Johannesburg - In a dramatic about-turn, the provisional liquidators of Pamodzi Gold have conditionally welcomed the gold miner's attempts to rescue its mines from liquidation itself.
The main condition was that Pamdozi had to come up on Monday with R11m for a month's maintenance work at Pamodzi Free State.
If this condition was met, Pamodzi would've been granted the month of September to perform the due diligence that its potential funder, the China Africa Development Fund (CADF), required.
By Monday afternoon the money had not yet been guaranteed, and the liquidators will meet on Tuesday afternoon to confer on the possible sale of the Pamodzi subsidiaries, announced the chief liquidator, Enver Motala.
"If they are only a couple of hours late, we don't want to be too dogmatic - let's leave it at that," he told Sake24.
The due diligence will bring Pamodzi one step closer to the R626m that the CADF is apparently prepared to advance towards bringing Pamodzi's mines out of liquidation.
On Friday Motala met Pamodzi's Kobus du Plooy, Ndaba Ntsele and Ken Steenkamp, and reached a compromise after previously having summarily rejected their rescue efforts.
This new spirit of accommodation comes after Motala's threat to order a forensic investigation into Pamodzi Gold's last months of managing the mines.
Pamodzi's rescue plan is now, however, "first prize", says Motala. "We hope the CADF gives them the money."
After the initial R11m Pamodzi will probably have to produce a further R11m for maintenance in October in order to continue the study.
But the sale of Orkney remains a fait accompli, Motala declares, referring to the sale of Pamodzi Orkney to Aurora Empowerment Systems.
Harmony has offered Pamodzi some relief by provisionally withdrawing from the acquisition of Pamodzi Free State, apparently because of the harm to its image if it opposes a worker-friendly rescue attempt.
Since the initial R626m that the CADF promised was intended for Free State, Pamodzi East Rand and Orkney, it is not certain how much finance Pamodzi will be able to raise.
Workers demonstrate
Pamodzi East Rand, the only one of the Pamodzi Group's three provisionally liquidated subsidiaries still producing gold, also came to a standstill last week.
The mine's management called the police to the Grootvlei Mine on Monday morning to deal with a demonstration by workers.
Some of the 3 000 or so workers had started striking last week after only half had been paid their August wages. Mine management has now promised to pay the remainder by the end of this week.
The East Rand gold operation is still functioning and is able to generate cash with its above-ground stocks of ore, Motala reports.
So far no decision has been made regarding suspending activities and simply maintaining this mine, although this route may be unavoidable without a further cash injection.
Motala explains that East Rand's funds have basically dried up.
HypoVereinsbank (HVB), a German creditor, advanced a loan to East Rand after the provisional liquidation in order to keep it operational.
This R50m, supplemented by gold sales, has been exhausted and HVB now refuses, according to Motala, to make more money available.
- Sake24.com
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