Johannesburg - Trade union Solidarity says workers at Lily mine in Barberton have yet to be paid, despite an investment in the owners of the mine.
The mine, which has yet to retrieve three bodies trapped underground since a cage housing collapsed in February, has been under financial strain since the accident.
Lily has been placed under business rescue, putting 900 jobs are on the line. It has also agreed to sink a 500 metre decline shaft in a latest bid to get to the container in which the mineworkers are trapped.
Towards the end of last month, the union said it and a business rescue practitioner had reached an agreement that would see Lily Mine workers that took voluntary retrenchment packages receive their payouts by the end of July.
A total of R32 million was needed to pay the workers’ unpaid remuneration for the period February 2016 to end of May 2016.
The union also noted that almost 180 creditors for Lily Mine had also voted in favour of the business rescue practitioner’s business plan.
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In terms of this plan, initial funding of approximately R200 million was needed to get the mine back into production by June 2017. Workers would receive 100 percent of all the unpaid money and concurrent creditors will receive 30 cents in the rand.
However, in a statement issued on Friday, the union says salaries should have been paid today after Canadian company AfroCan had made an investment of $11 million in Vantage Goldfields, Lily’s owners.
“Initially, the transfer of the first payment from AfroCan to Vantage Goldfields would have taken place on Wednesday, 1 June; however, because payment is to be effected from Canada, the transfer is not yet complete. This resulted in the delay in workers’ April salary payout, which should have gone through today,” says Gideon du Plessis, Solidarity’s General Secretary.
Solidarity also notes that Vantage and the business rescue practitioner again engaged the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) in negotiations about the appropriation of funds this week.
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Du Plessis says workers’ emotions were running very high and that they were becoming desperate. “Solidarity once again appeals to the IDC and government to treat the urgent request for the approval of funding earnestly and speedily so that 900 job opportunities may be saved.”
IOL