Call for probe into mine profit

THE business-rescue practitioners at the Optimum mine want an investigation into the use of a R3-billion profit the Gupta-owned mine made in 2017.

This comes as they push Eskom hard for improved prices to ensure they can sell a viable coal business with local and international markets.

In their plan released last week, the four practitioners detailed their desire to trade the colliery out of trouble and sell it as a viable business.

The document contained details of how they intercepted “an illegal transfer” of an R80-million value-added tax refund from the South African Revenue Service to a third party.

The R80-million, combined with R22-million realised from the sale of stockpiles, gave the practitioners enough money to pay wages, secure a railway siding, spend R20million on refurbishing yellow machinery and pay for diesel and electricity.

There is an estimated R1.6-billion penalty claim from Eskom. The colliery is worth an estimated R2.4-billion.

The Optimum colliery was bought by Tegeta Exploration and Resources from Glencore in circumstances former public protector Thuli Madonsela described as irregular.

Madonsela described the power utility as having been difficult to the point that the global miner and commodity trader was forced to sell the mine to the Guptas, with questionable financial assistance from Eskom.

One of the practitioners, Louis Klopper, said the mine had “collapsed” and was in a “disastrous state of affairs”.

The R3-billion profit made in 2017 was of interest. “Based on the current state of the assets it is the opinion of the [practitioners] … that the profits were not used to recapitalise the asset,” the rescue plan read.

“Further investigation is required to determine how the profits were utilised.”

The purchase of the mine agreed by Tegeta with a Swiss shelf company called Charles King had been cancelled by the practitioners, the rescue plan said. This cleared the way for a South African-based company that complied with the Mining Charter to buy the mine, it said. Vital to the revival of the colliery was a change in the sales price of coal supplied to Eskom from R201 a ton.

The practitioners want the price lifted to the R430-a-ton level paid for coal from Koornfontein, another colliery in the Tegeta stable.