Surging Pan African forced to secure mine from illegals at a cost of $3.4m
PHOTO: Supplied/Vantage Goldfields website
Pan African chief executive Cobus Loots told analysts during a financial results presentation for the six months to December 2019 that the group’s priority had been to safeguard its assets.
“We are exposed to a lot of illegal miners. We are seeing an influx of illegal miners from countries like Mozambique. If we had not improved security, we would have been overrun today. We have made the business sustainable from a security point of view,” said Loots.
Pan African, the junior JSE-listed gold producer, said security costs represented 3.9percent of production costs and had increased by 3percent to $3.4m in 2019 from $3.3m in 2018.
The group said security had jumped 6.6percent in rand terms due to an increased focus on addressing illegal mining activities and once-off costs incurred during instances of community unrest.
Source: iol.co.za
