RAPAPORT… The Kimberley Process (KP) is seeking a forensic auditor to
comb through diamond stockpiles in the Central African Republic (CAR) and assess which stones recovered during the nation’s suspension may be
exported.
CAR was suspended
from the KP in 2013 following a coup by rebels and readmitted
in May this year. During the exclusion period, CAR was banned from exporting
diamonds but allowed to carry on mining and production. As a result, stockpiles
of rough have accumulated, of which some are considered conflict diamonds and some not.
The KP’s monitoring team responsible for overseeing CAR’s
return to the market has agreed on a set of criteria to distinguish
between conflict and non-conflict diamonds. The audit should take a few weeks, a source
close to the KP told Rapaport News.
The audit will focus on assessing as much as possible the
place and date the rough diamonds in the stockpiles were sourced, the KP said
in a request for proposals. The stockpile is estimated to be in the tens of thousands of carats, the source said.