Mwana boots isolated Wellesley-Wood

[miningmx.com] – MWANA Africa CEO, Kalaa Mpinga, said the resignaion of non-executive chairman, Mark Wellesley-Wood, after only five months at the company was down to a difference of opinion on corporate and leadership structure.

“We came to a difference of opinion with Mark on one side and the rest of the board on the other,’ said Mpinga, who added that the fall-out was not with a particular shareholder.

“There are no fundamental technical or financial issues in the company; we just had a different vision of the assets. We just found ourselves at odds,’ Mpinga said in an interview with Miningmx.

Wellesley-Wood was appointed to Mwana Africa’s board on September 3 with a view to breathing some fresh life into the company. “I think we’ll be a good pair,’ said Mpinga at the time.

It would appear that Wellesley-Wood had much bigger plans for Mwana than the board was prepared to accept. It had been suggested that Wellesley-Wood was seeking to impose his leadership more stringently than preferred by the board.

Said Mpinga: “We are coming to our year-end in March and we are considering how to exploit value from our assets in the company that are dormant. We will have an aggressive push to look for partners and joint ventures,’ he said.

Mwana Africa operates the 65,000 ounce a year Freda Rebecca gold mine in Zimbabwe, and controls Bindura Nickel in Zimbabwe through BNC, although the operation is currently in need for finance and is currently in mothballs.

It also has exploration properties in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Mpinga told Bloomberg News on February 12 it was considering re-fitting its base metal refinery in Zimbabwe to accommodate platinum group metal refining.

Stuart Morris, who is senior independent director and chairman of Mwana Africa’s audit committee, has been appointed interim chairman, the company said in a statement on February 24. A new non-executive chairman would be sought.