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This ain't Cricket In the advent of SoC, Gary Ralfe said in 2000 "a rising tide raises all ships." The inspiration was being put into effect, the sightholders pumped a few hundred million into marketing and downstream activities and the DTC's ship dollars benefited from the rising demand. The sightholders yearning to be forever marked with the forever mark also rose with the tide, but kept on pumping, most to wonder a few years later how to plug the outflows on their balance sheets. Seven years later, one wonders where the ship is going on an ebbing tide. The fact that the DTC had to drastically reduce the number of London sightholders belies any claim to a sustainable supply to its customers. This in turn forces the sightholders to disappoint their customers, both rough and polished. Isn't the bilateral loyalty between supplier and customer one of the basic tenets of business management? The DTC press announcement of the reduction in the number of sightholders described the main points of the selection process: "The criteria were designed to identify those applicants that demonstrated excellence in their technical ability, their distribution and marketing ability, and the core strengths of their diamond business." This all makes a lot of sense. The press release continued with a Monty Pythonesque flourish "Financial transparency and ethical accountability were mandatory requirements for all applicants." What does financial transparency mean here? If the police want to see right through their financials, then they are selected! And what about ethical accountability? There were sightholders implicated in the GIA bribery scandal, so as long as they can account for these ethical issues, they are in?The understanding was that BPP would be a major issue, zero tolerance is what we have been hearing, but where is the DTC's ethical leadership here? And I am not the only journalist to raise this point. In Africa it is no better. Some Namibian sightholders were awarded contracts even though they do not have factories, while others who have invested heavily over the years were excluded. A Botswana sightholder who has invested over $3m in equipment and skills transfer woke up to find that DTC Botswana had reduced his allocation by 70%. There has been a lot of 'pass-the parcel' around the various parties involved in the rough allocations to explain this one, but without the EU's oversight or a powerful ombudsman in Africa, the local DTCs can operate more freely. This could be one of the driving forces behind the DTC's move to Africa. Socrates, along with a lot of diamond companies, is very interested in seeing a clear set of transparent criteria which determine who is granted a contract. As an industry commentator and watchdog, I will also be paying close attention to how the contracts for African live up to expectations. Business Excellence Seminar run by the DTC, Varda Shine delivered an impressive speech comparing the supplier of choice |
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