DRDGold fires 1 355 workers

Johannesburg - South African gold miner DRDGold (DRD) on Tuesday announced that 1 700 employees would be affected by the company's decision to place its ERPM operation on care and maintenance.

The company, which has concluded negotiations with representative trade unions, confirmed that 1 335 employees would be retrenched.

This is after 109 employees accepted the company's voluntary retrenchment offer, 101 have been transferred to DRDGold South Africa's Blyvooruitzicht mine and five to the ERGO Joint Venture with the Mintails group. A further 150 employees have been retained at the ERPM mine to provide care and maintenance services.

DRDGold said it was working closely with employee representative organisations to identify and implement re-skilling programmes.

It said it was has also "engaged other mining companies who expressed an interest in recruiting employees".

The company did not say whether these talks were being held with any of the companies interested in acquiring ERPM.

DRDGold has started the process of finding a buyer for the troubled ERPM operations.

One of the oldest South African mines still in operation, ERPM has been plagued by aging infrastructure and the constant threat of flooding after surrounding mines were abandoned long back.

Underground mining at the mine was eventually halted at the end of October last year when DRDGold said pumping infrastructure could no longer cope with rising underground water levels.

According to a Sapa report on Monday, DRDGold is currently evaluating ten formal expressions of interest from buyers interested in the mine.

ERPM was bought for R90m in October 2002 and recorded a loss of R102.7m before tax in the year to June 2008.

The mine's output in the financial year was 79 479 ounces, or a quarter of DRDGold's production.

Shares in DRDGold closed 9.27% or 51 cents firmer at R6.01 on the JSE on Tuesday.