: Some investigations have suggested "revenue leakage" where diamond values "miraculously increase" once they cross Botswana's borders, potentially reducing the country's tax take. The Improved 2025 Deal
Whether the world is ready for a Botswana that cuts its own diamonds—and keeps the profit—will determine the fate of the next six decades.
Timing is everything. Botswana’s push for a new deal comes at the worst possible moment for De Beers—and perhaps the best for Botswana.
The state-owned Okavango Diamond Company (ODC) will see its share of rough diamond production rise from 25% to 50% over the next decade. : Some investigations have suggested "revenue leakage" where
Today, the argument that Botswana is being shortchanged rests on three primary pillars:
"The balance has shifted," says Thabo Mokoena, an economist at the University of Botswana. "De Beers still controls the sightholder list—the exclusive buyers. Botswana provides the rocks, but London decides who buys them. In an era where diamond prices are crashing, that control means everything."
Here is where the friction lies:
Consider this: A rough diamond dug in Botswana might be cut in Surat, India, polished in Antwerp, set in New York, and sold to a bride in Tokyo. Of that final retail price (which could be 5x to 10x the rough value), Botswana currently captures only the cost of extraction plus half the rough profit.
Conversely, industry experts and defenders of the partnership argue that Botswana’s arrangement with De Beers is actually one of the most progressive resource contracts in the world.
The friction does not lie in the mining operations, but rather in the . For decades, Botswana’s primary grievance has been its confinement to the low-margin, high-risk extraction phase, while De Beers retained monopoly control over the highly lucrative downstream sectors: sorting, marketing, cutting, polishing, and retailing. 1. The Allocation of Rough Diamonds Botswana’s push for a new deal comes at
In 2023, the friction came to a head. Frustrated by the slow pace of negotiations, Botswana’s President Mokgweetsi Masisi publicly challenged the status quo. He threatened to walk away from the negotiating table if the country did not secure a better deal, famously stating that Botswana needed to get more value out of its diamonds before the synthetic market made natural stones obsolete.
For decades, the partnership between the Government of Botswana and De Beers Group was hailed as the world’s most successful public-private partnership. Founded via the 50-50 joint venture , the arrangement successfully lifted Botswana into an upper-middle-income nation.