Tanzania: Diamond Case Still Probed, Court Told

By Faustine Kapama

THE Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) is still scrutinizing the original case file in the trial of two government diamond valuers charged with one count of ...

occasioning 2.5bn/- loss to the government.

This was said by State Attorney Dianess Makakala, for the prosecution, at the Kisutu Resident Magistrate's Court in Dar es Salaam on Friday when the case came up for mention.

She told Principal Resident Magistrate Huruma Shaidi that investigations into the case had not been completed and requested the court to adjourn the trial for another mention.

However, Advocate Egbert Milanzi, for the accused, complained over the inordinate delay of completion of investigations and requested the prosecution to speed up the process.

Before adjourning the trial, the magistrate asked the accused whether they had been given their banking identity cards to enable them access their accounts, top withdraw money for family expenditure, They replied that that hadn't been done.

Magistrate Shaidi directed the prosecution to follow up the issue and return the cards to the accused persons.

The magistrate adjourned the case to November 15, 2019, for mention pending deliberations by the DPP on the matter. Lawyers say that three things could happen when the prosecution's case file is taken to the DPP.

He could either enter a nolle prosequi certificate in favour of the accused persons if the evidence brought before him was insufficient to mount their prosecution, or return the case file to the investigative machinery with directives of carrying out further investigations on some aspects.

Furthermore, the DPP may draw new charges for the prosecution of accused persons depending on the evidence presented to him.

The accused persons in the matter are Archard Kalugendo and Edward Rweyemamu.

In the trial, Kalugendo, who is the Director of the Tanzania Sorting Company (TANSORT) and Rweyemamu, the government diamond valuer, allegedly committed the offence on diverse dates between August 25 and 31, 2017, at different places in Dar es Salaam and Shinyanga regions.

It is alleged that, by their willful acts, being government diamond valuers employed by the Ministry of Energy and Minerals, jointly and together, the two accused persons caused the government of United Republic of Tanzania to suffer a pecuniary loss of 1,118,291.43 US dollars, which is 2,486,397,982/54.

The arraignment of the two came after a Parliamentary Select Committee on diamonds presented its report to National Assembly Speaker Job Ndugai, revealing gross irregularities in the supervision and regulation of the 100 billion US dollar business.

According to the report, while the Ministry of Energy and Minerals documents show that the country had extracted diamond minerals weighing 1.47 million tones, the statement is contradicted by the report from the Tanzania Mineral Audit Agency (TMAA) which recorded 1.51million tones.

The minerals were valued at 367.3million US dollars, against 374.6million US dollars.

Despite the value of the mineral, Tanzania is the only country in Africa trading diamond at a low price of around 300 US dollar per carat compared to Botswana that trades the same at an average of 1900 US dollars.

Select Committee Chairman Mr Mussa Zungu, revealed when presenting the report that the committee had also found the record regarding royalties between 2007 and 2016.

The ministry's report shows about 18 million US dollars was paid against 15 million US dollars registered in TMAA records.

"There was no explanation from both parties regarding differences in the statements, although they are all government offices," Mr Zungu is quoted as saying when presenting the report in question.

Surprisingly, however, he said, the TRA records indicated that between 2007 and 2016, diamonds weighing 942,099 tons was extracted, contrary to the 1.51 million tons reported by TMAA.

This means that the TRA did not account for about 198.743 million US dollars or 437.23bn/-, according to the report.

The committee, however, accused Petra Diamonds Company Limited, which succeeded the Williamson Diamond Mining Company in Mwadui, Shinyanga, for forgery and hiking equipment costs, to deny the government its legitimate revenues.