José Ganga Júnior made the complaint during the biannual review session on diamond production, which has been taking place since this Wednesday in Dundo, capital of Lunda Norte, for three days.
According to the official, quoted by Angop, the Angolan news agency, the situation is seen in the mines of Chitotolo, Lunhinga, Lulo and Luminas, "which every day suffer invasions by duly organized groups and in extremely important reserves for the sustainability of the mines".
According to José Ganga Júnior, if the situation continues, "companies will be forced to close their doors temporarily, which will be negative for the sector, because the areas that are being invaded represent a significant part of their production".
According to the president of the National Diamond Company of Angola (Endiama), most of the invasions have the consent of some authorities, having requested the support of the local government and defense and security bodies for their immediate combat.
"We had a case at Luminas, but with the intervention of the defense and security bodies, within the scope of Operation Transparency, we resolved the problem, but the resumption of activities is complicated, because we were forced to carry out new prospecting to discover reserves and until now we don't have good results", he stressed.
Given the situation, the person in charge continued, the company may be forced to lay off some workers, reducing costs and focusing only on prospecting to discover reserves, "because the existing ones have been depleted".
Regarding the Lulo mine, José Ganga Júnior denounced that there are mining groups disguised as agricultural cooperatives, which have been illegally invading the concession areas.
"Lulo has three more years of exploration and if this situation continues, we will be forced to close the doors, because its reserves are being squandered", he warned.
