[miningmx.com] — KUMBA Iron Ore’s court bid to set aside the 21.4% prospecting right awarded to Imperial Crown Trading 289 (ICT) for the Sishen mine has suffered a delay after ICT and the department of mineral resources asked for a deadline extension for their responses to damaging claims made by Kumba.
Kumba has asserted that ICT’s application was fraudulent and the result of a corrupt process.
ICT and the DMR – both respondents in the case – had until Tuesday to file a response to Kumba’s allegations, but would now have until late January to do so.
“The (the respondents) informed Kumba there would be a delay,’ said a Kumba spokesperson on Wednesday. “It is unfortunate because Kumba would like the procedure to be expedited.’
In about 800 pages of court documents that Kumba submitted to the High Court in Pretoria in August, it alleged that ICT got hold of Kumba’s application for the prospecting right and forged parts of it.
The falsified documents were apparently submitted with ICT’s application for the very same mineral rights that Kumba had applied for, but Kumba’s application was rejected.
The application was for rights over a 21.4% stake in Kumba’s iron ore mine at Sishen after ArcelorMittal, who had owned the rights, had neglected to convert them into new-order rights. That meant that the rights reverted to the state.
Kumba also said in November it would not enter into a government-initiated discount iron ore price deal with steel manufacturers before the legal dispute was resolved.
ZIM TO STEP DOWN
The extension came on the same day that Lazarus Zim stepped down from his position as chairperson of Kumba, citing conflicting business interests.
“Zim, who has been the non-executive chairman since the company’s listing in November 2006, has notified the board that he is pursuing a business opportunity, the culmination of which will lead to a conflicts of interest with his position as non-executive chairman of the company,’ Kumba said on Wednesday.
Allen John Morgan, Kumba’s senior lead independent director has been appointed as the interim chair, effective Wednesday, the company said.
Zim previously had to recuse himself from participating as a board member in proceedings related the Sishen rights, due to his business relationship with Ajay and Rajesh Gupta – benefactors of ICT’s R800m black economic empowerment project with ArcelorMittal.
Zim had not returned Miningmx’s requests for comment at the time of publication.
His other business interests include Afripalm Resources which in August formed a joint venture with China’s Railway Construction Company to pursue construction and infrastructure opportunities in Southern Africa, as well as chairing Northam Platinum and Mvelaphanda Resources.
He is also a director and shareholder of Sahara Computers, which is owned by the Gupta brothers.
