[miningmx.com] – WESIZWE Platinum said it “had a plan” to increase its empowerment shareholding beyond the current 13% if required to do so by the South African government.
“We are currently around 13% empowered and have plan to correct that if needed. We are ready,” said Paul Smith, COO of Wesizwe Platinum. He was responding to a question about the firm’s empowerment levels at the Joburg Indaba conference last week.
Wesizwe Platinum, in which state-owned Chinese company, Jinchuan Group, has a 45% stake, is building the R10.7bn Bakubung Platinum Mine. The mine will have steady-state platinum group metal production of about 420,000 ounces a year. Anglo American Platinum also has shares in Wesizwe Platinum.
In 2004, Wesizwe Platinum struck a deal with the Bakubung-ba-Ratheo community in South Africa’s North West province providing it with 33% of the company.
However, in 2007, the community encumbered a portion of its shares in an effort to invest in other sectors, a turn of events that eventually led to Deutsche Bank taking ownership of 44 million shares in Wesizwe.
It is thought that the Bakubung now own about 9% of Wesizwe. The remainder of Wesizwe’s empowerment credits are held in Platinum Group Metal’s Maseve project from which it is gradually divesting.
“There was a legitimate position,” said Smith of Wesizwe’s 2004 empowerment transaction with the Bakubung. “There was a monetisation and now a discussion has to take place,” he said referring to the government’s empowerment audit.
Wesizwe Platinum’s position is likely to see the discussion of the controversial once-empowered, always-empowered principle with the South African government in which it will claim it cannot keep empowering itself.
“There is only 100% equity to go around. We are very aware of the rules and the requirement, and we absolutely do have a plan in place,” said Smith.
South African mines minister, Ngoako Ramatlhodi, said at the Joburg Indaba that invoking the idea of ‘once-empowered, always-empowered’ defeated the ‘spirit of the mining charter’, but he added that there were “two sides to the coin”.
“What is the requirement of companies where their partners dispose of their 26%. I think it is a relevant question,” said Ramatlhodi at the conference. Smith described Ramatlhodi’s comments on the matter as “… ground-breaking”.
In May, Wesizwe Platinum told the North West province’s standing committee on public accounts that it had brokered a deal through which the feuding factions within the Bakubung-ba-Ratheo would “reconcile their differences”.
Shares in Wesizwe Platinum have increased 22.5% in the last 12 months.
