JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) - The Minerals and Mining Development board, which advises the Minister of Mineral Resources, would next week hear oral submissions from interested parties appealing a decision to grant Transworld Energy Minerals (TEM) a licence to mine heavy minerals from the dunes near Xolobeni on the Wild Coast.

The board would hear submissions on February 8, 9 and 10, the Grahamstown-based Legal Resources Centre (LRC) said.

The LRC would represent the Amadiba Crisis Committee (ACC), which is appealing the mining right, which the former Minerals and Energy Minister, Buyelwa Sonjica, granted in in August 2008.

The LRC stated that one of the grounds for the appeal was that the mining right was granted to the Australia-based mining junior without sufficient and reasonable consultation with the Xolobeni community as an interested and affected party.

Counsel for the ACC, advocates Gilbert Marcus and Isabel Goodman, would be submitting written heads of argument that would be made available to interested parties.

On September 28, 2009, the LRC submitted two expert reports to the Minister in support of the appeal to set aside the mining right. One of the reports provided that the heavy minerals mining operations planned by TEM had been discontinued in other jurisdictions, such as Australia and New Zealand.

Resolution on whether or not the licence to mine for titanium-bearing minerals would, in fact, be granted was expected by June 2009, however, little clarity on the matter had emerged.

TEM is a subsidiary of the Australian group Mineral Resources Commodities.

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