Kebbles dealt a blow by ruling on Stilfontein - 22 June '05

kebbles dealt a blow by ruling on stilfontein

the johannesburg high court dismissed yesterday an application to liquidate the stilfontein mine, in what could be a blow to the kebble mining family ahead of a contempt-of-court application against them today.

this was the latest twist in potentially one of the biggest environmental disputes in south african gold mining history, threatening the future of gold mines worth r11,8bn unless some kind of formula is reached as to who shall bear the costs of pumping water from the mines.

in april the water affairs department issued directives ordering anglogold ashanti, harmony, drdgold and stilfontein to each pay r1,6m a month to pump water from the klerksdorp mining complex. stilfontein refused to pay up.

brett and roger kebble, who until a week ago were directors of stilfontein, argued that stilfontein could not afford to pay the r1,6m because it was a dormant company.

both the kebbles and the other stilfontein directors then quit last week, and challenged anglogold to appoint new directors for the company.

claiming it could not pay for the pumping, stilfontein had applied for voluntary liquidation, which was opposed by anglogold and the water affairs department.

but yesterday the high court dismissed the liquidation application.

this was an important decision as the water affairs department is expected to go to court today to have the kebbles and the other former directors declared in contempt of court for refusing to comply with the april pumping order.

in a bizarre turn of events, a spokesperson for roger kebble said the liquidation application was dismissed “because all the stilfontein directors had resigned and there was no one there to direct the lawyers”.

in a statement published yesterday, kebble said that “anglogold ashanti’s attack on stilfontein was essentially an attempt to force a company that received no benefit from the pumping to bear an unfair burden of the costs under the misguided allegation that environmental legislation is being contravened”.

this latest twist comes after the failure of earlier efforts to broker a truce.

anglogold spokesman alan fine confirmed that ceo bobby godsell had met kebble on monday, reiterating his company’s viewpoint, which had not changed.

in august anglogold will go to court to seek judgment from the court over how the financial liabilities for pumping should fall.

“as an emergency measure, we accepted the directive, but it is not what we see as a long-term solution,” he said.

godsell said that anglogold ashanti had no intention of taking up kebble’s invitation to appoint its own directors to head up stilfontein.

the problem arose after drdgold’s north west operations, including its buffelsfontein and hartebeestfontein operations, went into liquidation in march this year.

under an agreement signed in 1991, drdgold’s hartebeestfontein was pumping the water from stilfontein and selling it — but when it went into liquidation this fell apart.