Aurora III

Recently the NPA told Carte Blanche that no one was above the law. But does that apply to a nephew of a president, a grandson of Nelson Mandela, and the president’s private attorney? These men are the directors of Aurora Empowerment Systems and the miners who work for them believe they are untouchable.

Wellington Ngubeni (Clerk: Aurora Mine, Orkney): ” What makes us furious is that we don’t know why the President has been quiet about [the] Aurora saga, because he is quiet like a dead person. He is the President because of us, but his nephew is destroying us.”

Wellington Ngubeni, Jeanette Stevenson and Octavia Mojaki are just three of around 5 000 miners who have lost their faith in their bosses, Khulubusa Zuma, Zondwa Mandela, Michael Hulley and Thulani Ngubane.

It’s a mafia soapie, says National Union of Mineworkers general secretary Frans Baleni.

Frans Baleni (General Secretary: National Union of Mineworkers): “These directors must be prosecuted, especially when they splash money in parties as if it’s the end of the world. And if they are not punished history will judge this country very terribly.”

Derek Watts (Carte Blanche presenter): “Cosatu calls Aurora ‘super exploiters’ and the NUM labels directors as ‘professional liars’ but it just seems that Aurora lurches from one crisis to the next without any accountability or consequences. ”

The allegations against Aurora’s directors are damning: since they took over the Pamodzi mines in 2009, which were fully operational at the time, they have been accused of not paying salaries, making endless broken promises, misappropriating UIF and pension fund money and stripping assets of mines they haven’t paid for.

[Briefing Parliament] Gideon du Plessis (Deputy Secretary-General: Solidarity): “This is the headgear [on screen] with the furnaces on the left… this is what is left. It is gone.”

This was the story that Gideon du Plessis from Solidarity and Joe Montisetse from the NUM, presented in April to a Parliamentary portfolio committee specially convened on the Aurora debacle.

[Briefing Parliament] Joe Montisetse (National Union of Mineworkers): “They are taking locomotives, headgear and all sorts of invaluable assets to sell them for their own benefit. And then that is theft and we are calling upon this house to assist in that regard.”

Aurora has denied stripping the mines.

[Briefing Parliament] Zondwa Mandela: “Ruthless organised syndicates operate with impunity…’

They blame illegal miners. But the photos shown to Parliament indicate [on screen] this stripping is not the work of amateurs as a company called “Reclaim” dissects the headgear to leave this empty scene of destruction at the Daggafontein mine.

[Briefing Parliament] Gideon: “They did not destroy a mine here, they have destroyed jobs!”

Parliamentarians were appalled when they saw what the brand new Ndlovu shaft, Pamodzi’s showpiece, looked like just two years ago. Now you see it, now you don’t.

Gideon: “This is where the headgear used to be. There were offices here, various buildings… you also had the furnaces here. And as you will see there is nothing left.”

All that is left is a dangerous cavern.

If there is an abyss of desperation these men at the hostels are in it. At Grootvlei, near Springs, the water and electricity has been cut, the toilets are a shock. On good days they have hot food, mostly their meals look like this [on screen].

Workers direct their anger to Khulubuse Zuma known for his love of expensive cars.

Man 1 (Miner): “He drives nice cars; I have nothing.”

Two hours drive to the west is the Orkney mine in Klerksdorp. There is an inescapable feeling of sadness here. Cooking pots are empty here too. Ntsani Mohapi has been on the mine since the mid ’70s, he should be in line for a pension but that is all gone now.

[Briefing Parliament] Gideon: “There are people who are crying, there are people who are dying because we deal with people who are lying.”

As things stand hundreds of miners are still in limbo; millions are outstanding in salaries.
Wives have left husbands, children have dropped out of school, people have been blacklisted. They can’t even claim UIF.

Derek: “What has fuelled the anger of the workers is the donation of a million rand to the ANC by Khulubusa Zuma in the same week that one of the workers committed suicide because of financial problems.”

