City Press writes that the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) is on a collision course with the business rescue practitioners appointed to run eight of the Gupta family’s companies.
The state financier will ask the Pretoria High Court this coming week to remove Louis Klopper and Kurt Knoop as rescue practitioners of Shiva Uranium. “It is the IDC’s view that the business rescue practitioners are neither objective nor independent. They have failed to effectively take over the mine so that it can have a fair chance at being rescued. This is the crux of the matter that is before the courts,” IDC spokesperson Zimbili Mosheshe indicated. Klopper said the IDC was blocking a deal with local mining company BEK Holdings that would result in it managing Shiva for an interim period until the company could be sold. BEK is also a bidder to buy the company. According to Klopper, the IDC’s objections are similar to those raised in a prior, unsuccessful, attempt to remove him and Knoop when it was alleged they were somehow connected to the Gupta family. Meantime, SA’s commercial banks have still not reopened accounts for the Gupta companies under business rescue. Optimum and Koornfontein coal mines are now using a third party to operate, the business rescue practitioners told creditors in letters this week. A “reputable entity in the mining industry” was helping run the mines and providing banking facilities, the letters said. BEK was meant to do the same for Shiva, but this agreement was being held up by the IDC, said Klopper.
- Read this report by Dewald van Rensburg in full at Fin24
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