[miningmx.com] — BOTH Aurora Empowerment Systems and its potential Chinese investor, Shandong Gold, cancelled a meeting scheduled with Pamodzi Gold unions and liquidators, an official said Friday.
“Shandong cancelled because Aurora cancelled,” said Solidarity deputy general secretary Gideon du Plessis. The meeting was to have been on Thursday.
Shandong arrived in South Africa this week to assess Pamodzi’s Grootvlei and Orkney operations and decide whether it would fund Aurora’s bid to buy the mines.
Du Plessis said it was not clear if the Chinese state-owned gold mining company was still interested in the deal.
The four remaining liquidators on the case – their two colleagues were fired earlier this week – held a meeting with the National Union of Mineworkers (Num) and Solidarity on Thursday.
“This was mainly to start repairing the liquidators’ relationship with the unions,” said Du Plessis.
The two unions have complained that they had to rely on the media for updates on the liquidation process, which has seen miners left unpaid for more than a year.
Du Plessis said that during the meeting, the unions asked the liquidators whether a JSE-listed company had expressed interest in the mines, because this had been mentioned in the past by Enver Motala, who was dismissed alongside Gavin Gainsford on Tuesday.
He said the liquidators told the unions they could not give out information on this.
“However, they (the liquidators) did say that the process would be gaining momentum next week when we can expect some kind of development.”
Motala and Gainsford were part of a group of six liquidators jointly appointed to manage the assets of Pamodzi Gold mines in Springs, on the East Rand, and Orkney in North West.
The liquidators let Aurora Empowerment Systems – which is headed by former president Nelson Mandela’s grandson Zondwa, and President Jacob Zuma’s nephew, Khulubuse – make a bid for the mine, but Aurora failed to pay miners and reports emerged of the mine’s assets being stripped.
The saga has dragged on since Pamodzi went into liquidation in 2009, with the Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) openly criticising the two directors, one of whom donated election money to the African National Congress while Aurora workers were living in abject poverty.
In April, Motala said Aurora had been warned to produce proof of irreversible financial commitment by the Chinese investor or face the cancellation of its bid for Pamodzi by the end of May.
A high court gave Aurora until August 16 to produce funding guarantees.
The main creditors in the case are the Industrial Development Corporation and the Unicredit bank from Munich in Germany.
In a separate case, Solidarity served a liquidation application amounting to R3.1 million on Aurora last Friday to force the mining company to pay outstanding salaries or close its doors.
Aurora has until May 31 to oppose that application and if the company does not oppose the action, the matter will be heard in the High Court in Pretoria on June 7.
Another South African-Chinese company, Virgile Asia Mining, owned by Hettie Fourie, has throughout the process been interested in buying the Orkney operations, but liquidators are yet to accept her offer, which was made at the same time as that of Aurora.
The justice department on Tuesday said Motala and Gainsford were removed as liquidators to “safeguard the integrity of the liquidation process”.
