Nkomati: BCL�s curate egg

The sudden closure of BCL has been largely blamed on the botched P3 billion deal to buy half of  Nkomati Mine from Russia’s Norilsk Nickel. A few days after the closure of the mine, former BCL chairperson Khaulani Fichani hinted to BusinessWeek that retaining control over the liquidation process was one of the factors that drove government to apply for voluntary provisional liquidation.

This came about a month after the South African minister of minerals gave consent to the transaction, an approval the Russians are now saying was the only outstanding condition for the deal to become binding. BCL, through the liquidator, on the other hand is  also now arguing in South African courts that the minister should have never given that consent as BCL did not have the wherewithal to meet the requirements of being a shareholder in Nkomati.