Noose getting tighter around necks of Aurora directors and management consultants
Khulubuse Zuma (President Jacob Zuma's nephew), Zondwa Mandela (Nelson Mandela's grandson), commercial director, Thulani Ngubani, as well as Fazel and Solly Bhana, the management consultants appointed by the directors to manage the Pamodzi mines on behalf of Aurora, will all be personally sued for their share in the reckless management and collapse of the Pamodzi mines, trade union Solidarity today said (see AmaBhungane report).
This follows after the Pamodzi liquidators had lodged an application in terms of Section 424 of the Companies Act today. This application is the result of a lengthy insolvency inquiry by the Pamodzi liquidators, parts of which had recently been broadcast on news programme Carte Blanche.
According to Solidarity, the recklessness of the directors and management consultants resulted in, among others, damage worth millions of rand to mine infrastructure, embezzlement of revenue generated from gold sales, non-payment of salaries and creditors, mismanagement and alleged unauthorised payments amounting to millions made to Bhana family members. According to Gideon du Plessis, Solidarity Deputy General Secretary, the court was requested to confirm the suspicion that the Aurora directors and consultants had deliberately misled the liquidators about their financial ability.
"There is no doubt that Aurora's purpose with the transaction was to get access to the mining assets in order to strip them and to commit fraud," Du Plessis says. "Moreover, it has been revealed that Aurora was already insolvent at the time of concluding the transaction and at no stage did it have sufficient capital to manage the mines or to pay workers."
According to Du Plessis, further action can be expected against friends and relatives of the Bhanas who allegedly derived unlawful financial benefit from the Aurora saga. "This process will involve the recovery of around R30 million, which hopefully, could be used for the payment of arrears in salaries and wages.
"It is obvious that the directors and the Bhanas only had one objective with Aurora - self-enrichment. In the meantime, Aurora employees had attempted to save the mine from flooding, demolition and demise to their own financial detriment," Du Plessis says.
"Aurora is one of the biggest corporate scandals in South Africa since 1994. It is a story of corruption, self-enrichment, vandalism and the inhumanity of directors and management consultants, combined with the lack of political will to intervene. At the same time, it is a story of integrity, courage and perseverance shown by employees who have lost everything in the process."
The union appealed to the liquidators to insist on the imposition of the heaviest penalties for the directors and management consultants. "The good news is that the scandal has now been fully exposed and that the guilty parties are brought to book, but for thousands of former Aurora employees, it is already too late. The legal process must, however, ensure that the Aurora saga is never again repeated in South Africa and that the Aurora directors and Bhana family are prevented from doing any further business in the country".
Statement issued by Gideon du Plessis, Deputy General Secretary: Solidarity, May 4 2012
Click here to sign up to receive our free daily headline email newsletter
