The Zimbabwe government has invested about $ 80 million in the Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Company (ZCDC), the government run company it set up to coordinate diamond mining soon after the takeover of all privately held mines within the country last year. This was stated by the country’s finance minister, Patrick Chinamasa, as reported in the local media.

The minister reportedly said that for this reason, all the diamonds mined by ZCDC “belong to the fiscus”. He was speaking to mining executives at a special programme.

The reports said that as per figures released by the Chamber of Mines of Zimbabwe, the country earned $27 mn from the diamond sector between January and early May 2017, as compared to $51 mn in the comparative period a year earlier. The Chamber said that this was in contrast to the revenue from both platinum and gold mining, which had risen over the same period.

Zimbabwe has recently reached a settlement with one of the companies formerly involved in diamond mining in Marange, DTZ-OZGEO, reportedly paying about $5.4m to take over mining concessions owned by the Russian miner, the media reports said.