Marius Ferreira was a fitter and turner at Grootvlei and spent hours underground ensuring the water pumps were working. Like many of the workers at Aurora he had his salary drastically cut: R12 000 a month became R60 a day overnight. But Solidarity claim Aurora didn’t even honour the R60 per day.

Gideon: “He lost his house, he lost his cars, he had to sell everything that he had in his house. He lost his human dignity – that was the day he took his life.”

Marius swallowed ant poison. His widow Susan was with him to the end.

Susan Ferreira: “He touched my leg and he said: ‘You know Bokkie, I took ant poison.’ And I was so shocked because I never expected that from my husband.”

Solidarity are calling the million rand donation to the ANC “blood money” and NUM have called on the ANC to give Khulubusa’s donation to the workers.

Frans: “Would it be appropriate for a people loving African National Congress movement to receive money as if nothing has happened? So we have made the claim that bring that R1-million, hand it over to those workers just for something to eat.”

In her personal grief, Susan also made an appeal to Aurora.

Susan: “I would say: Please help our people, give us our money that our husbands was working for. And, if it wasn’t for this problem, my husband would still alive maybe.”

Derek: “This used to be a thriving entertainment area at the Orkney mine: general dealer, restaurant, a bar. And now it is totally desolate – and what do you expect? – the miners are broke, they say they haven’t been paid a cent this year.”

But the Parliamentary portfolio meeting heard a different story from Aurora director Thulani Ngubane.

[Briefing Parliament] Thulani Ngubane: “We are left with no outstanding salaries In Springs with regard to NUM members.”

But a snicker of derision greeted his claims.

[Briefing Parliament] Thulani: “And also in Orkney, we have paid well over 80% of the salaries that is outstanding with regards to the Orkney operation.”

Gideon:”Mr Ngubane, he is a classic. You go into Parliament and you go and blatantly lie there – it just shows you that there is no ethics. Or, they believe they can do it because they believe they are untouchable.”

But would Aurora actually lie to Parliament?

Derek: “In Parliament Aurora said they’d paid 80% of the Orkney workers?”

Woman 1: “They are lying… we never get money this year.”

Derek: “Nobody has got money this year?”

Orkney miners: (no)

Derek: “Nothing?”

Orkney miners: (no)

Derek: “But that’s not what was said in Parliament?”

Orkney miners: (no)

Solly Phetoe has witnessed the unfolding human tragedy and says this is the longest liquidation Cosatu has ever seen.

Solly Phetoe (Provincial Secretary: COSATU NW): “Those workers are not surviving. They are really, really starving as we speak now: they have no money to buy food, they have no money to buy clothes for their families.”

In the first six months Aurora was producing gold and the critical unanswered question is how much money was made and why did the workers get none of it? If anyone can answer these questions it is the joint-liquidators led by Enver Motala. It is their duty to keep tabs on every cent spent.

Derek: “According to the unions the liquidators haven’t helped the situation, they have allowed Aurora endless extensions and haven’t demanded full accountability.”

Solly: “Enver Motala is not acting in the interests of the workers, he is acting in the interests of the real serious super exploiters, which is the Aurora directors.”

Another question being asked is why did the liquidators favour a company that knew nothing about mining?

Joe Montisetse(Provincial Secretary: COSATU NW): “Aurora approached this thinking that it is like it was a supermarket.”

Joe Montisetse is the Cosatu provincial chair North West.

Joe: “Of course there was a lot of stuff lying underground. They took that stuff, it went to plant and to smelters and then they took that gold to market and they sold it. And instead of continuing producing gold they just chow the money and that was the end of the story.”

Aurora directors chose not to defend themselves in our programme, but in May last year
Thulani Ngubane told Carte Blanche that their problems arose when their promised investor pulled out.

[Carte Blanche 2 May 2010] Thulani Ngubane (Commercial Director: Aurora Empowerment Systems): ‘As a company we had an investment of a billion rand. We would have not been into a bad publicity if M-Equity did not walk away.”

A year later no investor has signed on the dotted line, although Parliament were told that a Chinese company will soon be Aurora’s saviour. But is it another of Aurora’s empty promises which began when they signed their bid agreement in October 2009?

