Societé Minière de Bakwanga

Societé minière de Bakwanga (abbreviated MIBA) is a diamond mining company based in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

[3] The Société minière du Bécéka (Mibeka) was then founded in 1919, with the specific purpose of exploiting the mineral riches in the area of Mbuji-Mayi.

Nine of the ten pipes in the Mbuji Mayi cluster were located within the "Polygon" mining license owned by Bécéka (later MIBA).

[5] In the 1950s, it was estimated that the city, then known as Bakwanga, and its surrounding area had the world's most important deposit of diamonds, with at least 300 million karats.

But by 1963, the numbers had fallen dramatically in the wake of years of turmoil, including an attempt to establish the region as the independent Mining State of South Kasai.

[10] Tempelsman helped Mobutu set up a relationship with De Beers consortium, allowing the Oppenheimers to import the DRC's diamonds to London.

[12] However, in April 1981, Mobutu announced that the Zaïre's state-owned Société Zaïroise de Commercialisation des Minérais (Sozacom) would be taking over international marketing of the country's diamond production, ending the arrangement with Britmond.

An employee estimated only 30% of gem quality stones reached the end of the production line, due to theft.

[17] Due to the lack of involvement from the central government, by the 1990s MIBA maintained much of the infrastructure in the city of Mbuji Mayi, including water, electricity, roads, schools and hospitals.

[19] After a failed bid to float the Oryx company on the Alternative Investment Market by selling to Petra Diamonds in June 2000,[21] Sengamines claimed it had sold off equity in the company, 49% to the Cayman Islands-based Oryx Natural Resources, controlled by Omani businessman Thamer Bin Said Ahmed Al-Shanfari, 35% for COMEX Congo, and 16% for MIBA.

However, no buyout actually occurred, and the ultimate beneficiary of Oryx's stake was the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, through its subsidiary Operation Sovereign Legitimacy (OSLEG).

[22] Rather than a commercial sale, the transfer was a means for Laurent Kabila to help finance Zimbabwe's military interventions in the DRC.

Morgan claimed to find irregularities in the company, including that at least five MIBA officials were engaging in stealing high value stones, and appealed to president Kabila to intervene.

[33][34] While the offtake agreement was initially signed in secret, the arrangement ended up being publicized three months later during a dispute between the Congolese minister of mines and his deputy; the previously unclear owner of Emaxon was revealed to be Dan Gertler's DGI Group.

There was significant insecurity at the mine, with an engineer responsible for running a new $10 million dragline excavator, and a security guard both murdered.

[42] In August 2020, at the behest of the Félix Tshisekedi administration, the state miner Gécamines gave MIBA $5 million to revamp operations.