Last week, Zimbabwe’s Minister of Mines ordered several foreign diamond mining companies to immediately cease their activities in Marange, an area in the east of the country. The companies have been given 90 days to remove their equipment after being told that they were operating illegally, as their licenses had long since expired. There has been much discussion in recent months about the proposed nationalization of diamond mines in Zimbabwe, with some of the affected companies openly opposing the idea.

A new, state-owned company, Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Co., is expected to take over the vacant mines. It will be responsible for finding, mining and selling all future diamonds in the country and is intended to make the diamond industry more efficient and transparent. Zimbabwe is one of the world’s biggest diamond producers, but in 2015 the government received around $60 million less from diamond miners, via royalties and other fees, than it had in 2014. This was not good news for a country that has recently relied heavily on the diamond industry to prop up a rapidly declining economy.

This should have happened a long time ago. Africa is the richest nation in the world yet we have too few African millionaires because so many other countries have been extorting the natural resources from Africa for years.