Outa tries to stop Guptas from looting mine trusts

The Guptas may have already dipped into the rehabilitation trust funds for their Optimum and Koornfontein coal mines in Mpumalanga, and there is now an even greater risk the funds will be whisked out of the country, the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) says.

This week, Outa will apply to the High Court in Pretoria for an interim interdict to ensure the India-based Bank of Baroda continues holding the funds and to interdict the trustees or anyone else from disposing of the funds or assets of the trusts.

The organisation also wants the court to direct the trustees to reveal full details of the assets of the two trusts and their location.

This is pending an application to remove the trustees of both trusts and replace them with independent trustees who will take control of the assets and report back to the court.

Alternatively, Outa wants Mineral Resources Minister Mosebenzi Zwane to ensure that other satisfactory arrangements are in place to make financial provision for the ultimate rehabilitation of the mines when they are closed.

Outa launched the application shortly after the High Court in Pretoria dismissed an application by companies in the Gupta family’s Oakbay group (including the two mines) to stop the Bank of Baroda from closing their accounts and calling up their loans at the end of the month.

Oakbay acting CEO Ronica Ragavan said in court papers the companies had been unable to secure an alternative bank and faced collapse, that the mining licences of the two mines could be endangered and rehabilitation work currently under way would have to stop.

Outa’s head of legal affairs, Stefanie Fick, said in an affidavit it appeared that Ragavan had access to the trust funds without the involvement of the trustees and had made two unsuccessful attempts to access the funds for purposes other than the future rehabilitation of the mines.

The trust funds were, in terms of environmental legislation, expressly to be used to cover environmental rehabilitation on closure of the mines.

She said Outa appreciated why Bank of Baroda wanted to terminate its relationship with the Guptas and the trusts, but it could not do so in a manner that caused a breach of environmental legislation or endangered the rehabilitation trust funds.