US$15 billion?..FALSE!.. Mugabe only wanted to dramatise the need for us to take total control of our Diamond resource”.

 

President Robert Mugabe’s spokesperson George Charamba has made sensational disclosure that Mugabe ‘lied’ to the nation that $15 billion worth of diamonds were stolen.

Early last year, Mugabe made  startling revelations that diamonds worth as much as $15 billion could have been stolen by miners in the Marange area.

He said less than $2 billion was remitted from diamond proceeds and those seconded by Government to work with private miners had failed to account for the gems.

That ‘admission’ which according to Charamba was cooked up made international headlines.

However, months later Finance minister Patrick Chinamasa hinted that the country did not lose $15 billion in diamond revenue as claimed  by Mugabe.

Chinamasa told the BBC  that it was not money missing or stolen but an economic loss due to undervaluing and mispricing.

However, Herald columnist writing under the pen-name Nathanial Manheru but believed to be Charamba, referring to Mugabe as The Great One said he (Mugabe) ” wanted to dramatise the need for us to take total control of our Diamond resource”.

Charamba made the revelation in his The Other Side Nathaniel Manheru column today.

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