Diamond Industry maintains jobs despite turbulent times
Despite the diamond industry’s well-documented recent struggles, Botswana Diamond Manufacturing Association (BDMA) has dug deep to maintain over 3,000 jobs.
This uplifting point was made by BDMA Chairperson, Siddarth Gothi during a Diamond Industry stakeholder engagement held in Gaborone recently.
Attended by Ministers of Minerals and Energy, Bogolo Kenewendo and Minister of Labour and Home Affairs, Major General Pius Mokgwarre, the session focused on the controversial 37 percent tariff imposed on Botswana by the United States of America (USA).
Addressing the Ministers, Gothi applauded BDMA members for showing immense perseverance and determination in the face of the worst crisis ever experienced by the diamond industry.
“We all managed to keep thousands of jobs alive in the industry, in spite of the challenges we faced in the last two years. Some of us had challenges keeping our skilled workforce whom we nurtured for years together. It would have been a difficult moment, for those who were forced to lose them due to this unprecedented crisis in the diamond industry. It is very painful to lose a skilled employee in our industry because it can take more than five years to train new ones to replace skilled workers,” explained Gothi, who is the Business Development Manager at KGK Diamonds Botswana.
The natural diamond industry has been inundated with challenges since 2023, including growing competition from synthetic diamonds, slow demand in China, geopolitical tensions globally and now the new tariffs.
This has hit profits hard, and has started to take a toll on the bottom lines of midstream diamond industry due to higher cost of production.
“This industry values its skilled workforce and has always treated them well. Our industry has successfully groomed thousands of talented individuals and created jobs for them trying to establish a robust diamond cutting industry in Botswana. Our factories have ensured jobs for the most skilled person, semiskilled person and also the unskilled person. This is one industry that employs most school dropouts who didn’t manage to get a certificate or a degree in Botswana. This industry employs a number of specially challenged individuals who are able to make their living through the jobs created in these factories,” revealed Gothi.
The BDMA boss called for reforms, including liberalisation of work permits and visas to allow for better skills transfer and the further beneficiation of Botswana’s diamonds within the country.
“Let’s ensure that the cost of labour remains competitive to be able to fuel industrialization within Botswana and to foster more job creation. We propose an escalation of the minimum wage at the rate of five percent year on year to reach the aspirations of a better minimum wage. This will ensure a balance between the employment, industry and the government aspirations,” added Gothi.
For her part, Minister Kenewendo said government were taking the issue of tariffs extremely seriously, since diamonds are the country’s export to the US market.
Kenewendo further highlighted that challenges emanating from the tariffs not only affect direct export channels, but also other markets that Botswana is doing business with, such as India, Israel, Dubai and Belgium among others.
“The concerned markets are being assessed to establish how the tariff had affected them and how they may be affecting the country’s efforts of beneficiation,” she said.
