Zimbabwe for Out of Court Settlement with Chinese Firm

Harare: The Zimbabwean government has reached an out of court settlement with OFECC, a Chinese company that owns Anjin and Janin, which had claims in Marange, but later pushed out to pave way for the consolidation of diamond mining in the country.

OFECC together with Mbada Diamonds had taken Harare to High Court to stop the takeover of their claims, but lost the case. They then went to the Constitutional Court where the matter is pending.

However, mines minister Walter Chidhakwa told Rough & Polished on the sidelines of the African Mining Indaba in Cape Town that they had reached an out of court agreement with the company.

“We have managed to hammer out an out of court agreement were we have said to them that they will leave and we will take over the area and they will take all their equipment,” he said.

Chidhakwa said OFECC had not yet dropped the Constitutional Court case despite the agreement.

“They have not officially dropped their case. We have finalised on the movement of Jinan and we are now starting discussions on how Anjin will start also moving…All we need to do is to facilitate them through our customs, reserve bank processes to export their equipment.”

Chidhakwa said the Lebanese and Russian companies did not oppose the consolidation of diamond mining in Marange.

“We paid for their (Lebanese) equipment and took over the (DMC) ground and we started negotiations also with the Russians…I was very impressed that as we took national decisions the Russians did not oppose us,” he said.

Chidhakwa admitted that the actual consolidation was yet to be concluded because of the legal fights and the protracted time it had taken negotiating with the mining companies.

“It has taken much longer than we anticipated [reaching] an agreement on these matters but I am happy to say that we are now finalising the matters,” he said.

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