JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Obtaining diamonds was a “huge nightmare”, said failed local diamond beneficiator Mohseen Valli Moosa, who received some R150-million in development finance from the State-owned Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) and the provincially run Gauteng Enterprise Propeller for his now-closed company.

The one-time South African Member of Parliament and the brother of the former Cabinet Minister Mohammed Valli Moosa was the founder and CEO of African Romance, which was launched in 2007 to add value to locally mined diamonds.

African Romance obtained funding of R97-million from the IDC and more than R50-million from the Gauteng Enterprise Propeller.

“We tried our best with this business,” said Moosa, who undertook to prepare a written statement for Mining Weekly Online.

The IDC told Mining Weekly Online that African Romance would be the subject of an independent forensic audit, following the IDC’s own audit last year, which led to the company's restructuring and eventual closure on December 14.

“We’ve cooperated fully. We’ve tried everything to bring all parties on side, the IDC on side, but at the end of the day, we encountered huge structural problems.

“It’s just been a huge nightmare to get diamonds. The De Beers sight we applied for, we didn’t get. There were many complications. I’ll get a statement out for you, possibly by tomorrow morning,” said Moosa, from Paardenkloof Estate in the Western Cape.

IDC services sector divisional executive Katinka Schumann, who served as chairperson of African Romance, is still on leave, but IDC spokesperson Neo Mokhesi told Mining Weekly Online on Wednesday that an independent forensic review of the diamond-beneficiation company was expected to commence soon.

Although the board of African Romance passed a resolution in December to place the company in voluntary liquidation, it is understood that the board has still to set the liquidation process in motion.

African Romance originally operated out of attractive premises in the heart of Sandton’s central business district but relocated to Bramley and then Wynberg, where, on December 13, a day before operations ceased, an armed robbery reportedly took place.