Zimbabwe ‘to raise diamond mining fees’
AFP
HARARE — Zimbabwe plans to increase diamond mining fees to up to $5.0 million, state media said on Friday, just one month after winning approval from the global “blood diamond” watchdog to export the gems.
“The period where foreign miners exploit our resources for next to nothing is over,” Mines Minister Obert Mpofu said in the state-run The Herald newspaper.
New miners will be charged a $5 million license fee. Existing miners will have to pay $1 million for a license to exploit diamonds.
In February, Zimbabwe increased exploration fees for miners from $50,000 to $1 million. The new increases are of a similar magnitude.
Mpofu said the new fees were agreed by President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, partners in a fractious unity government.
In 2006, Zimbabwe discovered vast alluvial diamond fields in the eastern part of the country, touted as one of Africa’s biggest diamond finds for decades.
Dilemma X 
December 2, 2011
Africa, International