It took barely 24 hours for the Department of Mineral Resources to sign off on Tegeta Exploration and Resources’ request to raid a R280m mine rehabilitation fund. On Wednesday, former public protector Thuli Madonsela issued her State of Capture report, in which she revealed that two mine rehabilitation trusts, worth R1.75bn combined, appeared to have been mismanaged under the control of Tegeta and the Bank of Baroda. Tegeta has repeatedly denied that it tried to access ring-fenced funds in the mine rehabilitation trusts of its two newly acquired mines, Optimum Coal and Koornfontein. However, new documents seen by amaBhungane confirm that Tegeta attempted a brazen raid of the Koornfontein rehabilitation trust and, in an unprecedented move, the department gave the Gupta-owned mine permission to access Koornfontein’s R280m rehabilitation fund. Mining companies are legally required to set aside funds to pay for the cost of environmental rehabilitation which can only be accessed when the...
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