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Concord Times (Freetown)
4 January 2008
Posted to the web 4 January 2008
Tanu Jalloh
Freetown
The Sunday Times has revealed how an energy company became embroiled in the "blood diamond" scandals of the 1990s in Sierra Leone and Angola.
Energem Resources which has just launched itself on the London stock market as a renewable-energy business is the same firm in which illegally traded diamonds were used to finance civil wars in Africa.
The company, with its head office in South Africa and registered office in Canada, used to be known as DiamondWorks. It changed its name in 2004 and gained its London AIM listing last month.
Canaccord Adams, the adviser that piloted it onto London's Alternative Investment Market (AIM), is headed by Tim Hoare, who sits alongside rock star and champion of Africa Bob Geldof on the board of the television-production company Ten Alps. Hoare has been a board member since March this year.
The hedge fund RAB Capital owns nearly 25% of Energem.
The stock-exchange announcement of Energem's AIM debut said the company was concentrating on oil distribution, biofuels and "procurement, supply and logistics management to industry in sub-Saharan Africa".
It referred to diamonds only in saying that last month Energem had decided to give up diamond-exploration rights in the Central African Republic.
Three of the directors were said to have had experience in mining diamonds.
There is no suggestion that the present management had any involvement in the blood diamond trade - an industry at one stage reckoned to be worth $1 billion (£500m) a year - in which civil wars, notably in Angola and Sierra Leone, were fuelled by selling the gems to buy arms.
For the full article, please visit: http://allafrica.com/stories/200801040760.html