Harare: Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe said his government has managed to obtain information on the diamond sector that had been hidden by De Beers.

Speaking in a wide-ranging interview with the state broadcaster, Mugabe who recently turned 91, said “clever people” had stolen the papers and gave them to Harare.

“We know of diamonds that had been discovered by De Beers and they had taken it [to] Wits University [in South Africa] and fortunately there are some people who are clever who stole the papers and have given them to us so now we have the papers,” Mugabe said.

Zimbabwe’s former mines minister Obert Mpofu had previously accused De Beers, of looting diamonds in Marange. “My heart bleeds when I imagine how many diamonds were stolen and smuggled out of the country (by De Beers),” Mpofu said in 2013.

De Beers denied looting the diamonds saying the claims were incredible. Meanwhile, Mugabe said his government was concerned with leakages in the diamond mining sector. He said they were working on re-aligning the sector for government to play a major role.

“The diamond industry, we are re-organizing so that we have the State with one or two partners, that is how it is in South Africa and in Botswana,” he said. “So, we are re-organizing that, but it will take us some time to be in full swing.”