Welcome to the February – March edition. The year 2023 has begun on an interesting note, in particular the future of Botswana and its partnership with De Beers.
Currently, the two parties are locked up in negotiations, which admittedly have taken longer than expected.
The two parties have however reiterated their commitment to the partnership and getting a fair deal to both De Beers as a business and Botswana as a producer country.
President Masisi and the new CEO of De Beers Group, Al Cook recently met to underscore the importance of continuing the relationship. We are all waiting to see how the negotiations will end.
In this edition’s cover, we feature the former CEO of De Beers Group, Bruce Cleaver, who left his role in February 2023 to assume a new role as the co-chairman of the Group.
Cleaver will continue playing a significant role in the company in his new role, and will continue to be a key player in the negotiations with Botswana, including chairing the plenary for De Beers.
He is optimistic about the future of De Beers, which he said is assured as long as the company continues to do its business correctly.
The local diamond industry did exceptionally well last year (2022) as Debswana production rose to its highest level since 2014.
In 2022, the Botswana Government raked in over P34 billion from its partnership with De Beers, which represents 80.8 percent ultimate benefit from every Botswana diamond that is sold by De Beers, inclusive of royalties, taxes and dividends.
We also feature, in this edition, the participation of Debswana at the Mining Indaba, Africa’s premier mining conference.
While Debswana is a regular participant at the conference for years now, this year the company was an Associate sponsor and also sponsored its executives to participate in various conversations taking place at the conference.
There are also many other interesting stories in mining and other sectors of our focus in Botswana. It is truly a good read.
Enjoy!
