[miningmx.com] — IT’S difficult not to be dramatic about Aurora Empowerment Systems with its unholy brew of political family and connections having made a complete hash of the east Rand and Orkney mines, formerly owned by Pamodzi Gold.
Clearly, the liquidators of the mines, including the conspicuously silent Enver Motala, afforded Zondwa Mandela and Khulubuse Zuma enormous largesse in allowing them to operate assets they were not qualified to handle.
Equally generous is the application of different rules to Zuma and Mandela. Astonishingly, both men have escaped the censure of the mineral resources department (DMR), the same entity that will shut down a shaft following an underground mining accident at any other mine.
Where were the DMR’s officials following the environmental and human disaster that is now the nearly submerged Grootvlei mine?
The demise of Grootvlei has been forecast many times, even before the Aurora team assumed operational responsibility for the former Pamodzi Gold mines. Now, however, there’s clear evidence the mineral resources at Grootvlei, which the Royalty Act captures as the national patrimony, will be finally lost.
That’s because Aurora management is setting about plans to lift the mine’s last pump station some 200m higher from its current 790m level.
It has to do this because the under water is rising faster following the summer rains. A Grootvlei official tells Miningmx the rate of rising water is 700 cm/day, up from 300cm to 400cm previously.
According to environmentalist Mariette Liefferink, Grootvlei’s last pump station was a mere 60m from flooding. That was some two weeks ago. At the new, higher rate, the water rises at 20m every month giving Grootvlei about two-and-half months left before the pump is submerged.
Once under water, there’s always the possibility of using a submersible pump to dewater Grootvlei, but that would take years, the official says. You could say this is last chance saloon for one of the Witwatersrand’s oldest operating orebodies.
You’d think the situation was urgent. In absentia, Zuma and Mandela have the hapless COO Thulani Ngubane carrying the can. What can he say? Well, nothing as it turns out; not until next week when the plan to introduce $200m from a consortium of Chinese investors may be in place, and there’s agreement with Water Affairs on the way forward.
Unfortunately, a planned meeting for Friday (February 4) with government officials did not take place, allegedly because Water Affairs couldn’t make the meeting. So far, Water Affairs has not returned telephone messages to give an update on Grootvlei.
Raising a pump 200m is not an easy operation, says an industry expert who prefers to remain anonymous. If that operation fails, assuming there’s capital to even start it, Grootvlei may be nothing more than an environmental cleanup.
But there will be questions. Why was the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) so eager to pull the financial plug on Grootvlei’s former owner, Pamodzi Gold, knowing there was no plan to safely deliver the mine into other hands?
Why wasn’t the mine just closed, and the equipment sold for scrap? All that’s left of Grootvlei is the headgear, according to some reports, which could still be sold for a mere R2m (when it probably cost R50m to erect). The mine’s equipment has been wildly plundered in the meantime. Couldn’t Motala have acted more decisively as the administrator of the asset instead of holding out on promises of yet another bail-out from barely identified financial backers?
And where was the due diligence on Aurora Empowerment Systems? Didn’t involvement of Fazel Bhana, he of the failed Amlac paints-to-oil company, trigger any alarm bells? In the world of political favouritism, apparently not.
