Court bid ‘sour grapes’

AN UNSUCCESSFUL bidder has gone to court accusing another BEE trust, Itumeleng, of being a smoke screen.

Sakkie Gerber has taken diamond giant De Beers and Luxembourg-based Reinet (owned by billionaire Johann Rupert) to court in Bloemfontein over Itumeleng, a BEE trust involved in a deal to mine a dump in Jagersfontein in the Free State.

Gerber said the local community was left out of the deal.

“This Itumeleng trust basically consists of about eight people. There is the contractor that Rupert hired, Chris Potgieter, another guy, Marius de Villiers, a black guy that drives trucks for Potgieter and one or two people from De Beers,” he said.

Only about 30 to 40 people from the immediate Jagersfontein community were employed at the dumps because most of the labour came from Potgieter’s other operations in North West.

De Beers spokesman Tom Tweedy said the complaint was just sour grapes. He said Gerber entered into the sales process, but did not make it to the second round.

“All proposals had to illustrate technical competency, financial capacity to meet the many financial obligations that go with setting up a mining operation, running a mine and, one day, rehabilitating that operation.

“All bidders also had to have empowerment credentials,” said Tweedy.