JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The total liability of Pamodzi Gold’s provisionally liquidated Orkney gold mine had been calculated at R337-million, provisional liquidator Enver Motala told Mining Weekly Online on Friday.

He added that he was awaiting a substantial sum from AngloGold Ashanti that was likely to tide the company over to the April 14 court return date.

As news broke that the Master of the High Court of South Africa had also apointed the trio of Motala, Allan Pellow of Westrust and Deon Botha of Corporate Liquidators as provisional judicial managers for Pamodzi Gold’s Free State and East Rand mines – in addition to being the provisional liquidators of Pamodzi Gold's Orkney mine – Motala told Mining Weekly Online that, on receipt of an anticipated R35-million from AngloGold Ashanti, he would repay last week’s R10-million loan to AngloGold and use the rest to pay the 30% of wages that were still outstanding.

“We paid staff 70% of what was due to them, and that utilised the R10-million from AngloGold. Now, I'm going to need more money to pay the balance, as well as the medical aid,” Motala told Mining Weekly Online.

Of the remaining R25-million after the repayment of the AngloGold loan, a further R11-million would also be paid to AngloGold for gold-extraction services, and Motala expected the remaining R14-million to be sufficient until April 14, when the Pretoria High Court would decide whether Pamodzi Gold’s Orkney company would be placed into full liquidation.

He was awaiting documentation and AngloGold’s agreement on the quantities, which he expected within days. There was also a debtors’ book of R2,3-million still to be collected.

AngloGold Ashanti corporate affairs manager Joanne Jones told Mining Weekly Online the liquidator was correct in saying that AngloGold had processed gold ore from Orkney and therefore that money was due from AngloGold to Orkney, but cautioned that it might not be as high as anticipated, and was still being defined.

Jones said that there would be a net amount remaining after the deductions and said AngloGold that was still defining that amount, but that initial indications were that the residual amount could be considerably less than the R14-million anticipated.

Motala said that the final tallies showed that there were 8 905 workers employed in the Orkney companies, of which 6 322 were represented by the National Union of Mineworkers, 608 by the United Associations of South Africa, 540 by Solidarity, 1 317 by no unions, and the rest by smaller unions.

Only 120 employees had been kept on for care-and-maintenance, the cost of which was expected to be between R3-million and R4-million.

The total liability of Pamodzi Gold’s Orkney company was R337-million.

To subscribe to Mining Weekly's print magazine email subscriptions@creamermedia.co.za or buy now.