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19 Sep 2016

Botswana: NGOs say De Beers, govt. and ruling party in "opaque" dealings that fuel tax evasion by the conglomerate - includes company response

The Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA), Southern Africa Resource Watch (SARW), and the African Network of Centers for Investigative Reporting (ANCIR) produced a research report; "Botswana's Diamond Deception). The report says critical details of the relationship between the government and De Beers, as well as De Beers and the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) have remained shrouded in secrecy. Lack of transparency, the report says, makes it difficult to say for certain whether Botswana’s citizens are benefiting as much as they should from the country's immense wealth. Mining agreements in Botswana are considered “confidential”, which means the chances of calculating the taxes and royalties on diamond sales become increasingly slim.

See here and here for related media articles on the report.

We invited De Beers to respond. The response, and the report, are below: