22 Jul 2021

 Botswana is still engaged in negotiations with De Beers, Minister of Mineral Resources, Green Technology and Energy Security told Parliament Wednesday.

Answering a parliamentary question, Mr Lefoko Moagi said, however, it would not be in the best interest of Botswana to give out some of the plans because that could compromise government’s position during the negotiations, adding some of the plans may be influenced and agreed to as part of the outcome of the negotiations.

“When we have concluded the negotiations, I will be in a position to provide additional details to this house in relation to the questions asked,” he said.

However, he indicated that in 2011, as part of government and DeBeers negotiations, Botswana negotiated to sell up to 15 per cent of Debswana production independently through a government wholly owned company called Okavango Diamond Company (ODC), which was increased to 25 per cent in May last year.

He said ODC and Lucara Botswana were already marketing and selling Botswana diamonds through various platforms, outside of our agreement with De Beers, adding 25 per cent of Debswana production and all of Lucara production was sold outside De Beers and competes directly with De Beers.

“Botswana is already active in the cutting and polishing part of the value chain. We have over 25 licensed cutting and polishing factories, which used to employ over 3 800 people but is currently employing about 2 500 people due to COVID-19 and the fact that the diamond market has not fully recovered. We have developed a beneficiation strategy, which was done in consultation with industry experts, in a quest to grow the value chain downstream,” he said

He added that the next logical step was entrepreneurship development to have Batswana being the ones, owning and operating diamond cutting and polishing factories as evidenced by amendment of the Diamond Cutting (Amendment) Bill 2021, Bill No. 5 of 2021.

“Recently I also toured factories owned by Batswana (Diamond for Hope), who are being mentored by industry experts (Arjav Diamonds), to mention but a few, in order to play in this space and develop requisite skills for Batswana. Plans are also underway to set up a Diamond Bank, in order to facilitate access to finance, for these ventures,” he said.

Botswana, he said had developed a strategy that would ensure that the country was represented throughout the diamond value chain from mine to finger.

“Botswana is currently not represented in jewellery manufacturing. However, this is being addressed in a study to find out our niche and competitive edge. My ministry is aware and confident that we can grow jewellery manufacturing and retail in Botswana because we previously had a successful factory in Botswana that was exporting to the USA and other places. Unfortunately, this factory had to shut down due to the Indian financial crisis that impacted negatively on the Diamond industry. Our optimism is also buoyed by the successes of private players that we have interacted with,” he added.

Kanye North MP, Mr Thapelo Letsholo, had asked why Botswana as the world’s largest producer of diamonds by value would not be involved in the diamond value chain in particular. Mr Letsholo also wanted to know why Botswana did not market her own diamonds, outside of DeBeers.

Again, he wanted to know what stopped Botswana from adding value to some of her diamonds and exporting them as cut and polished diamonds and what stopped the country from doing large scale manufacturing of diamond jewellery. ends