Unless something drastic occurs the mineworkers at the Aurora mine face a very bleak festive season and retailers in the area will be affected as well. The workers have apparently not been paid since February, and to add insult to injury management at Aurora Empowerment Systems has, if the accusation is correct, looted the pension and provident fund contributions of workers and failed to pay deductions of an estimated R4-million over to any fund. Gideon du Plessis, deputy secretary general of labour union Solidarity, is blunt: "This is theft," he says. The two owners are Khulubuse Zuma, Jacob Zuma's nephew, and Zondwa Mandela, Nelson Mandela's grandson, and as any picture of Khulubuse Zuma shows, he has clearly not gone short of a meal or three - unlike his workers and their families, who don't know where their next meal is coming from - or if there will even be one. Money that should have gone to the workers, and been pumped into the local economy and businesses, has not. The workers' life insurance has also been cancelled because Aurora did not pay what was due - and that is another crime. In the midst of all this, there appears to be something close to a deafening silence and lack of action on the part of the Department of Labour and the Department of Mineral Resources. So what's in a name? Many will think... quite a bit...

Rod Baker, General Manager: Content
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