by GIFT NDOLWANE
JOHANNESBURG – THE De Beers Group has announced returns of US$5 billion to governments, communities, supply chain partners and joint venture partners in 2016.
This is a more than 70 percent increase on 2015.
The increase, delivered through taxes, payments for goods and services and dividends, reflects De Beers Group’s improved financial and operating performance in a year that it signed a milestone sales agreement with its Government partner in Namibia and opened the Gahcho Kué diamond mine in Canada.
Bruce Cleaver, Chief Executive Officer, De Beers Group, said last year, their r partnerships delivered significant value for the countries in which they operated.
“Through our US$1 billion investment in local goods and services, we helped put local supply chains to work, sustaining jobs and encouraging socio-economic development.”
The Report to Society, released on Thursday, also highlights that De Beers Group supported more than 640 jobs and 120 businesses through enterprise development projects in southern Africa.
“As the world’s leading diamond company, we have a responsibility to the people in the countries we operate in to ensure the value of what we mine below ground is realised at a local level above ground,” Cleaver said.
De Beers Group employs more than 20 000 people across the diamond pipeline and is the world’s largest diamond producer by value, with mining operations in Botswana, Canada, Namibia and South Africa.
– Guardian
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