To rush to court and stop the promising prospect of re-opening the mine is unfair to the families who are starving without an income.
The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) believes the application being brought by the NPA to stop the sale of the Optimum Coal Mine near Middleburg in Mpumalanga is part of the wider political game being played by the powerful and which continues to disadvantage the starving workers who have been without an income since the closure of the mine about 4 years ago.
The NPA is currently at the Tshwane High Court, opposing the sale of Africa’s biggest coal mine to Liberty Coal – a company the state institution says has links to the Gupta family.
The matter has the NUM, the business rescue practitioners and Liberty Coal as respondents, opposing the application being brought by the National Prosecuting Authority.
NUM branch secretary Richard Mguzulu spoke to 013NEWS Thursday 10 March 2022 about the whole battle for the soul of the Gupta-owned mine.
“We hope that the Judge will be sober and hear the cries of the families who have been left starving since the whole political game began 4 years. These people have been hoping that the mine would this year be re-opened so that they work and get an income and feed their families but the NPA is just disrupting the whole process and we are pained as this has been going on for too long,” Mguzulu told the 013NEWS reporter over the phone.
The NPA argues that the Optimum Coal Mine should be forfeited as it was bought by the Gupta family through money acquired through alleged criminal actions – the proceeds of South Africa’s state capture.
“They were supposed to have done this a long time ago. Why now? What happens to us as workers is unfair because this means that the re-opening of the mine will no longer happen,” Mguzulu said.
The NPA feels the current bidder businessman Daniel McGowan has links with the Gupta family and is being used by the family to get back the mine.
“In 2014, Mr McGowan helped the Guptas to buy a property for Duduzane Zuma in Dubai,” NPA lawyer Matthew Chaskalson said in court.
But Mguzulu said as the workers they don’t have a problem with anyone buying the mine as long as that will ensure the mine is re-opened so that jobs are created.
Members of the community of Kwazamokuhle a few kilometers from the mine shared similar sentiments when they told the 013NEWS reporter of the water shortage they now suffer with since the mine shut down and stopped pumping water to their community as part of the mine’s community support projects.
The multi-million rand water treatment plant used to produce water of a ‘blue drop quality’ but now lies fallow on the mining site, unused as the battle between the powerful rages on without any regard for the wreckage it leaves behind.
The mine was placed under business rescue when allegations of state capture against the Gupta family were levelled, leading to banks closing their accounts and causing untold suffering to thousands of workers who found themselves without work.
The NUM believes that the current court wrangles will cause further delays to the re-opening of the mine and is the reason they are opposing it.
“We feel the NPA is playing politics here and it’s worrying because this is a state institution, which is supposed to be on the side of the starving families who desperately need work as we speak,” the NUM leader said.
(edited by MLM)
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