At a recent press conference, the minister responsible for minerals, Eric Molale was asked a question to explain a decision by De Beers to start trading in synthetic diamonds.
To what extent was Botswana Government a part of that decision?
Botswana Government owns 15 percent of De Beers, the rest is owned by Anglo American, London Stock Exchange listed multi-resource giant.
In answering Molale said Botswana was from inception to the end a part of the discussions.
And that as Botswanaq government they were fully behind the decision.
To be fair to Molale it is impossible to see how such a drastic decision could ever be reached without one of the shareholders knowing about it.
Botswana has a representation on the De Beers Board ÔÇô however minimal.
But then that is beside the point.
The fact of the matter is that Botswana government really does not have much expertise on matters of running De Beers.
Botswana’S REPRESENTATION IN De Beers amounts to nothing more than tokenism.
That much is also reflected at Debswana ÔÇô where Botswana Government has a much bigger stake of 50%.
For decades De Beers has been singing a mantra that synthetic diamonds are bad for natural diamonds.
The company invested millions setting up laboratories in London and Antwerp to fight against the growth of synthetic diamonds.
Has De Beers lost the war against synthetic diamonds?
When did the war get lost?
For Botswana, what are the financial implications for De Beers losing such a war and ultimately joining ranks with erstwhile commercial antagonists?
For Botswana these are life and death issues that cannot be resolved by issuing a few press releases as De Beers has been doing, or hastily dispatching executives to Gaborone to assuage anxiety among Batswana that sadly Government is trying to underplay.
Botswana Government is wrong and insensitive to make light of the decision by De Beers.
The days when Botswana Government would refer itself as a De Beers Siamese twin are gone.
As a country and nation Botswana will face its future alone ÔÇô without diamonds and certainly without De Beers.
De Beers is here on purely commercial reasons.
The moment diamonds run out or become unprofitable, De Beers will leave our shores.
But the country and its people will always be here, which is why it is almost criminal for Botswana Government to deliberately fail to separate their interests from that of De Beers.
As it is there is no light at the end of the tunnel regarding relations between De Beers and Botswana.
De Beers run mines in Botswana are getting more and more expensive to run.
Profitability is slipping.
This is certainly a big deal for Botswana that has relied almost exclusively on these mines.
And being 15% shareholder of De Beers, money from synthetics can never be a substitute for revenue from Debswana owned mines.
Instead Botswana’s future as its past continues to be with Debswana which produces a vast majority of revenue for De Beers.
Botswana does not produce synthetic diamonds.
It is to be hoped that entering the synthetic diamonds market is a temporary tactical retreat.
But our history with De Beers teaches us that will be hoping against hope.
A while ago De Beers taught us that a “diamond is forever.”
They were wrong.
They abandoned that tagline without warning Botswana.
In the meantime Botswana should brace itself for a life after diamonds.
Factoring synthetics into that future is reckless kind of preparation for a future that already promises to be merciless for this country.
What we also need to do as a country is to utilize whatever revenue we get from Debswana to prepare for a future.
Sadly our government is still behaving like a drug addict that cannot wean itself from a drug-like addictive substance ÔÇô in this instance diamonds.
