Former top Presidential official jailed for bribery

Romy Voos Andrianarisoa, the Madagascan President's former chief of staff at the time has been jailed by a London court for attempts to solicit bribes out of Gemfields executives in return for exclusive sapphire mining rights in Madagascar. Within 10 months of Gemfields reporting its corruption suspicions to the UK, Andrianarisoa was arrested and convicted of attempted bribery, according to a Fin24 report. She and her associate, Philippe Tabuteau, were sentenced by a London court to a collective five years' and nine months' imprisonment. ‘None of that would have happened had Sean (Gilbertson, Gemfields CEO) not proactively approached us,’ David Liebscher, deputy head of the International Corruption Unit within the UK's National Crime Agency, told delegates at the SA mining indaba this week. Madagascar is home to world-renowned sapphires, a precious gemstone which Gemfields is keen to expand into. The company is the owner of the Faberge luxury jewellery brand, but the vast majority of its revenue is derived from its ruby and emerald mines located in Mozambique and Zambia, respectively. Gilbertson explained how and why the company took the bold move to report Andrianarisoa to UK authorities. ‘It starts with the correct philosophy. A belief that the resources in the ground belong to the citizens of the country,’ he said, adding that mining companies should be acting as a custodian to convert those minerals to an in-country benefit. The government should act as a co-custodian. Where resources are misallocated to companies that ‘can't even get out of the starting block’ without paying bribes, ‘then the ticket out of poverty via natural resources in the ground is lost.’