Chinese company to train Zimbabweans in diamond cutting and polishing

HON. P. D. SIBANDA:  Hon. Minister, is that programme not going to be compromised by some acts that have happened in your Ministry where you have appointed your Permanent Secretary to be chairperson of three Boards that are under your Ministry?   Does that not violate the laws of the country?

HON. CHIDHAKWA:  The Hon. Member wants this particular item to the linked to the Boards but let me respond to that nevertheless.  Minerals Marketing Company of Zimbabwe (MMCZ) as you very well know will be dissolved and made part of the Mining Exploration and Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe (MEMC).

A first reading of the Bill has already been made here and we are waiting for the second reading.  We found it difficult to appoint a Board of Directors when at a material time it had expired to appoint a Board of Directors for an organisation that we were dissolving.  We did not think that it made sense to call people and say, we are appointing you for three years.  Then come back to them and say, however we may dissolve the organisation in six months and you may have to go home.  We thought it was not necessary for us to do that as it would inconvenience members of the public who would have been appointed to such a Board.

We could also not appoint a Board of Directors for Marange Diamonds, as you very well know, for an organisation that we knew was going to be subsumed by the Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Company (ZCDC) as has happened now. We have appointed some members of the Board of Directors but we had a few problems with members of ZCDC.  So once we finish, then the Secretary will obviously cease to be on any of the Boards of Directors.  I hear you from a corporate governance point of view but from a purely practical point of view, we found it difficult to appoint substantive Board members when infact the organisations were transitory.  I thank you.

HON. MARIDADI:  Hon. Minister, thank you for the statement but I wish to draw your attention to the fact that once upon a time we had a diamond polishing center that was established in Zimbabwe but is now a white elephant.  It sits so conspicuously along Lomagundi Road, on the right hand side; when you are driving to Chinhoyi there is a huge complex.

I used to sit in the Portfolio Committee of Mines and Mining Development and we once visited that complex.  We were taken through the processes of how diamonds are going to be deposited into that complex, polished and the whole value chain.  To date, there is grass growing taller than the building as it is a white elephant and nothing is happening there.  We are talking of sending our children to Hong Kong to learn polishing and all that …

THE TEMPORARY SPEAKER (HON. MUTOMBA):  Order, order Hon. Member, could you just direct your question to the Minister?

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