AFTER a week of speculations and excitement over crystal stones found in Hlathi village in Ladysmith, KZN midlands, a professional and qualified diamond polisher and cutter tested and found them not to be diamonds.
Malibongwe Matiwane (54) drove from Pietermaritzburg to the village after his friends told him about a diamond frenzy.
“I was excited because I work with diamond and thought we would now have a mine nearby to get them. But my excitement was short-lived because when I arrived, I could see that the stones were not diamonds after feeling them by hand before putting them on my tester,” said Malibongwe.
He said because he wanted to make sure the results were correct, he checked more than five stones, which all gave the same results.
Malibongwe said if they were real diamonds, the tester needed to show red bars on the screen and make a beep at the end.
“But in this case, all the stones I tested lit up a caution colour, which means they were not even close to a diamond,” he said.
He said he couldn’t tell the kind of stone they were because he was not a geologist. But he suspected them to be a quart, saying people would still make money but it would’t be the same as that of selling a diamond.
“The other thing is that diamonds are not easily clean. They need proper cleaning, and you can’t do that by hand. It they are found in the ground, one has to dig deep down. First, an industrial diamond that is not used because of its quality would have to come out before a real diamond is found,” added Malibongwe.
Government was also expected to send a team of experts, including geologists, to inspect the site.