They promised plenty funds for expansion; they would recruit an experienced management team; there would be an employee incentive scheme; a community trust; healthcare; a housing scheme, education bursaries for children and an environmental and conservation trust.

Zondwa Mandela was bullish on Alec Hogg’s Moneyweb when they first signed the deal.

[Moneyweb] Zondwa Mandela: “We have a whole plan in place, we are injecting a capex of R150-million within the first five years of operation.”

But, most crucially, they promised there would be no retrenchments.

To date not one of these agreements has been honoured. Solidarity also showed Parliament a list of quotes and dates in which Aurora promised to pay throughout last year.

Frans: “Serious deficit of truth. Zondwa Mandela, Khulubusa and Hulley and Ngubane came into my office and said: ‘We have not been telling the truth in the past and now we want to tell you the truth, we apologise. In three days time all what is outstanding is going to be paid to the workers and we’ll be putting money to operationalise the mine.’”

That was in September last year.
The most glaring violation is Aurora’s failure to pay over provident funds, UIF and medical aid they deducted from workers. This is a criminal offence. Clearly the parliamentarians were unimpressed.

[Parliament] Man 2: “This is totally, totally shameful and unacceptable!”

As the months went by last year, the miners took their fight to the government. They have marched, they have begged and pleaded. In November they staged a sit in at the offices of the DMR. In February those with fight still left in them marched to the Union buildings.

Wellington: “What I know of government is it is afraid of Aurora. It is above the law because we went to all the departments. We also marched to the department of human resources, we also went to the department of labour… not even a single government department wants to take action against Aurora.”

But Carte Blanche can reveal that at last some action may be taken. On Wednesday the liquidators were slapped with a 381 summons by the master of the High Court . This is a serious enquiry to establish why, under the stewardship of the liquidators and Aurora, things have gone so horribly wrong.

Meanwhile the workers misery continues. And the question that begs to be answered is If Anglo or one of the other big mining houses had broken agreements and laws to the same extent as Aurora Empowerment Systems, would they too have been let off scot free?

Aurora III

Recently the NPA told Carte Blanche that no one was above the law. But does that apply to a nephew of a president, a grandson of Nelson Mandela, and the president’s private attorney? These men are the directors of Aurora Empowerment Systems and the miners who work for them believe they are untouchable.

Wellington Ngubeni (Clerk: Aurora Mine, Orkney): ” What makes us furious is that we don’t know why the President has been quiet about [the] Aurora saga, because he is quiet like a dead person. He is the President because of us, but his nephew is destroying us.”

Wellington Ngubeni, Jeanette Stevenson and Octavia Mojaki are just three of around 5 000 miners who have lost their faith in their bosses, Khulubusa Zuma, Zondwa Mandela, Michael Hulley and Thulani Ngubane.

It’s a mafia soapie, says National Union of Mineworkers general secretary Frans Baleni.

Frans Baleni (General Secretary: National Union of Mineworkers): “These directors must be prosecuted, especially when they splash money in parties as if it’s the end of the world. And if they are not punished history will judge this country very terribly.”

Derek Watts (Carte Blanche presenter): “Cosatu calls Aurora ‘super exploiters’ and the NUM labels directors as ‘professional liars’ but it just seems that Aurora lurches from one crisis to the next without any accountability or consequences. ”

The allegations against Aurora’s directors are damning: since they took over the Pamodzi mines in 2009, which were fully operational at the time, they have been accused of not paying salaries, making endless broken promises, misappropriating UIF and pension fund money and stripping assets of mines they haven’t paid for.

[Briefing Parliament] Gideon du Plessis (Deputy Secretary-General: Solidarity): “This is the headgear [on screen] with the furnaces on the left… this is what is left. It is gone.”

This was the story that Gideon du Plessis from Solidarity and Joe Montisetse from the NUM, presented in April to a Parliamentary portfolio committee specially convened on the Aurora debacle.

[Briefing Parliament] Joe Montisetse (National Union of Mineworkers): “They are taking locomotives, headgear and all sorts of invaluable assets to sell them for their own benefit. And then that is theft and we are calling upon this house to assist in that regard.”

