Judgment against Aurora directors welcomed

Friday, June 26, 2015

Pretoria -The Portfolio Committee on Mineral Resources has welcomed the judgment handed down by the High Court in Pretoria against the directors of Aurora Empowerment Systems.

Judge Eberhard Bertelsmann on Thursday found that the directors, which include Khulubuse Zuma and Zondwa Mandela, were liable for damages of stripping the assets of the liquidated Pamodzi Gold’s mines in Gauteng and North West.

This lead to more than 5000 workers losing their jobs as well as retirement benefits.

Committee Chairperson Sahlulele Luzipo said while the directors have a right to appeal the judgment in the Constitutional Court, he hoped the judgment brought to end a protracted court battle.

He said the employers were morally required to enter into bona fide relationships with the workers, whereby they need to open negotiation channels in order to find amicable solutions for similar situations.  

“We do not think that this matter was supposed to be a subject of the courts in the first place. There are over 5000 former mine workers who were left destitute and our view has always been that this matter could have been handled by way of negotiations between the two parties to find an out-of-court settlement,” said Luzipo.

On 5 November 2014, the Chief Master of the High Court, together with the attorney for the provisional liquidators, John Walker, briefed the committee on the progress regarding the Aurora matter.

In that meeting, the committee appealed to the Department of Mineral Resources to ensure stringent checks and balances before issuing mining licenses.

The department is still to report back to the committee on this matter, as well as to present a consolidated liquidators’ list that would have been shared with the Chief Master of the High Court, said Luzipo. – SAnews.gov.za