Diamond sector just not cutting it
The process of making much-needed changes to legislation in the diamond sector has stalled, and this is being blamed for the woes of the local cutting and polishing industry
Four years after a previous mineral resources minister, Susan Shabangu, admitted that the Diamonds Amendment Act "had not yielded sufficient results" and promised it would be reviewed, nothing has happened. A state-owned entity, the State Diamond Trader (SDT) was established in terms of the act in 2005. Its purpose is to buy up to 10% of run-of-mine diamonds mined in SA each year and sell them to black cutters and polishers to promote local beneficiation and empowerment. The diamond industry regards it as a costly and irrelevant bureaucracy imposed on producers and beneficiators, and the SDT is looking at ways to improve its effectiveness. The regulatory torpor in the diamond sector mirrors the lack of urgency in concluding the Mineral & Petroleum Resources Development Act (MPRDA) amendments, first proposed in 2013. There is a separate office, the SA Diamond & Precious Metals Regulator, which facilitates the buying, selling, import and export of diamonds through the Diamond Exchange...
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