Aurora has denied stripping the mines.

[Briefing Parliament] Zondwa Mandela: “Ruthless organised syndicates operate with impunity…’

They blame illegal miners. But the photos shown to Parliament indicate [on screen] this stripping is not the work of amateurs as a company called “Reclaim” dissects the headgear to leave this empty scene of destruction at the Daggafontein mine.

[Briefing Parliament] Gideon: “They did not destroy a mine here, they have destroyed jobs!”

Parliamentarians were appalled when they saw what the brand new Ndlovu shaft, Pamodzi’s showpiece, looked like just two years ago. Now you see it, now you don’t.

Gideon: “This is where the headgear used to be. There were offices here, various buildings… you also had the furnaces here. And as you will see there is nothing left.”

All that is left is a dangerous cavern.

If there is an abyss of desperation these men at the hostels are in it. At Grootvlei, near Springs, the water and electricity has been cut, the toilets are a shock. On good days they have hot food, mostly their meals look like this [on screen].

Workers direct their anger to Khulubuse Zuma known for his love of expensive cars.

Man 1 (Miner): “He drives nice cars; I have nothing.”

Two hours drive to the west is the Orkney mine in Klerksdorp. There is an inescapable feeling of sadness here. Cooking pots are empty here too. Ntsani Mohapi has been on the mine since the mid ’70s, he should be in line for a pension but that is all gone now.

[Briefing Parliament] Gideon: “There are people who are crying, there are people who are dying because we deal with people who are lying.”

As things stand hundreds of miners are still in limbo; millions are outstanding in salaries.
Wives have left husbands, children have dropped out of school, people have been blacklisted. They can’t even claim UIF.

Derek: “What has fuelled the anger of the workers is the donation of a million rand to the ANC by Khulubusa Zuma in the same week that one of the workers committed suicide because of financial problems.”

Marius Ferreira was a fitter and turner at Grootvlei and spent hours underground ensuring the water pumps were working. Like many of the workers at Aurora he had his salary drastically cut: R12 000 a month became R60 a day overnight. But Solidarity claim Aurora didn’t even honour the R60 per day.

Gideon: “He lost his house, he lost his cars, he had to sell everything that he had in his house. He lost his human dignity – that was the day he took his life.”

Marius swallowed ant poison. His widow Susan was with him to the end.

Susan Ferreira: “He touched my leg and he said: ‘You know Bokkie, I took ant poison.’ And I was so shocked because I never expected that from my husband.”

Solidarity are calling the million rand donation to the ANC “blood money” and NUM have called on the ANC to give Khulubusa’s donation to the workers.

Frans: “Would it be appropriate for a people loving African National Congress movement to receive money as if nothing has happened? So we have made the claim that bring that R1-million, hand it over to those workers just for something to eat.”

In her personal grief, Susan also made an appeal to Aurora.

Susan: “I would say: Please help our people, give us our money that our husbands was working for. And, if it wasn’t for this problem, my husband would still alive maybe.”

Derek: “This used to be a thriving entertainment area at the Orkney mine: general dealer, restaurant, a bar. And now it is totally desolate – and what do you expect? – the miners are broke, they say they haven’t been paid a cent this year.”

But the Parliamentary portfolio meeting heard a different story from Aurora director Thulani Ngubane.

[Briefing Parliament] Thulani Ngubane: “We are left with no outstanding salaries In Springs with regard to NUM members.”

But a snicker of derision greeted his claims.

[Briefing Parliament] Thulani: “And also in Orkney, we have paid well over 80% of the salaries that is outstanding with regards to the Orkney operation.”

Gideon:”Mr Ngubane, he is a classic. You go into Parliament and you go and blatantly lie there – it just shows you that there is no ethics. Or, they believe they can do it because they believe they are untouchable.”

But would Aurora actually lie to Parliament?

Derek: “In Parliament Aurora said they’d paid 80% of the Orkney workers?”

Woman 1: “They are lying… we never get money this year.”

Derek: “Nobody has got money this year?”

