Every Friday morning, SAfm’s AMLive’s radio anchor Tsepiso Makwetla speaks to Martin Creamer, publishing editor of Engineering News and Mining Weekly. Reported here is this Friday’s At the Coalface transcript:

Makwetla: South Africa’s newest uranium mine, the Dominion mine in Klerksdorp, is closing down. Why?

Creamer: Well, Uranium One has become Uranium Gone. This was the birthplace of Uranium One, listed in Canada on the Toronto Exchange and in Johannesburg.

They have pulled up their South African anchor. They say that the price of uranium has fallen and to recapitalise the mine will cost R2-billion and they just haven’t got the appetite for that.

So, they have put it on care and maintenance and they actually terminated the employment of 1 000 employees who went on an unregulated strike, so I think there are going to be issues from that. But, it really means that Uranium One, which began here and resuscitated what was a gold mine and started mining uranium, have pulled anchor from South Africa virtually, in an operational point of view.

They have set sail for Kazakhstan and US where they will put further funds in rather then do that in South Africa.

Makwetla: One of South Africa’s oldest gold mines, the ERPM mine in Boksburg, also closing down.

Creamer: It hasn’t taken a decision yet. ERPM is an age-old mine out in Boksburg and has been a gold mine for so long now and owned by DRDGold.

DRDGold have made it known that they are seriously deliberating the future of the underground of ERPM mine. They have had quite a lot of capital investment there. They haven’t got an appetite, as well, for additional capital investment.

They don’t think that they will get the return. They have also got a rising water problem and people who went down to measure that recently were asphyxiated and died. So, there is a safety issue as well, as far as the underground is concerned. Big question mark at ERPM.

They will be engaging government and they will be engaging labour as 1 600 are involved there. They are hoping that if there is a care and maintenance situation that they might be able to move some of their underground workers to their West Rand operation at Blyvoor, which is actually growing, and others to Ergo, down the road.

Now, Ergo is the big new story for DRDGold. The surface material at ERPM, that will still be used. From a surface point of view ERPM, will still be active and the Elsburg dump has got another 12 years to go. They will use that material in the new Ergo plant which is being resuscitated, they are ready to switch that on.

There they will obtain gold from the mine dumps from the slimes dams in the area and also possibly uranium and sulphuric acid.

Makwetla: R242-million appears to have been misappropriated from a South African mining services company, which has instituted both civil and criminal action.

Creamer: Yes, this is Sentula, listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. It used to be Scharrig Mining. It is very big in mining services, that means it has got a lot of equipment and it does mining for other people. It has got blue-chip clients like Anglo American and BHP Billiton.

There is no such thing as a bad debt, but there is this big misappropriation. They have discovered that there has been irregularities, some irregular deals, with regards to equipment, equipment over valuing, blatantly, equipment trade-in, where cash has been given for the trade-ins.

They have calculated that R242-million is missing through an undisclosed account, an account that the management never new about. There has been a forensic audit there on other issues by KPMG, but hardly had KPMG finished their first forensic audit when they went into the second forensic audit.

This has thrown up bigger issues like the misappropriation of those funds. The chairman is Sir Sam Jonah, and he says that he has been around the block a few times and been in public life, but he has never seen such naked potential criminality and fraud as at Sentula.

It is a company that is fundamentally strong, but they are very keen to speak to one former employee particularly. They have been unable to do that. They are not saying whether he has left the country or not, but it seems they are unable to speak to a key employee to try and get to the bottom of this.

They haven’t recovered a single cent yet of this R242-million, but they have brought in the police to do an investigation and they have got their own civil case against a former employee.

Makwetla: Thanks very much. Martin Creamer is publishing editor of Engineering News and Mining Weekly, he’ll be back with us at the same time next week.