History has a way of glinting like a diamond — beautiful at a distance, ugly up close. SA’s diamond story is no fairy tale. The “Mineral Revolution” of the late 1860s wasn’t about progress; it was about land grabs, brutal labour compounds, and laws designed to keep black workers in their place while white corporations cashed in. The result? A monopoly that dazzled the world and chained a continent.
Fast forward through decades of cut, polish, and blood: the Oppenheimer dynasty ruled De Beers for nearly a century, treating the world’s diamonds as a family trinket. That ended when Anglo American bought out the clan’s 40% stake in 2012, handing them $5.1bn in cash. The Oppenheimers, pockets bulging, decamped to Switzerland — because nothing says “African legacy” like stashing your fortune in Zurich or Zug.
Since then, Anglo American has managed De Beers with all the finesse of a toddler with a hammer. The company’s value has tumbled from north of $10bn in 2012 to about $4bn (with the likelihood that the eventual purchase price will be about half of Anglo’s valuation), thanks to strategic blunders, sluggish adaptation to lab-grown competitors, and the sort of stakeholder relations that make Eskom look like a model of efficiency. Anglo now wants out, flogging its 85% stake before the rot sets in deeper.
Who’s lining up to buy? Mostly African governments. The governments of Botswana and Angola are serious contenders. There’s also a supporting cast of former De Beers bosses (yes, the ones who helped steer it into the ditch), a handful of Indian players and even an Australia-led group. Everyone fancies a piece of the rock.
Here’s the kicker: SA, the original stage of the diamond drama, is nowhere to be seen. We’re sitting in the cheap seats, watching our neighbours bid for the company built on our soil, our labour, and our history. If ever there was a time for SA Inc to team up with Botswana and Angola, it’s now. A pan-African consortium, not unlike Opec, could wrest De Beers out of the hands of mismanaging multinationals and park it firmly where it belongs — under African control. For global influence on price and supply to maximise revenues and ensure market stability, Russia — with 30% of global production — would have to be involved.
Such a move would be more than symbolic. It would flip the script on 150 years of extraction, finally redirecting profits to the continent. Imagine diamonds funding local cutting, polishing and jewellery hubs, research and infrastructure. Suddenly the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is no longer a slogan but a vehicle for industrial growth, and Africa now owns De Beers, not the other way round.
Angola’s floating of a “pan-African” ownership model deserves serious consideration. Instead of enriching Swiss bank accounts, African diamonds could bankroll African development. Instead of another chapter in the long saga of dispossession, this could be a rewrite — a glittering and long-overdue sequel.
Diamonds may be forever, but the poverty and dispossession that built the industry should not. Time to cut Africa in on the deal.
A pan-African De Beers — if it were to cut it economically and benefit African communities — would require its new owners to avoid repeating the sins of the “elegant rogues” who came before. Resource nationalism turns sour when it swaps one elite for another. If this moment is to mean anything, Africa must prove it can manage its own wealth better than those who plundered it, and like everything in the new political economy of Africa, this hinges on good governance.
• Cachalia, a businessperson and management consultant, is a former DA MP and shadow public enterprises minister, and chaired De Beers Namibia.
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