Goodenough Gold Mine risks property attachment

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GOODENOUGH Gold Mine in Matobo has been ordered to pay its workers more than $90 000 or risk its property being attached, Southern Eye Business has established.

GOODENOUGH Gold Mine in Matobo has been ordered to pay its workers more than $90 000 or risk its property being attached, Southern Eye Business has established.

MTHANDAZO NYONI OWN CORRESPONDENT

The firm was placed under provisional judicial management last year after a row erupted over the management of the mine with some of its directors citing gross abuse of funds.

The company allegedly owes the Mining Industry Pension Fund $42 563,00, Messers Dube-Banda, Nzarayapenga and Partners $200 000 in legal fees and Cheda and Partners $25 000.

According to A High Court provisional order dated July 22 2014, the mine trading as Chakata Resources Zimbabwe (Pvt) Ltd t/a GoodEnough Mine was ordered to pay its workers an amount of $90 471,09 for the period May 2012 to November 2012.

“The respondent (Goodenough Mine) is hereby ordered to pay the applicant (workers) the said amount of $90 471,09,” part of the order reads.

“Interest be effected on the above amount at the current rates of interest effective date of award to the date of final settlement.”

The company has also for long been caught in a legal wrangle after one of its directors Henrietta Gugulethu Dube took her co-directors to court over allegations of inviting foreign investors to take over the poorly-performing mine and knocking her out.

Dube has been pushing for the company to be placed under provisional judicial management rather than have it controlled by foreigners, a move she said was in breach of the Zimbabwe Investment Authority (ZIA) and the Zimbabwe Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment (ZIEE) Acts.

In an application to the assistant master of the High Court in Bulawayo dated October 11 2013, Dube said she was seeking an order compelling the company to be placed under judicial management as it was in debt and suffered lack of proper management owing to acute differences among the directors.

She said the flagrant violation of ZIA and ZIEE Acts had resulted in massive looting of gold by foreigners, but ZIA had refused to cancel or suspend the licence and seemed to favour the foreign investor to take control of the mine and kick her out.

Dube said she and the foreign investor registered the company which in turn purchased the entire shareholding in PE Steyn (Pvt) Ltd, a company which owns Goodenough Gold Mine in Matobo adding that the mine was purchased under a loan from the foreign investors for $2 100 000 payable over five years.

In July 2012 the whole workforce at the mine went on strike demanding their May and June 2012 unpaid wages.