Orkney miners: (no)

Derek: “Nothing?”

Orkney miners: (no)

Derek: “But that’s not what was said in Parliament?”

Orkney miners: (no)

Solly Phetoe has witnessed the unfolding human tragedy and says this is the longest liquidation Cosatu has ever seen.

Solly Phetoe (Provincial Secretary: COSATU NW): “Those workers are not surviving. They are really, really starving as we speak now: they have no money to buy food, they have no money to buy clothes for their families.”

In the first six months Aurora was producing gold and the critical unanswered question is how much money was made and why did the workers get none of it? If anyone can answer these questions it is the joint-liquidators led by Enver Motala. It is their duty to keep tabs on every cent spent.

Derek: “According to the unions the liquidators haven’t helped the situation, they have allowed Aurora endless extensions and haven’t demanded full accountability.”

Solly: “Enver Motala is not acting in the interests of the workers, he is acting in the interests of the real serious super exploiters, which is the Aurora directors.”

Another question being asked is why did the liquidators favour a company that knew nothing about mining?

Joe Montisetse(Provincial Secretary: COSATU NW): “Aurora approached this thinking that it is like it was a supermarket.”

Joe Montisetse is the Cosatu provincial chair North West.

Joe: “Of course there was a lot of stuff lying underground. They took that stuff, it went to plant and to smelters and then they took that gold to market and they sold it. And instead of continuing producing gold they just chow the money and that was the end of the story.”

Aurora directors chose not to defend themselves in our programme, but in May last year
Thulani Ngubane told Carte Blanche that their problems arose when their promised investor pulled out.

[Carte Blanche 2 May 2010] Thulani Ngubane (Commercial Director: Aurora Empowerment Systems): ‘As a company we had an investment of a billion rand. We would have not been into a bad publicity if M-Equity did not walk away.”

A year later no investor has signed on the dotted line, although Parliament were told that a Chinese company will soon be Aurora’s saviour. But is it another of Aurora’s empty promises which began when they signed their bid agreement in October 2009?

They promised plenty funds for expansion; they would recruit an experienced management team; there would be an employee incentive scheme; a community trust; healthcare; a housing scheme, education bursaries for children and an environmental and conservation trust.

Zondwa Mandela was bullish on Alec Hogg’s Moneyweb when they first signed the deal.

[Moneyweb] Zondwa Mandela: “We have a whole plan in place, we are injecting a capex of R150-million within the first five years of operation.”

But, most crucially, they promised there would be no retrenchments.

To date not one of these agreements has been honoured. Solidarity also showed Parliament a list of quotes and dates in which Aurora promised to pay throughout last year.

Frans: “Serious deficit of truth. Zondwa Mandela, Khulubusa and Hulley and Ngubane came into my office and said: ‘We have not been telling the truth in the past and now we want to tell you the truth, we apologise. In three days time all what is outstanding is going to be paid to the workers and we’ll be putting money to operationalise the mine.’”

That was in September last year.
The most glaring violation is Aurora’s failure to pay over provident funds, UIF and medical aid they deducted from workers. This is a criminal offence. Clearly the parliamentarians were unimpressed.

[Parliament] Man 2: “This is totally, totally shameful and unacceptable!”

As the months went by last year, the miners took their fight to the government. They have marched, they have begged and pleaded. In November they staged a sit in at the offices of the DMR. In February those with fight still left in them marched to the Union buildings.

Wellington: “What I know of government is it is afraid of Aurora. It is above the law because we went to all the departments. We also marched to the department of human resources, we also went to the department of labour… not even a single government department wants to take action against Aurora.”

But Carte Blanche can reveal that at last some action may be taken. On Wednesday the liquidators were slapped with a 381 summons by the master of the High Court . This is a serious enquiry to establish why, under the stewardship of the liquidators and Aurora, things have gone so horribly wrong.

Meanwhile the workers misery continues. And the question that begs to be answered is If Anglo or one of the other big mining houses had broken agreements and laws to the same extent as Aurora Empowerment Systems, would they too have been let off scot free?