Outgoing De Beers Consolidated Mines (DBCM) managing director David Noko has said that South Africa’s State Diamond Trader (SDT) needs to be fixed.
“That area is a mess. It needs to be fixed and I believe government is committed to fixing it. This is a temporary setback,” he told Miningmx.
South Africa set up the SDT in 2007 with major support from De Beers and the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) with an aim to increase the supply of rough diamonds to the country’s polishers and cutters.
Noko was also quoted as saying that lack of progress had been caused by bureaucracy within the SDT, adding that a different approach was needed.
“The emphasis must be placed on efficient access to diamonds, whereas at the moment the emphasis in the SDT sits on legal compliance issues and issues around the operations of the government diamond valuator,” he was quoted as saying.
The SDT is mandated to buy up to 10 percent of South Africa’s rough diamond production at “market-related” prices.
Crucially, at the same time as the SDT came into operation, De Beers shut down its Diamdel subsidiary, Miningmx reports.
It said Diamdel’s function was to provide rough diamonds to smaller SA cutting and polishing firms which were not part of the group’s main rough diamond sales system.
This consisted of 10 "sights" per year, at which rough diamonds were offered for sale to a specifically chosen group of customers.

Mathew Nyaungwa, Rough&Polished, from Namibia

Rough&Polished