Sowetan reports that a sixth suspect in the cable theft at the Gupta-owned Gloria Coal Mine in Mpumalanga last week has been released as police conduct more investigations over the incident. Brig Leonard Hlathi told Sowetan yesterday the man was released yesterday because the police had to conduct further investigations as directed by the public prosecutor. The new development came as employees at the mine continued to halt the search and rescue operation for the remaining trapped cable thieves underground.
“The rescue operation won’t continue today [Monday] because we have the employees who won’t permit us to continue the operation until they are paid their salaries‚” business rescue representative for the mine Mike Elliot said yesterday. The disruption started late last week.
Elliot said there was no money to pay the disgruntled employees. In business rescue we were generating money for the employees‚ they have been receiving their salaries all the way up to the end of October [2018]. Basically‚ the cash got used to pay Eskom and other creditors to keep the mine operations running,” Elliot said.
“Eventually, the bills far exceeded the amount of income. We just ran out of cash and there wasn’t production to look after it.” The Gloria mine forms part of the Optimum Coal assets bought by the Gupta family in 2016. They were put into business rescue early last year. Several thieves were trapped underground after a gas explosion on Wednesday while stripping cables at the mine‚ which has been closed for months. Elliot said they received information from the community last week that at least 22 people were trapped underground. “The community thought that there had been some sort of explosion. We went out and examined the main fans and we found that the blast doors‚ which protect the fans against an explosion‚ had been blown off.” Elliot said the atmosphere in the mine was full of poisonous gases‚ including carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. “We couldn’t get to where the community told us that these people were. We can’t reach it with our oxygen set‚ it’s too far. We must re-establish power to the mine that the copper thieves cut‚ [because] they cut the overhead power lines and made them fall down.” Elliot said the copper thieves had also stolen the Eskom supply cable. The bodies of five suspected thieves were recovered.
The original of this report by Iavan Pijoos appeared on page 10 of Sowetan of 12 February 2019
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page