By Janet Sesay
The President and Chief Executive Officer of the Mineral Mining and Marketing Consortium, Mumin Kallon, specialized in global rough diamond trade with required expertise and experience spanning over forty years, both at the global trading desks in Africa and the International Diamond Market Center of Antwerp Belgium, New York USA and Tokyo Japan, said the First Rough Diamond Tender House established will have to benefit owners of diamonds and also boost the government’s revenue generating drive.
According to him, Sierra Leone’s First Rough Diamond Tender House will boost the country’s economy as Government will benefit financially out of tender sales proceeds, polished gemstones and value-added valuation. Sierra Leone, he noted, has been deprived of such since the discovery of diamonds some 70 to 80 years ago
What makes the First Rough Diamond Tender House eligible is the fact that the key executive is on top of wild speculations based on illusion of hearsay opinion for true and correct assessment of rough diamonds.
Dilating on the issue of the Mineral Mining and Marketing Consortium (MMM/3MC), Mr. Kallon said that the Consortium has all it takes to link overseas rough diamond buyers, manufacturers and investment jewellers to Sierra Leone miners, thereby providing the M2M facilities, which is from the miners to Manufacturing/Marketing to mutual benefit of all stakeholders.
He said the Consortium seeks to provide superior returns on diamonds sold through international tender bidding in Sierra Leone. This, he noted, will be conducted with government regulations.
Mr. Kallon furthered that rough diamonds need to be tendered because of the lack of proper knowledge and qualification in rough diamonds valuation and this had cost the Government well over US$500,000 in the sale of the 709 carats Peace Diamond sold in New York on the 4th December, 2017.
The said 709 carats stone was been expensively displayed in Diamond Centers of Antwerp, Belgium; Tel Aviv, Israel, and New York, USA and was finally sold for far less than the price offered in the Sierra Leone Tender Bidding process.
Regrettably and unfortunately, neither the Government Diamond Valuators nor the Rapport Diamond Group of USA, that was engaged by Government (National Minerals Agency, NMA) to tender the diamond overseas, where it has the rough diamonds valuation, did not have the know-how and expertise to have advised the Government and stakeholders to accept the bidding price offered in Sierra Leone. This, he noted, had ultimately questioned their professionalism without any bias.