Cape Town, South Africa, 9 Feb – Angolan national diamond mining company Endiama is working on setting up a structure to sell artisanal diamonds and seeking partners to provide logistical support and equipment to artisanal diamond miners, one of the company’s directors said Wednesday.

Speaking in Cape Town, South Africa on the sidelines of the Mining Indaba conference, director Paulo Vicka said that Endiama did not have the capacity to carry out this activity or appropriate equipment, according to Angolan news agency Angop.

The director said that in the cases of gold and diamonds there was significant involvement from the informal artisanal sector, and Endiama aimed to “attract workers that are in the informal sector into the formal sector.”

With that in mind, he said, mining tickets were being issued to so-called prospectors in order for them to become artisanal workers and Endiama would distribute more tickets in some municipal areas of Lunda Norte province.

As president of the working group for artisanal mining of Kimberly process alluvial diamonds, Paulo Vick said that for the five years of its presidency Angola had set up the terms of reference, the plan of action and started working on increasing internal controls, recommending that each country implement legal reforms in order to attract as many operators from the informal artisanal sector over to the formal sector. (macauhub)