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.
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.
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.
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