The Council for Geoscience (CGS) will on Thursday present the findings of tests done on samples of what has been claimed to be gold discovered by the KwaMachi community near Harding, KwaZulu-Natal.
The CGS, a custodian of all geoscientific information in South Africa, was tasked by the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) to investigate the claims and establish whether any gold could be found in the area.
The results follow after government officials visited the area in June last year, while the DMR took samples for testing.
KwaMachi was gripped in a “gold frenzy” last year, after construction workers discovered material that looked like gold in a quarry. The quarry has since been closed off to stop people from entering to dig for the as-yet unidentified stones, owing to safety concerns and to ease tension among thousands of villagers who tried to get in on the “gold rush”.