnes a year.

Another project is the tailings treatment plant in Jwaneng which commenced last year. Debswana also has a social and community development programme. In the last year and the company spent P133.594 million in various programmes related to health and welfare, community development, education and training and sports, culture and heritage. Ends