By ALEX NJOVU and CHARLES MUSONDA
THE bumpy drive on the
Lupuma Road in Lufwanyama district tells the whole story. The
48-kilometre stretch from Kalulushi to Chief Lupuma’s palace should be
covered within 20 minutes but the road is in such a bad state that
you’re forced to drive slowly for over two hours.
There are no plush suburbs here, most residents live as they did
hundreds of years ago in mud-thatched huts. This is true of most of
Lufwanyama, a district blessed with one of nature’s rare gems - the
emerald.
Emeralds are regarded as the second most valuable gemstone:
more valuable than diamonds, and second only to rubies. To get a sense
of just how valuable they are: a 14-carat million dollar emerald could
be easily swallowed, according to the National Geographic.
Today,
perhaps a billion dollars of emeralds are mined each year. Half of them
come from Colombia. Zambia accounts for more than 20 percent of the
market and Brazil 15 percent. The next largest producers are Zimbabwe
and Pakistan, with smaller amounts from Russia, Afghanistan, Australia,
Madagascar, and Tanzania.
These rare stones have, therefore, made a
number of people in the world extremely rich but sadly not the residents
of Lufwanyama and Zambia as a whole.
Though Government says mineral
economists have not yet established the amount of revenue the country
has been losing as a result of auctioning emeralds outside the country,
some independent industry analysts state that the country may be losing
as much as US$600 million yearly through emerald smuggling while legal
trade figures stand at US$60million.
Government now says it is putting measures in place to ensure the country benefits from emeralds.
Following
President Sata’s concern over the auctioning of precious gemstones in
foreign countries, auctions for emeralds must be managed within Zambia,
Government says.
Mines, Energy and Water Development deputy minister
Richard Musukwa said recently Government will not tolerate any
“arrogance” from some players in the industry who insist on auctioning
gems outside Zambia and costing the country huge amounts of money that
could be used for poverty reduction programmes like other mineral-rich
countries.
In the past, Zambian emeralds were auctioned in Singapore,
Jaipur and London among other places with miners blaming this on lack
of a reliable floor.
Last November, for example, Gemfields Limited,
which owns 75 percent of Zambia’s Kamakanga Gemstone (Kagem) emeralds,
raised US$27 million from the sale of emeralds during just one auction
for the year conducted in Singapore.
Gemfields Corporate
Communications and Public Relations manager Pia Tonna later announced
during a tour of the mine by journalists the company had earmarked
US$2.2 million for global advertising for Zambian emeralds in 2013 with a
further $7 million through marketing and promotions to ensure constant
demand for Kagem emerald.
The London-based Ms Tonna said Colombian
emeralds had widely dominated the emerald market but that the trend was
steadily shifting in favour of the Zambian gemstone.
The benefits of
this increase in demand may, however, continue to elude Zambia. Already
some players want to frustrate efforts to auction the stones in the
country.
Mr Musukwa says government is aware some players in the
gemstone industry are allegedly attempting to frustrate the PF
Government’s decision to auction emeralds in Zambia.
“For me to say
this it means we already have information [on cartels bent on
frustrating the local auctioning of emeralds]…but we are determined to
ensure that we break these cartels,” he said in an interview on Friday.
He said the PF government will not back-track on its decision to auction emeralds within Zambia.
“We
want to take a holistic approach and take into account all industrial
components in the value addition chain…it is government’s view that the
auctioning be done in Zambia, where the mineral is domiciled,” he said.
Mr
Musukwa said the last auction done in Zambia was not properly
conducted, giving players in the gemstone industry enough ground to
auction the precious stones outside the country.
“If the cutting and
polishing of emeralds can be done in the backyards of Jaipur, why can’t
the same be done in Zambia?” he said.
He called on stakeholders in
the industry to join hands with government in resuscitating the Ndola
Lapidary Centre, which has since ground to a halt.
He said this will result in increased revenue and job creation.
“According
to information coming from our colleagues in the gemstone industry,
Zambian emeralds are the best in the world…it has become fashionable for
big names to put our emeralds on front pages of their magazines.
“So it is only sensible that the auctioning of our emeralds is done here,” he said.
Mr
Musukwa added that government has already engaged ZCCM-IH to ensure the
processing of emeralds locally generates desired results.
He said if properly managed, the contribution of emeralds to the Gross Domestic Product could surpass revenue from copper.
“We
don’t subscribe to the idea of one making huge returns from emeralds
and just builds a classroom block or sinks a borehole in the name of
corporate social responsibility. The levels of investment in our
communities must be commensurate with huge returns from emeralds,” he
said.
Mr Musukwa said the ministry will not issue any emerald export permit in a bid to ensure auctioning is done locally.
This
perhaps may help in the rampant smuggling of the precious stone which
has been going on for over four decades since the 70s when illegal stone
dealers mainly of West African origin invaded Lufwanyama. This
smuggling later trickled down to the local people and workers in mines
such as Kagem, one of the largest in the world.
According to a
report, ‘Emeralds—history, mining and violence’, compiled by Jeffrey
Hays to help you appreciate how the grassroots smuggling at works the
more workers Kagem hires the more production declines.
