Kicked out of Marange

A South African mining company, Core Mining and Mineral Resources (Pty) Ltd, has been kicked jaw crusher with jaw plates imagesout of Zimbabwe's controversial Marange diamond fields after one of its directors was arrested, together with five other top mining executives, for fraudulently obtaining diamond concessions.

A senior director of the state-owned Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation (ZMDC) told the Sunday Times that President Robert Mugabe's government had cancelled Core Mining's diamond claims in the Chiadzwa area in Marange, Manicaland province. "I can confirm that as ZMDC we have pulled out of the joint-venture agreement which we had with Core Mining because of the discovery of fraudulent misrepresentations by the company and its directors," the senior official said. "We are now mining on our own and we will never work with Core Mining again because they acted unprofessionally and fraudulently. They lied to us through misrepresentations and baseless claims about their corporate profile and capacity to engage in such a huge project. We realised they gave us a false profile - they have no capital and no capacity - and we have kicked them out."