The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) review team which visited the country last month to scrutinize the country’s diamond industry’s preparedness as Zimbabwe seeks to take over KP chairmanship next year has expressed satisfaction with the country’s level of compliance to best practice guidelines of mining and trading of gems.
Rudairo Mapuranga
In an interview with Mining Zimbabwe, the Deputy Minister of Mines and Mining Development Dr Polite Kambamura said that the KPCS review team saluted the government and diamond stakeholders for working in line with the best international standards.
The country’s last KPCS review was made in 2012 and the review last month was an opportunity for the diamond industry to showcase advances that have been made since then in terms of processes compliance.
“Last month we had a Kimberley Process Certification scheme inspectorate team which visited our country, they stayed here for about a week and they went around throughout the country to see our preparedness, our readiness in terms of compliance to the KPC standards.
“They went through to Chiyadzwa, they also visited some diamond mining assets such as Murowa diamonds and also visited our ports of entry and the MMCZ. In all these areas they were checking to see that the country adhered to set standards of the KP.
“After the review, we had a meeting with the visiting team and it expressed satisfaction with what they saw on the ground and we are looking forward to getting an official report from the team with regards to their findings. This is in preparation for Zimbabwe taking over the chairmanship of KPC come 2023 and also taking over the chairmanship of ADPA,” Dr Kambamura said.
Zimbabwe, which was recently elected vice-chair of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) for 2022 at the plenary meeting held in Moscow from November 8 to 12, 2021 will automatically take over the chair of the KPCS in 2023.
The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme is the core of the Kimberley Process, which is a multilateral trade regime established in 2003 by the United Nations General Council to prevent the flow of conflict diamonds. Under the KPCS, member states implement safeguards against shipments of rough diamonds and certify the diamonds as “conflict free”.
The KPCS works as a tripartite body with the current setup having: Industry (represented by the World Diamond Council; Civil society coalition; and Governments.
Some pertinent matters to note on Zimbabwe’s assumption of the vice-chair of the KPCS include the following:
Zimbabwe will immediately start preparations to take over the Chair and run the Secretariat in 2023; Preparations will also commence for the hosting of the two annual meetings of the KPCS in 2023, namely: the intercessional and plenary;
Establishment of a skeleton secretariat to start learning from other countries in hosting the Chairmanshipand Secretariat; Cognisant that Zimbabwe will take over the Chair in the year that the KPCS holds its review cycle, preparations in that regard will also commence.