“On the other
side of the river from the mine, independent miners move tonnes of
earth in their quest for gems. When they are asked how they are doing,
“No emeralds yet” is the usual reply. Workers at Kagem mine who sort and
remove debris from the stones are watched over guards. Often there is
at least one guard watching over by every man working,” he writes.
“Most
of the emerald middlemen in Zambia are West Africans, usually
Senegalese. They offer the going world prices and pay in hard currency
on the spot.”
And Mr Musukwa said since businessmen involved in
emerald trade are only interested in making maximum profits, the PF will
ensure that Zambian people maximise benefits from emeralds.
And
Chief Lupuma in an interview on Friday praised President Sata for
directing that the auctioning of emeralds be done within Zambia.
“This
has been our cry for many years, we are happy that President Sata has
heard us, this is good news because Zambians will now start benefiting.
Lufwanyama has remained undeveloped for many years and yet it is making
other people very rich. Our emeralds have made many people rich while
our people live in poverty, these people cannot even provide good jobs
for our children,” he said.
Chief Lupuma said though Kagem and
Grizzly mining companies are trying to help through their social
responsibility policies, the rest are doing nothing and the two mines
could do more.
Grizzly Mining says it is committed to social
responsibility. Company public relations manager Barbara Shilengwe said
the mining firm is implementing various capital projects which are
benefiting the people.
Ms Shilengwe said in an interview that it is
currently constructing a secondary school in chief Lupuma’s area and
that it has built teachers’ houses at Chatete school.
She said several people from Lufwanyama district have been employed by the company.
“We
are ploughing back into the community, the emerald we are mining is
benefiting the people, we are paying taxes to government, we are
employing the local people, we are implementing viable projects which
are helping in eradicating poverty in communities, we are pouring
millions of Kwacha [rebased] into the implementation of various
developmental projects. We have an open door policy, we are open to
scrutiny for people to see what we are doing,” she said.
As for
Kagem, its newly appointed board director Timothy Walamba says he has
unearthed a scam in which some emerald mine investors are hiding
high-grade gemstones following President Sata’s directive that precious
stones should be auctioned within the country.
“I have information
from reliable sources that our investors in the emerald industry are
hiding high-grade precious stones and only leaving the poor-grade ones
which they plan to auction within the country. They want President
Sata’s directive to fail,” he said at the mine on Thursday.
Henry
Mutaka, a Lufwanyama resident, said emerald mining is one of the sectors
which do not need a lot of qualified people for its survival.
“Each
time we apply for jobs to these mining companies, they tell us that we
are not educated but honestly do you need to have a degree to dig and
pick emeralds. One does not need to have a degree to be a security guard
of an emerald-mining company. These mining companies are blindfolding
us when they construct a 2 by 2 class room block or when they build a
toilet and a clinic and they claim that they are giving us development,
who can fail to do that?
“The money which is in emeralds in
Lufwanyama can even make two or more modern football stadiums without
getting loans from China. These mining companies must give us real
development such as universities, roads, hospitals, employment and
proper schools, not those small clinics they are constructing. They are
using our money to construct proper infrastructure where they are coming
from,” Mr Mutaka said.
“We don’t know what we have done, look at our
colleagues in Chambishi, the Chinese investors have beautified
Chambishi town, there is massive development going on in Chambishi, the
on going construction of the Chambishi Multi-facility Economic Zone
(MFEZ), the Zambia-China Economic and Trade Co-operation Zone (ZCCZ) is
doing a lot in terms of developing the area, good roads and shopping
malls are being constructed and the people there are generally happy, a
lot of young people have been employed by the Chinese companies,”
Emeralds Production Watch of Zambia (EPWZ) president Musa Kafimbwa said
in an interview.
Mr Kafimbwa says in Lufwanyama some illegal
foreigners are found in areas such as Pilala, Mitondo and some mining
areas and that government should move in and flush the aliens, who have
taken up jobs belonging to local people.
A lot of thieves, who are
now commonly known as jerabos, a similar name used in describing the
ruthless copper thieves, who have terrorised mining companies on the
Copperbelt and North Western provinces and residents in general for many
years, have invaded the emerald-rich land, he said.
He said despite
the maximum security which is in place, emeralds still get into wrong
hands as most emerald dealers take advantage of the locals’ ignorance to
dupe them.
“Many Zambians have been buried alive in the process of
trying to benefit from the emeralds, others have been shot dead while
others have been attacked by vicious dogs. A Zambian can have an
emerald, they will get it sell it at more than KR200 million and then
they will give the Zambian something like KR400 plus a cheap phone.
“We
are not racists and we will never be racists neither are we xenophobic
in any way. We have lived with our brothers and sisters from outside
Zambia for many years in peace and we will continue doing so but we are
against those without work permits.
“We are against those without
proper documentation to stay in Zambia and yet they are stealing our
emeralds and building huge houses, hotels in other countries using money
from our emeralds. Other countries were given huge oil fields,
diamonds, natural gas, platinum, uranium among other world-class
minerals while God was kind enough by giving us some of the finest and
best precious emeralds in the world. It is only fair that we the local
people benefit more from these resources,” he said.
