Botswana hosted this year's Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) plenary meeting on 6-9 November. Representatives of the 47 participants and observers from industry and civil society attended. The Manager of the Government Diamond Office (GDO), represented the UK. The GDO is a section within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
The principal outcomes of the Plenary were as follows:
acceptance that there might be credible indications that Ghana had not complied with its Kimberly Process (KP) obligations. It must take immediate steps to ensure its internal controls are fully compliant. A report must be made to the KP Chair by 15 January 2007 on their progress in this, and a KP review mission will take place in Ghana by 28 February 2007 to assess the level of compliance of internal controls (Mali is not a participant in the KP);
agreement to a request that Venezuela ask for a review visit from the Working Group on Monitoring by the end of 2006 to consider the level of compliance of internal controls; and
election of India as Vice-Chair for 2007, becoming Chair in 2008.
The Government consider that this was a very successful plenary meeting, which concluded in an optimistic atmosphere of strong co-operation between Government, business and civil society. The decisions on Ghana and Venezuela demonstrate the seriousness with which the KPCS takes allegations of non-compliance, and that we will work to address any problem areas.