Parliament, Thursday, 5 September 2024 – The Portfolio Committee on Mineral and Petroleum Resources has welcomed efforts by the Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources (DMPR) to ensure that the mission to recover three missing employees resumes and Lily Mine is reopened.
After the DMPR approved Vantage Goldfields (VG) section 11 application in April this year, VG had until the end of July to arrange funding to reopen Lily Mine.
Briefing the committee on Tuesday, the DMPR said that VG’s financier requested additional time to secure funds by the end of September 2024. The committee is particularly encouraged by VG’s commitment to recovering the three missing employees as part of its ten-week project plan to reopen the mine.
There is also a commitment to pay outstanding salaries to employees and re-employ former employees who are currently unemployed. “We are encouraged by both DMPR and VG’s relentless efforts, which gives hope that ultimately the families of the three missing employees will get closure and the mine will be re-opened. We, however, implore the DMPR to spare no effort in ensuring that at the current moment, Lily Mine doesn’t experience acts of illegal mining,” said the committee’s Chairperson, Mr Mikateko Mahlaule.
Mr Mahlaule further said that the committee would continue to monitor Lily Mine's progress and the implementation of the recommendations of the 2017 inquiry by DMPR.
Meanwhile, the committee told the DMPR that Optimum Mine should not be the exception in compliance with statutory requirements. Optimum Mine is currently operating at a minimal scale pending the transfer of the mining rights from Templar Capital Ltd to Liberty Coal (Pty) Ltd. Templar Capital Ltd acquired the mine as a going concern from Tegeta Exploration and Resources (Pty) Ltd in 2018.
From 2017/2018 to date, Optimum Mine has been contravening section 24(P)(3)(a) and (b), as well as section 24(Q) of the National Environmental Management Act of 1998. The former section obliges the company to review its financial provisions, and the latter obliges it to submit a performance assessment for the approved Environmental Management Programme Report.
The committee called for the amicable removal of the hurdles delaying the transfer of mining rights to Liberty Coal (Pty) Ltd so that the mine can operate optimally for everyone's benefit.
ISSUED BY THE PARLIAMENTARY COMMUNICATION SERVICES ON BEHALF OF THE CHAIRPERSON OF THE PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE ON MINERAL AND PETROLEUM RESOURCES, MR MIKATEKO MAHLAULE.
For media enquiries or interviews with the Chairperson, please contact the committee’s Media Officer:
Name: Mr Justice Molafo
Cell: 081 424 7481
Email: jmolafo@parliament.gov.za
Arrange a tour