[miningmx.com] – ANYONE who’s been watching the progress in
developing a solution to acid mine drainage (AMD) wouldn’t be terribly surprised by
the blowout in parliament earlier this week.
In a sitting of the Water Affairs and Environment Committee, chairman Johnny de
Lange rounded on DRDGold after the project manager of the Trans-Caledon Tunnel
Authority (TCTA), Johann Classens, suggested the gold company only wanted to
cooperate on a short-term solution to AMD if it was granted indemnity against future
AMD claims.
Citing De Lange, newswire service Sapa, reported: “How can people blackmail you, to
tell you we’ll give you access to the land … but by doing that we want to be
indemnified from any other obligations?
Niel Pretorius, CEO of DRDGold, declined to comment on the allegations made in
parliament, but said he had immediately sought contact with De Lange, who is an
advocate. Pretorius was subsequently asked to produce a written submission.
“Pretorius has done so, and says he believes he will hear from Advocate de Lange
soon. When he does, and if it is appropriate, DRDGold will issue a statement,”
DRDGold said today.
Anyone who knows Pretorius would be highly sceptical of claims that bribery was
involved. Furthermore, anyone who knows anything about AMD would be aware of how
enormously frustrated DRDGold has become about the situation.
AMD is not new. In fact, the Department of Water Affairs first approached ‘polluters’
such as DRDGold years ago, as early as 2003, to come up with a solution. That
solution coalesced into the Water Utilities Corporation (WUC) in 2005; an
organisation of operating gold companies in the Witwatersrand region that not only
devised a plan for AMD, but found finance for it.
To cut a (very) long story short, Water Affairs repeatedly rejected the findings of the
WUC, sending it back for repeated revisions, and then, eventually, rejecting the
proposal, although in contravention of the Water Act, failing to say why the WUC
solution was unacceptable.
Instead, the Water Affairs Department drafted in the services of TCTA, which
requested from WUC certain information in forming its own solution, which would cost
taxpayers and needs to be executed in two phases rather than the single phased-
approach of WUC.
WUC’s approach to AMD has been demonstrated to the Water and Environmental
Affairs committee in Cape Town, but events earlier this week smack of sheer panic.
In lieu of a WUC’s long-standing solution, the TCTA said the feasibility of its solution
would only be known in a year, by which time the level of AMD would be little short of
174 metres; just below the environmentally accepted level. Any higher, and surface
water sources, building foundations and the like are threatened.
The years spent dithering over AMD reminds one of the nine years it took to identify
South Africa’s power deficit problem and the ordering of the Medupi and Kusile.
I don’t know what stands behind DRDGold’s alleged claim for indemnity from AMD
claims – quite possibly it sought assurances in order to help finance TCTA’s capital-
intensive plan. That still needs to be revealed and DRDGold’s Pretorius isn’t speaking
yet.
But the truth will out.
