Two JSE-listed companies were interested in bidding for the shuttered assets of liquidated Pamodzi Gold, which were currently undergoing a due diligence inspection by officials of a Chinese state-owned mining company, union officials involved in the mine closure debacle said yesterday.
As many as 5 300 workers at the mines, awarded to Aurora Empowerment Systems in 2009, have been unpaid since March last year.
News of the potential bidders came after a meeting between officials of Solidarity, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the liquidators of the mines at their offices at the Grootvlei gold mine on the East Rand.
A planned meeting with China’s Shandong Gold, which was reportedly considering buying 60 percent of Aurora for $100 million (R702m), was cancelled without explanation.
Key figures in Aurora, Khulubuse Zuma, a nephew of President Jacob Zuma, Michael Hulley, an attorney who defended the ANC president when he faced corruption charges, and Zondwa Mandela, a grandson of former president Nelson Mandela, also stayed away from the meeting, which was arranged to find a solution to ease the plight of the company’s workers who have been left destitute.
A task team involving the labour unions and the liquidators was set up to repair the relationship that had broken down prior to the sacking of lead liquidator Enver Motala by the Master of the High Court in Pretoria last week over disputes about the way the liquidation was being handled.
“The liquidators have taken control and the first step is to keep the workers in the loop.
“Aurora still won’t pay, they refuse to pay and we have reached a dead end,” said Gideon du Plessis, the general secretary of Solidarity.
Du Plessis said the liquidators had indicated that the Chinese delegation sent their apologies for not being able to attend the meeting and that they were not provided with any further details.
According to Du Plessis, it looked as though Shandong had been influenced by Aurora, which appeared to have prevented the delegation from participating in the meeting.
He added that the Labour Department would only be interested if the Chinese made a deal with a recognised mining company and that it would not entertain it if they entered the deal with Aurora.
An NUM official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said “due to the sensitivity of the issue” the meeting also revealed that there were other interested parties who were at an advanced stage of buying out Pamodzi Gold’s assets.
“There are other companies bidding for Pamodzi, although I don’t have the names right now, the liquidators indicated that two are companies listed on the JSE and one is an overseas-based company,” the NUM official said.
He agreed with Du Plessis about the cancellation of the meeting with the Chinese delegation and suggested that Aurora might have been behind it, but was baffled as to what the company stood to gain by pulling such a “stunt”.
Aurora was named the preferred bidder in 2009 for the management of Pamodzi Gold’s assets after lodging R600m funding. However, due to financial difficulties and alleged mismanagement, the company struggled to keep the operations afloat.
One of Grootvlei’s shafts, Number Six, has been stripped of all its equipment by Aurora contractors and desperate workers. It is also alleged that the 400m deep shaft contained the dead bodies of people who had fallen down the shaft as they tried to strip equipment to sell to scrapyards.
Johan Engelbrecht, a liquidator from Icon Insolvency Practitioners, confirmed that a task team had been set up and indicated that labour had been informed about the current situation at Aurora.
Furthermore, discussions would be held between labour movements and liquidators who would issue a joint statement on the way forward regarding the future of Aurora, Shandong’s interests and the mineworkers who have not been paid since March last year.
“We are considering actions and we will put them in place. We will let you know the details next week when we issue a joint official response. But what I can tell you is that organised labour is satisfied with the outcome.”
However, he hinted that a central focus of the task team would be to asses the future of the workers. “We are looking for solutions,” he added. – Business Report
