Water Affairs has taken legal action against four mines that continued operating without water-use licences despite being told to comply, Deputy Water Affairs Minister Rejoice Mabudafhasi said on Wednesday.

She told a media briefing at Parliament that a “random” audit of 86 mines had revealed six that were operating without a water licence.

Responding to a question on the matter, water affairs chief operations officer Trevor Balzer named four the department had “taken legal action” against.

“[They are] Leliefontein, where there’s no water-use licence, and we’re taking criminal action; Mashala-Delta, also criminal action; and, Imbabala coal mine, where a pre-directive was issued, and the DMR [department of mineral resources] have put a stop to mining activities.

“[The fourth is] Xstrata’s Onverdacht [mine], where we’ve issued a pre-directive [and] mining has been stopped,” he said.

Mabudafhasi said the charges had to do with “when they’ve polluted or continued to work without a licence, and yet they’d been issued a directive telling them that by a certain time they must have corrected [certain] issues”.

Source: iol.co.za