Mupane Mine urged to free workers amid prolonged closure
Chakalisa Dube | Wednesday July 17, 2024 16:38
Mupane, owned by Hawks Mining, a locally owned company, has not been operating since March this year owing to cashflow problems. The company’s over 200 employees have been idle at home without pay since then. This week BWMU secretary general, Mbiganyi Gaekgotswe, told Mmegi that efforts to reopen the mine are yet to bear any fruits and the management of the mine keeps on changing the (reopening) timeline. He said that the mine management had also promised to have paid its employees last month, but such promise was never fulfilled. “During our interactions with the management this week, they told us that we should give them two weeks to work on efforts to rescue the mine. The information we get is that some of the investors who initially expressed desire to rescue the mine from cashflow problems have either backed off or disappeared,” Gaekgotswe said in an interview.
He added, “We are opposed to the idea of giving the mine more time to work on rescue efforts. We are considering alternatives at the moment and one of them will be engaging the management to urgently put into effect Section 25 of the employment act.” “As it stands Mupane is still under operation and employees are not at liberty to seek opportunities elsewhere. They have been sitting at home with the hope that operations at the mine will return to normalcy. The management has to release them.” Section 25 of the Employment Act stipulates that where contracts of employment have been terminated for the purpose of reducing the size of a workforce, the employer shall, if he again seeks employees in the occupations to which those contracts related, give priority of engagement, to such extent as is reasonably practicable, to those persons whose contracts of employment were so terminated. The section does not apply where the employer seeks such employees more than six months immediately after the contracts in question were terminated.
This week, Mupane general manager Koketso Jackson said that he has reservations about fielding questions from the media because ‘he does not want to be misrepresented.’ Instead, he referred Mmegi enquiries to one of the shareholders Cedric Sam who did not answer his mobile phone. Sam previously referred Mmegi to Jackson, indicating that he did not deal with day-to-day operations of Mupane. In April, Jackson acknowledged that the mine has been hit by severe cashflow problems but told Mmegi that he was very optimistic that operations ‘will resume soon’. Then, he said that the mine was in the process of acquiring a loan in a bid to reopen the mine. “The process of acquiring the loan is at an advanced stage. Our loan application has gone through most of the key process of acquiring a loan,” he said at the time. Mupane does not only owe employees as the company reportedly is behind in paying utilities. In addition, local firms, Top Mining Services, through its director Anthony Siwawa, and Mine Tech which is owned by Rene Aust have filed an application asking the High Court to issue an order for the provisional liquidation of the mine. The two creditors are owed over P50 million by Mupane.