Mozambique is going to reward people who provide the authorities with information regarding the smuggling of precious stones. This was announced last month by the country’s Mineral Resources and Energy Minister, Max Tonela, and is intended to bring an end to this illegal trade. He revealed this to the local media while speaking on the fringes of a meeting of the Coordinating Council of his Ministry.

The motivation behind this step was, he said, the significant losses being suffered by the country’s Treasury as a result of the illegal trade in precious stones. However, he did not give figures for these losses.

The reward, he stated, could take the form of money or a portion of the illegal shipment seized by the authorities. The scale of the rewards, and the mechanisms for distributing them to the informants, still had to be determined, he stated.

He also pointed out that the country’s inspection services had been granted greater autonomy, and had created trading posts where artisanal miners could legally sell the precious stones they had recovered. “These trading posts are going to incentivise the artisanal miners to integrate into the formal minerals commercialisation network,” he said.

To cite the case of only one province, the Nampula provincial government has estimated the number of illegal artisanal mining operations within those areas of its territory known to have precious stones at close to 6 000. This was stated by provincial governor Victor Borges during the fourth Gems and Stones Fair, in Nampula City, the provincial capital.

Northern Mozambique (Nampula lies in the north of the country) is reported to contain resources of a number of precious stones, including garnets, rubies, sapphires, spinel and tourmaline. They are often found in gravel beds close to the surface – often only four to seven metres below ground level – making them suitable for artisanal exploitation. (The gravel beds themselves range between 20 cm and 120 cm in thickness.)

Formal mining of precious stones in the country is currently focused on rubies and is centred on Cabo Delgado province. Nampula lies immediately south of Cabo Delgado.