State-owned diamond miner cuts jobs

State-owned Alexkor and its community-based joint venture are laying off 238 people as the diamond miner’s financial crisis deepens, piling yet another demand on government funding to bail it out.

The announcement comes within days of President Cyril Ramaphosa announcing in his state of the nation address that the government plans to create two-million jobs in 10 years.

The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), once headed by both Ramaphosa and mineral resources and energy minister Gwede Mantashe, said attempts to garner support from the public enterprises and mineral resources departments had failed.

It has laid the blame for the job losses squarely on them.

Alexkor is just one of a large number of state-owned companies that have run into financial distress, requiring the government to bail them out.

The public enterprises department has blocked Alexkor’s efforts to add coal to its business, which would allow it to diversify its portfolio away from the high risks association with alluvial and marine diamond mining.

Under the Treasury’s medium-term expenditure framework, Alexkor received R350m in 2012, with R200m earmarked for rehabilitation of mining areas. –