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Former Lily and Barbrook gold mine employees in Mpumalanga were given some festive relief this week when a company that has been struggling to buy and re-open the mines gave them food parcels.
More than 1 000 workers of the mines, which are situated in Louisville outside Barberton, lost their jobs in 2016 when a sinkhole opened up at the entrance of the Lily Mine and buried a container office with three workers inside.
READ: We will rescue trapped miners, vows Parly committee
The bodies of Yvonne Mnisi, Pretty Nkambule and Solomon Nyirenda have still not been retrieved.
READ: Lily Mine: A fateful day for Pretty Nkambule
The workers been out of work since and were hoping that an investor would buy the mines from the Australian company, Vantage Goldfields (VGO) and resume operations.
Other businesses in the area also closed down as the mines had been the single biggest employer in the area.
Fred Arendse, CEO of Siyakhula Sisonke Corporation (SSC), said the company had spent R1.13 million on food parcels for the former employees and community members.
SSC is part of Arqomanzi (Pty) Ltd, a partnership with Taung Gold. Arqomanzi has been bidding to purchase the business but all its efforts were thwarted by Vantage Goldfields court challenges.
Arqomanzi had to go to court to force business rescue practitioners, Rob Devereux and Daniel Terblanche, to recognise the company as Vantage Goldfield’s biggest creditor following Standard Bank’s ceding of VGO’s R389 million to Arqomanzi.
READ: Arqomanzi fights for mine
Arqomanzi approached the Mbombela High Court to get this order and another one restraining the business rescue practitioners from making misrepresentations to any prospective buyer during the business rescue process. It argued that VGO did not get the consent of Minerals and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe, to sell its stake to another Australian company, Macquarie Metals.
Arqomanzi won the case, but VGO took it on appeal in the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein.
The business rescue practitioners did not publish business plans based on Arqomanzi’s R250 million offer to re-open the mines after VGO sold 98% of its stake to Macquarie Metals. VGO then changed its mind about selling to Arqomanzi and said it now had the money to re-open Lily and Barbrook after the Macquarie deal.
Previously, VGO had frustrated SSC’s attempts to buy the mines through court challenges and accepting offers from companies that did not have the capital.
The prolonged litigation has left the workers and their families in a difficult situation. Until the container office is retrieved when the mines are re-opened, the families of Mnisi, Nkambule and Nyirenda have said they will not find closure.
The workers’ spokesperson, Harry Mazibuko, said that the former employees were facing a bleak Christmas despite the food parcels that the SSC provided again this year.
Mazibuko said:
He said government was also to blame for letting VGO hold the “ex-workers hostage” for such a long time.
Arqomanzi will meet all the creditors on January 5 2022, to present its business rescue plans.
In a communique to creditors this week, Arqomanzi said that it would provide proof it had funds to re-open the mines, announce the timing of its settlement of payments to creditors and its plans to retrieve the container. It also had a plan on how it would fund the new mine to benefit all stakeholders.
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