Western diplomats led by the European Union head of delegation to Zimbabwe, Aldo Dell’Ariccia, today toured two mines, the Chinese-owned Anjin and Marange Resources. The diplomats asked the Anjin management how much revenue they had remitted to the government following a complaint by Finance Minister Tendai Biti that the treasury is yet to receive money from the firm since the start of the year. Munyaradzi Machacha, a director at Anjin disputed Biti’s projection that earnings from diamond mining would contribute $600 million to state coffers. “We have contributed $30 million to the fiscus through royalties because an average price of a single carat is $60 and not $1 500 as projected by the Minister of Finance Tendai Biti,” Machacha told the envoys.
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