[miningmx] — KUMBA Iron Ore on Tuesday laid into allegations that it had
deliberately sabotaged Imperial Crown Trading’s application for a 21.4% prospecting
right in Sishen mine to make the submission appear fraudulent.
Asking the North Gauteng High Court to have the right granted to ICT by the
Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) reviewed, Senior Counsel Mark Antrobus,
arguing on behalf of Kumba subsidiary Sishen Iron Ore Company (Sioc), said ICT’s
allegations were “plainly contrived to manufacture an explanation’ for its own wrong
doings.
Antrobus highlighted two “obvious instances of fraud perpetrated by ICT’, namely
the copying and falsification of Sioc’s title deeds and the submission of a forged
document purporting ICT’s technical ability to carry out the proposed prospecting
operations.
According to Sioc, ICT unlawfully obtained copies of the title deeds of Sioc’s
properties from the iron ore miner’s mining right application over the Workers’ Day
long weekend of 2009 to finalise and lodge a prospecting right application.
ICT “manipulated these copies and submitted the product as part of its application,’
said Antrobus. “In this regard it must be borne in mind that ICT does not deny that
the title deeds contained in its file.have been fraudulently manipulated.
“Its (ICT) response is, bizarrely, that SIOC did so in order later to falsely implicate
ICT and thus ensure its failure. Why SIOC should embark upon such a perilous
venture when ICT’s application was so clearly defective is not explained.’
In an affidavit filed earlier with the court, ICT claimed Sioc’s “agents’ had somehow
managed to gain access to ICT’s file in the DMR’s Northern Cape offices and
substituted legitimate title deeds with manipulated and incomplete versions.
“(ICT founder Phemelo) Sehunelo goes to great length to describe why the title
deeds.did not have the certification that would ordinarily be stamped on copies of
deeds obtained from the Registrar,’ said Antrobus.
Arguing this point, Antrobus submitted that an admitted attorney and conveyancer
who had extensive experience in dealing with the Vryburg Deeds Office said it was
unlikely that the office would’ve issued “clean’ copies of deeds.
Furthermore, it was unlikely that there was enough time for Sehunelo to have
obtained the deeds in Vryburg and then to have driven to Kimberley which is more
than 200km away, had the deeds photocopied and certified and lodged by 11:10, as
he alleged.
Also, the application didn’t contain title deeds for two properties, Simondeum and
Constantia, which was included in the eventual right.
“The overwhelming probabilities are that ICT’s explanation is a fabrication
demonstrated by the fact that when SIOC’s attorneys requested.a full copy of the
application that had been lodged with the DMR on 4 May 2009, the latter simply
failed to respond,’ Antrobus said.
“The importance of ICT’s attorney’s failure to respond to that request is that ICT’s
version was true and Sioc’s false, ICT could easily have demonstrated that fact by
producing its own copy of the documents.
“ICT’s failure to produce its own file of documents in the circumstances provides
powerful proof that its version of events is false and Sioc’s true.’
Antrobus said ICT had offered no evidence to support its allegation that Sioc
sabotaged its documents.
“The more plausible explanation is.that ICT copied and fraudulently manipulated the
title deed which accompanied Sioc’s application. That explanation is entirely
consistent with ICT’s last-minute frantic attempts to cobble together a prospecting
right application.’
