Botswana president Duma Boko expressed unhappiness with De Beers’ sales of the nation’s gemstones, adding that “something very drastic” will happen in the market before the end of the year.
“How is the country broke?” Boko remarked at a press conference this week in nearby Lesotho. “[Diamonds] are not being sold. Who is selling? De Beers. Then De Beers is not doing its job. Maybe we should take over and sell them ourselves. That’s what we should do. That will be deemed very radical….
“But the country needs the money, and it has the diamonds, and somebody who is supposed to be selling the diamonds is not doing the job.”
He added: “We will take the diamonds and see what we can do with them. They are ours. These diamonds are ours. And so before the end of this year, something very drastic in that space will happen. If it doesn’t happen, we will die trying.”
Boko’s LinkedIn account reposted video of the press conference, adding: “Something will happen.”
BW News Hub further quoted the president as saying, “For too long, our diamonds have left our soil raw, and returned to us as polished stones with price tags we could never attach ourselves. That era must end. We are not just custodians of the earth’s wealth, we must become architects of its value.”
De Beers responded via email to JCK: “Our focus is and always has been on working with our partners to supply responsibly and, in the current environment, to support industry recovery following an extended period of subdued demand for rough diamonds.
“We have a long track record of taking responsible actions in support of the natural diamond sector’s long-term prospects, and our approach to rough diamond supply reflects this…. We’ve taken a number of actions to align supply with demand, while substantially reducing costs and capital expenditure [and] are confident that we have the right strategy to navigate the current challenging period and support a sustained recovery in rough diamond demand.”
Boko’s comments mark a change in tone by his government, which has generally been more conciliatory toward De Beers than the administration of his predecessor, Mokgweetsi Masisi.
In February, Botswana signed a 10-year contract with De Beers that provides for the country to sell more gems independently. The government of Botswana owns 15% of De Beers, which is currently up for sale.
At the press conference, Boko called Botswana’s decision to take a small stake in the company—when it was once offered a majority share—a “fatal error” in the country’s history.
“[Our] diamonds were not marketed as Botswana diamonds,” he said. “So everybody who was buying diamonds bought them without knowing where they came from or caring about the story of the people that own these diamonds. When you tell them about Botswana, nobody knows about it. That was a mistake that we allowed.
“This reality has resulted in a situation where the marketing, the selling of these diamonds is done by this company with very little involvement by ourselves.”
Botswana also allowed itself to become too diamond-dependent—“another mistake,” according to Boko.
“The diamonds were bringing the money,” he said. “But when the diamonds are experiencing the problems they are currently experiencing, our economy almost collapsed. [That was] also reasonably foreseeable.”