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First Uranium warns 5,000 jobs at risk

Elise Tempelhoff | Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:17

[miningmx.com] -- AT LEAST least 5,000 people will lose their jobs if Mine Waste Solutions (MWS) is permanently barred from building a mega mine dump on the banks of the Vaal River at Vermaasdrift and Buffelsfontein.

This is according to Bob Tait, spokesperson for First Uranium - of which MWS is a division - who was in conversation with Sake24 from Toronto, Canada, on Tuesday. The First Uranium mining company is a Simmer & Jack subsidiary.

MWS's activities were suspended about three weeks ago when Boitumelo Tshwene, MEC for Agriculture, Conservation, Environment and Rural Development in North West, realised that the company's environmental impact study was incomplete.

The agriculture department last week wrote a letter to MWS, the Federation for a Sustainable Environment (FSO) and the Tlokwe local authority stating that the department had originally given approval for MWS to move 14 existing old mine dumps from the dolomitic area at Stilfontein to Vermaasdrift.

But, after receiving appeals from Tlokwe, the FSO and farmers, the department had recently visited the area. According to Mr Moremi, the agriculture department's chief director, it was evident that MWS had already begun its activities, such as laying a pipeline, without informing the community. Following the visit, MWS, which plans to extract uranium and gold from the old mine dumps, was ordered to cease operations immediately.

MWS has until next Wednesday to comply with the department's proposals and provide reasons why it should be permitted to continue its workings.

- Sake24