Public Enterprises Committee expresses concern over Alexkor

The Portfolio Committee on Public Enterprises says State-owned diamond miner Alexkor is in trouble.

The committee was on Wednesday briefed by the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) and Alexkor on progress made in addressing the miner’s governance challenges and financial performance.

In its questions, the committee expressed concern about the state in which the company finds itself. It is under administration and the committee indicated that it could not be “business-as-usual”.

The DPE told the committee that it had been informed in December 2018 that Alexkor was unable to pay salaries for the month and urgent financial assistance of about R5-million was requested.

The department informed the committee that during 2017 and 2018, it had received numerous complaints from mining contractors working with Alexkor, alleging that they had been unfairly excluded from the 2018 marine mining contracting cycle.

Meanwhile, at its next meeting with the committee, Alexkor will be required to submit a detailed document, rather than a bullet-point presentation, as presented on Wednesday.

The committee highlighted that it had asked the same questions of Alexkor before and that the mining company should have been better prepared to address those questions.

As part of committee’s oversight, members suggested an interaction with Alexkor’s stakeholders, including labour and the Richtersveld community, as the problems were complex.

This would enable the committee to make meaningful contributions.