[miningmx.com] – MAMPHELA Ramphele, the former chairperson of Gold Fields, defended her role in the economic empowerment of the gold firm’s South Deep mine saying the South African government had influenced the transaction.
In an interview with BDLive, Ramphele – who recently launched a political ‘platform’ provisionally named Agang – said the government had insisted that certain partners be adopted in the empowerment of South Deep.
Gold Fields’ preference was for an employee share programme but in the end, it opted to partner with an empowerment entity called Invictus which ended up taking a 9% stake in South Deep, said BDLive.
Invictus is a profoundly broad-based empowerment company with some 73 shareholders of which only 18 have been publicly named. This has led to criticism that Gold Fields had been less than transparent.
Citing Ramphele, BDLive said: “The South African government had shoved the list of some of Invictus Gold’s black economic empowerment shareholders down Gold Fields’ throat, with an ultimatum that if the preferred names were not taken on board it would be denied a mining licence”.
Gold Fields had conducted an investigation with the results due to be known as its next annual general meeting, Ramphele said.
The Department of Mineral Resources said it would seek a response to Ramphele’s comments from its senior officers.
Among those involved in the Invictus Gold deal are former deputy president Baleka Mbete, also African National Congress chairwoman; Limpho Hani, wife of late South African Communist Party leader Chris Hani; Jerome Brauns SC, who represented President Jacob Zuma during his rape trial; former Springbok Ashwin Willemse, and Mandla Msimang, son of party stalwarts Mendi Msimang and the late Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, BDLive said.
