About 300 of the 5 300 former employees of Aurora Empowerment Systems will begin to receive partial payments, which form part of overdue salaries, this week, after an eight-year legal battle against former Aurora directors, trade union Solidarity said on Monday.

This follows after Aurora Empowerment Systems was appointed by the Pamodzi liquidators in October 2009 to manage the mines of Pamodzi Gold, which had been placed under provisional liquidation.

Soon after, says Solidarity general-secretary Gideon du Plessis, employees were receiving only part of their salaries and, by December 2009, were not receiving salaries at all.

“Aurora was finally liquidated in October 2010 and, since then, Solidarity, together with the liquidators, has been trying to recover the workers’ overdue salaries and to hold the former Aurora directors responsible for the destruction of the mine assets,” Du Plessis said.

The Aurora directors included Khulubuse Zuma, Zondwa Mandela, Thulani Ngubani, Solly Bhana and Fazel Bhana.

“After a legal battle that lasted for years, the first breakthrough finally came on June 25, 2015, in the Gauteng North High Court when Judge Eberhard Bertelsmann found the Aurora directors [responsible] in their personal capacity,” Du Plessis explained.

Du Plessis added, however, that no salary repayment agreement concluded with Solidarity to date had been honoured.

“Unfortunately, according to the Insolvency Act, a maximum of R28 000 can be paid to an employee as preferential claimant, regardless of the magnitude of the claim. Many of the submitted claims were also provisionally rejected owing to a lack of supporting evidence,” he said.

However, 300 claims have been approved, and the employees will receive their payments from Monday.

“There will be a second opportunity for former Aurora employees to complete and submit their outstanding claims, until the end of September,” Du Plessis said.
 
He added that all the former Aurora directors still fail to comply with the revised repayment agreements, noting that a court application will be filed in September to sequestrate all the directors.
 
“After eight years of hardship, the first payments and sequestration of the Aurora directors are a victory for justice for every employee, but the pain and suffering has been so great that it is a hollow victory,” Du Plessis concluded.