By Chrispin Inambao WINDHOEK In a move that could sound the death knell for opportunistic diamond merchants dying to cash in on high-value Namibian diamonds being sold to local cutters, the government last week placed a moratorium on cutting and polishing licenses. Following the historic agreement that for the first time allows local diamond polishing and cutting firms to directly receive a percentage of Namibian diamonds for local processing, foreign diamond dealers made discrete queries asking for a piece of the cake. Last Friday, the Minister of Mines and Energy Erkki Nghimtina placed a moratorium on the granting of new cutting and polishing licenses, and that no pending or incoming licenses for Namibian diamonds “will be considered until further notice”. Diamond Commissioner Kennedy Hamutenya told New Era on Sunday that since the announcement that paves the way for diamonds to be sold directly to local cutters, his office was inundated with queries coming from dealers in Israel, India, the USA and Belgium who are under the impression the new diamond sales agreement is a free-for-all. “I have been receiving phone calls left, right and centre and my e-mail is jammed,” he said, referring to foreign dealers who want to get some of the uncut Namibian diamonds. He said government wants to ensure cutters and polishers that have made substantial investments locally such as LLD, Namcot, Hardstone Processing and IKI of business baron Maurice Templesman are protected from those wanting to make quick money. “The Ministry therefore deems it necessary to support those companies that believed in and had faith in the potential of Namibia’s diamond sector, that they hung around long enough to witness the signing of our watershed agreement that makes provision for local supply,” stated Nghimtina. “We have to make sure that these factories are nurtured like a baby and make sure that they can crawl and learn to walk,” and make a profit on their investments, he said. “We need to support the ones that are on the ground first,” added Hamutenya. The government cannot allow a situation whereby foreign diamond dealers bearing briefcases laden with American dollars with no investments in Namibia come here to buy diamonds and resell these rough diamonds overseas making quick turnover. “We want to be in control and to ensure that all those diamonds are cut here in Namibia. And we have to ensure that we have the right quantity and the right quality,” he said. “If there is a proliferation of dealers’ licenses, that cake will have to be cut in very thin slices and they (local cutters) will fail,” the diamond commissioner said. On top of the legion of foreign diamond prospectors, the Ministry of Mines and Energy has a thick file containing the particulars of locals wanting to venture into diamond polishing and cutting though only six such licenses were granted because Namibia does not want to find itself in a situation whereby there is uncontrolled diamond dealing. Eliphas Hawala, the General Manager of NamGem, a subsidiary of NamDeb, said: “It will be useless” to grant hundreds of diamond licenses if demand outstrips supply. And in terms of the agreement reached between government and NamDeb, the percentage of rough diamonds for “local beneficiation” would be calculated on a formula that takes into account existing and projected capacities. The government also feels the unlimited growth of the diamond sector would have been an ideal scenario but it says in order to ensure viability and sustainability, the quantity of diamonds is a constraint that also had to be taken into consideration.