Blyvoor goes to seed while lawyers battle
HAMMERING away in the old mine kitchen with his old aluminium hard hat, a former Blyvooruitzicht employee is gathering whatever scrap there is left at the dilapidated mine.
The hat was given to him back in the ’70s when he started his career as a miner, but it is doubtful that any mining will take place again at Blyvooruitzicht mine.
Although liquidator Leigh Roering says he has two potential buyers interested in resuscitating No. Five Shaft, significant flooding since ousted bidder Goldrich and adjacent mines stopped pumping water and a lengthy court dispute might exhaust the patience of these buyers.
It has been a year since Bernard Swanepoel’s Village Main Reef pulled the plug on Blyvoor, putting it into voluntary liquidation 13 months after buying it out of business rescue from DRDGold.
Goldrich, a shadowy company linked to ex-Aurora directors, was named preferred bidder for most of Blyvoor’s mining assets last December, but failed dismally to resuscitate the mine.
Instead, Goldrich ended up in business rescue, and its purchase of Blyvoor was cancelled. But Goldrich’s business-rescue practitioner is challenging this in court.
Crucially for workers, medical-exit examinations have not been conducted, making it almost impossible for them to find work at nearby mines.
The seven-month legal battle between the liquidators and Goldrich has delayed the sale of Blyvoor’s assets and halted outstanding payments of an estimated R5-million to 1 700 former workers. Roering says monies to workers can be paid and medical-exit examinations done only after a “substantive sale” of assets, of about R78-million, take place.
The business-rescue practitioner in charge of Goldrich, which applied for voluntary business rescue in February, has asked the Supreme Court of Appeal to set aside a high court ruling that nullified the sale contract between Goldrich and Blyvoor’s liquidator. Should the request be dismissed, the liquidator may be able to restart the sale process by month-end.
Goldrich has links to Aurora Empowerment Systems, whose directors and managers stand accused of stripping and ruining Pamodzi Gold’s Grootvlei and Orkney mines from 2009 to 2011. At Blyvoor, widespread asset-stripping and illegal mining took place while Goldrich was in charge, notably at the processing plant, where exten-
I think Malema was right to say they must nationalise these mines
sive damage was done.
In terms of a court order, the liquidator may not sell any nonmovable assets at the mine while the appeals process is under way. Movable assets, such as scrap, can be sold with the permission of Goldrich’s business-rescue practitioner to cover running costs.
National Union of Mineworkers shop steward George Kgoroyaboco says the situation is dire with scrap and gold-stock sales going to fund adminis- tration and legal fees rather than outstanding wages.
Another challenge is to find employment for older workers with mines preferring candidates younger than 45.
“I came to bring my CV to a recruiter nearby, but it’s all for mahala [nothing]. They’re not even taking CVs for people over 45,” said a 50-year-old former training instructor at Blyvoor. “I have 10 years to go before I can get a state pension.”
According to witnesses, trucks and bakkies have been frequenting the mine and driving off with stockpiles and scrap. Significant stripping has taken place at the empty buildings, with a number of people busy hammering away at the walls of the old hospital, mine kitchen and hostels. The easy pickings – roof sheets, window frames and pipes – are already gone. Now people are removing plaster and bricks to break bars and other metal enforcing materials out of the walls.
Trenches have been dug to remove copper cable from the ground. A former winch driver points to a piece of copper cable. “I can get R200 for that at the scrapyard next door,” he says.
The mine has turned into the Wild West, with no security to be seen and mob justice the only recourse. A whole informal settlement has sprung up, allegedly housing people who are involved in illegal gold panning on the dumps around the extensive property.
“We have to protect ourselves now,” says 45-year-old *Thabang Molele, who was an electrician at the mine, as he waits with his friend’s two-year-old son for the soup kitchen to open. For many, this is the only meal they will have for the day.
“I drive around with CVs handing them out in the hope of getting a job somewhere. My sister in Welkom helps me a little, but it’s hard. She has her own family,” he says.
His friend *Brian Masebe says they call the little boy Juju. “I think [Julius] Malema was right to say they must nationalise these mines,” says the 50-yearold former shift boss.
* Not their real names.