Aurora mine assets stripped

The crisis unfolding at the Aurora Gold East Rand mine has deepened as millions of rands worth of equipment at the mine have been looted.

During a visit by Business Day on Tuesday, the mine’s 6 Shaft was fplanos de como se fabrica un molino para llantas viejasound dilapidated as almost all of the surrounding mining infrastructure had been looted. Everything of value, from metal components of buildings to mining machinery had been stripped using blowtorches and allegedly sold for scrap. The shafts fully functional winding machine, used to raise and lower mining cages and said to be worth millions of rands, has also been taken apart and removed. The mining operation near Springs has been in the spotlight since late 2009, after Pamodzi Gold , the mine’s previous owner, was formally put into liquidation. Aurora Empowerment Systems was granted purchasing rights to the mine following a bidding process by liquidators. Enver Matala, the liquidator involved in the project gave permission to Aurora to run mining operations until they garnered funds to buy it out completely. Matala said that as of yet no mandate has been granted to sell any property or remove any assets from the mine. “We’ve asked for a report from Aurora - you’ll need to take it up with them,” he told Business Day. Aurora Commercial Director Thulani Ngubana told Business Day that the company was unaware of the removal of any property from the site.