HARARE – Zimbabwe is losing a large chunk of its revenues to thieves in government, Finance minister Tendai Biti has claimed. Government departments are not remitting cash to Treasury and other forms of theft of minerals are on the rise in Zimbabwe.

Global Witness today called on EU foreign ministers to strengthen measures which restrict sales of diamonds from Zimbabwe’s controversial Marange region to Europe.

Zimbabwe’s public account is down to its last $217. The finance minister says the country’s finances “are in paralysis.” How can that be? Zimbabwe’s diamond fields at Marange could hold between two and seven billion carats of raw diamonds.

On the 27th of July 2011, I asked the Minister of Mines to make a statement to Parliament on the production of diamonds at Marange for the past five years and the value of that production in 2009.

It is a long road from Jambezi Village in the dry district of Hwange, in Matabeleland, to the opulence and influence that currently surrounds Obert Mpofu. Growing up in rural Jambezi, Mpofu came from a family of limited means.

CENTRAL Intelligence Organisa­tion director-general Retired Major-General Happyton Bonyongwe yester­day won a US$10 million defamation suit against Africa Consolidated Resources boss Andrew Cranswick.

HARARE – Former South African president Thabo Mbeki, credited with brokering Zimbabwe’s coalition government, has called for stricter measures to combat corruption in the mining and trade of diamonds.

Partnership Africa Canada (PAC) in the diamond watchdog group, the Kimberley Process, is today expected to release a damning report showing Zimbabwe has since 2008 lost over $2 billion in what it says is the continuing plunder of the country’s gems by the military and a clique from Zanu PF.

A mysterious Chinese businessman based in Hong Kong is quietly providing financing to Zimbabwe’s ruling forces in return for access to its diamond mines and opportunities in property development.