The Dutch government must be commended for being the highest authority so far to acknowledge that the Netherlands registered company, African Management Services Company's intervention in River Ranch diamond mine was "unwise".

Though the Dutch government says it cannot prosecute the company because it did nothing wrong since it is not listed under the European Union sanctions on Zimbabwe, the government could help unravel a lot of grey areas that surround the contract between AMSCO and River Ranch.

AMSCO is owned by the United Nations Development Programme and the World Bank but is registered in the Netherlands with its operations headquarters in Johannesburg, South Africa. It provided managerial assistance to River Ranch from November 2004 to July 2007.

River Ranch was owned by Saudi Arabian billionaire Adel Abuja with Khupukile Resources, a company owned by former army commander Solomon Mujuru and former legislator Tirivanhu Mudariki, as its junior partner. Other directors of River Ranch included Zambian businessman Mohamed Mulla and South African George Kantsouris.

The Dutch government could help by investigating who initiated the contract between the two parties because River Ranch stood to benefit more from the contract.

So far both River Ranch and AMSCO have declined to say who did. This is a very important question because AMSCO was in business with River Ranch within six months of the hostile takeover of River Ranch from Bubye Minerals which had rights to the mine from 1999.

The question is also pertinent because an evaluation of AMSCO a year before this deal had criticised AMSCO for compromising its development mission, that of helping small and medium African owned companies, for financial sustainability by preferring foreign owned companies because they could pay fees that AMSCO required.

The evaluation by a British company, DFC Limited, stated that: "AMSCO hired managers already working at new client companies, gave them UNDP status and seconded them back to the companies where they were already working.

“Over 50% of the aggregate improvement in sales attributable to AMSCO's services came from companies where AMSCO rebadged existing managers. To the extent that the improvements in performance are attributable to the rebadged managers, these benefits cannot be legitimately considered as an impact of AMSCO's services.

“By giving UNDP status to managers already working for new client companies, AMSCO used donor funding to provide subsidies and made tax exemptions available without adding to the supply of expatriate managers for African companies.

"AMSCO accepted as clients a large percentage (38%) of foreign affiliated companies, which fall outside AMSCO's target population. Although doing so may have increased training of local staff, AMSCO used donor funding to provide subsidies and made tax exemptions available to companies that would have hired expatriate managers without AMSCO."

This was exactly the case with River Ranch. Adel Aujan is a very wealth man running one of the biggest companies in the Middle East. Mujuru is one of the wealthiest people in Zimbabwe and so is Mulla in Zambia.

AMSCO hired George Kantsouris, who was a personal assistant of Aujan to manage the mine, yet he did not have any qualifications in the diamond industry, thus providing Kantsouris with all the benefits of a UNDP employee but serving his boss.

The crucial question is how did AMSCO benefit from the River Ranch partnership because River Ranch was barred from selling its diamonds because of the ownership dispute with Bubye Minerals?

River Ranch says it met its obligations with AMSCO. Its legal advisor, George Smith told this writer: "The contract between AMSCO and River Ranch expired at the end of the specified period. Details of the contract and its implementation are confidential, as are those relating to the payment for the services applied by AMSCO."

In short, AMSCO was paid for its services. But how?

A similar response was obtained from the International Finance Corporation, the commercial arm of the World Bank that owns, AMSCO. Daniel Musiitwa, the communications officer for the IFC’s Private Enterprise Partnership for Africa programme had this to say:

Q- I would like to know what the nature of the contract was. What was AMSCO providing to River Ranch? Was it just personnel, if so, may I have the names of the personnel and what they were doing.


A- AMSCO's mandate is to engage experienced expatriate managers to provide training and interim management services to client companies. This was the case with River Ranch Diamond mine. AMSCO does not disclose the specifics of individual contracts, or personnel - as this would constitute a breach.

Q-Who paid the salaries of the personnel? Was it River Ranch or AMSCO? What has happened to the personnel now that the contract has been terminated?


A-AMSCO interim managers are retained on short term contracts for specific assignments. Their costs are covered by the client companies.

Q- What did AMSCO get in return? Was it paid a service fee by River Ranch? If so how much was it paid in total? Since River ranch was not selling its product, where was River Ranch getting money to pay AMSCO?


A- AMSCO services are provided at cost to client companies (including recovery of actual expenses). As AMSCO no longer has a contract with River Ranch Diamond Mine, we have no mandate to answer questions that relate to the client (e.g. names of individuals, amounts paid to AMSCO, River Ranch sources of funding etc...). These are questions that are best addressed to the company.

That was it. This is where the Dutch government can help. If AMSCO was paid, how was it paid? As a Zimbabwean company, any payments from River Ranch should have been transferred with Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe approval. If the funds did not come from Zimbabwe, where did they come from?

These are questions that the Dutch government can easily find answers to because its own AMSCO's bankers, ABN- AMRO. The investigation could open a can of worms, worse than sanctions busting which the government says it cannot pursue.