JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) - Trade union Solidarity on Thursday raked up old grievances when it directed a letter to the joint liquidators of Aurora Empowerment Systems expressing its dissatisfaction with the delays in payment to its members and other former Aurora gold mineworkers.

General secretary Gideon du Plessis noted that those employees had already submitted their claims in the prescribed format but they were still waiting for compensation. "Our members are at their wit's end, are despondent and have been under tremendous financial pressure since March 2010," he said.

In 2015, Aurora directors Khulubuse Zuma, Fazel and Solly Bhana, Zondwa Mandela and Thulani Ngubani were found guilty by the North Gauteng High Court of the reckless and negligent management of the Pamodzi mining assets and held liable for the R1.5-billion in damages to the mining assets.

As a result of the conviction, the Aurora directors entered into settlement agreements with the Pamodzi liquidators. The money to be derived from the agreements would be used to pay the millions of rands of outstanding salaries to the 5 300 former Aurora employees.

Du Plessis pointed out that Solidarity was aware that outstanding and incomplete claims from members represented by other trade unions were delaying the process at the moment.

However, he pointed out that it was, nonetheless, inappropriate to prejudice those whose claims had been submitted on time and to deprive them of receiving their first payment due to remiss on the part of other parties.

"The Aurora saga has been ongoing for eight years already and it is really crippling people. Apart from the fact that our members and other workers are in need of getting the money that is their due they also want to get closure after this difficult and painful phase in their lives," Du Plessis said.

He added that the former directors had failed to comply with a repayment agreement reached after an earlier court order from the North Gauteng High Court.

"They were found guilty of damage to property in their personal capacity for having stripped the assets of Pamodzi that were under their control at the time."

Meanwhile, a revised agreement has been reached with Zuma and he was given time until August  to pay the outstanding balance of which R12-million of the agreed upon R23-million had already been paid. Negotiations with the Bhanas were still ongoing.

"Should they fail to comply with the revised agreements yet again they will be sequestrated summarily," Du Plessis said.

He pointed out that the necessary funds were available to make the first payments. For this reason, Solidarity was calling on the joint liquidators of Aurora Empowerment Systems and the Master of the South Gauteng High Court to heed the calls from those workers to approve their claims and to initiate payment of the claims as a matter of urgency.