MAIL & GUARDIAN ARTICLE
Herewith an article which appeared to today's Mail & Guardian. It is unfortunately not available on the net yet, but will be later today or Monday morning.
DIGGING FOR THE FACTS
RIGHT TO REPLY
NSG Minerals (Pty) Ltd: We refer to your article "De Beers took my mine" (June 5 to 11). Most of the facts in that article are mis-stated and misleading.
Our intervention over Marsfontein was certainly not an attempt to "wrest control of the mining rights from SouthernEra" - SouthernEra has never had ownership of the mineral rights, nor did SouthernEra conduct its prospecting activities with a valid prospecting permit issued in its name.
Furthermore, we did not sign "a secret option with De Beers entitling it to mine".
The shareholders of NGS Minerals (Pty) Limited are the heirs of JF Naude, J Kruger, H Skok and FAAJ Grimbeek - the original owners of certain mineral rights on the farm Marsfontein. The mineral rights were lawfully transferred to NGS Minerals by way of standard and accepted procedures.
Nothing secretively was done during the entire process. Quite the contrary, SouthernEra was, at all times, informed that the executor of the estates was in the process of attending to the registration and that the heirs would thus be in a position to conclude an agreement, should SouthernEra wish to purchase the mineral rights.
On December 12 1997, it came to our attention that Randgold had applied to the Department of Minerals and Energy for cession of our mineral rights to them in terms of Section 17 of the minerals Act. We contacted Randgold on December 22 1997 and offered to sell the mineral rights to them, to no avail.
Between January 8 1998, the date of our first meeting with SouthernEra, and April 9 1998, when we finally signed a prospecting agreement with an option to purchase with De Beers, we earnestly tried many times, in writing and in person, to persuade SouthernEra and Randgold to purchase the mineral rights. They were not interested.
Instead, SouthernEra and Randgold chose to follow alternative routes to deprive us of our mineral rights. We cannot be blamed for their lack of success in this regard.
It is interesting to note that the article states that SouthernEra "searched for any heirs to the mineral rights, but could not find any", as it was always SouthernEra's contention in its court papers that it was unnecessary for them to trace the heirs.
In any event, most of the heirs were known to Randgold, who had lodged family trees reflecting nearly all the heirs, as part of their Section 17 application. They simply did not wish to contact the heirs to purchase the mineral rights from them. The question arises why Randgold lodged its application for cession of our mineral rights to them without notifying a single one of the heirs.
In order to protect our rights, we applied for an interdict preventing the Minister of Minerals and Energy, Penuell Maduna, from affecting cession of our mineral rights as envisaged in Section of the minerals Act, to Randgold.
We held various meetings with SouthernEra and Randgold, as well as other interested purchasers of the mineral rights.
We obtained various offers from other parties, but SouthernEra and Randgold still refused to make an offer. the offers were tabled at a shareholders' meeting of NGS Minerals. Among the offers was the de Beers offer, which was accepted.
the article states that "the department acted improperly in signing over the rights to the heirs", and that it "quietly accepted the registration of the heirs' mineral rights". The suggestion of impropriety is damaging not only to us, but also to officials in the department. It is also nonsense, as the department plays no part in the registration of private mineral rights.
It is deplorable that SouthernEra is now attempting to put pressure on Maduna to take the unprecedented step under Section 24 of the minerals Act of expropriating our mineral rights, after they flatly refused to make an offer to purchase the mineral rights.
NGS Minerals opposes the latest attempt by SouthernEra to have the mineral rights expropriated by way of the special procedures provided for in Section 24 of the minerals Act. Not only would such an expropriation be seriously harmful to public confidence, but it would compromise our fundamental property rights as protected in terms of Section 24 of South Africa's Constitution, and our right to deal with our property as we see fit. The application of Section 24 in these circumstances would constitute a gross abuse of the provisions of the minerals Act.
We sympathise with the minister for having been put in such an invidious position. If this is an example of how foreign investors in south Africa are to behave, then surely it is just the kind of foreign investment south Africa can do without. -
JF Jordaan, NGS Minerals (Pty Limited
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