End of the Road for Ghana's Diamonds?
June 15, 21
(IDEX Online) - Ghana's only large-scale diamond producer has stopped mining, two years after the government took control.
Ghana Consolidated Diamonds was bought by Jospong Group of Companies, a waste collection firm, in 2011.
It promised to invest $100m over five years, to produce 1m carats annually and to create 2,000 jobs, but failed to deliver.
The company was taken back into state ownership in 2019. The government promised to revive diamond mine and pay salaries to staff that were in arrears for many years. It also failed to deliver.
The country's Chamber of Mines says Ghana sold just 25,292 carats of diamonds in 2020, a drop of 25 per cent from 33,789 carats in 2019.
Production by Ghana Consolidated Diamonds - now renamed Great Consolidated Diamond Company Ghana - is currently suspended.
Pic shows an abandoned diamond mining operation in Ghana