HOW TO STEAL A GOLD MINE, the Aurora story

173pp., paperback, Cape Town, 2023

In 2009, Aurora Empowerment Systems a black-owned, politically connected business, made a bid to rescue the liquidated Pamodzi Gold mines. The company promised to turn the mines into a new business that would benefit workers. Soon after the acquisition, many workers and suppliers went unpaid and Aurora-managed mines were stripped of assets.

"A deep dive into the dark shaft of greed, toxic political connections and incompetence - all combining to produce a tragedy." Mpumelelo Mkhabela

"An intricate amount of politically-linked personalities, corporate duplicity, and regulatory failures, detailing how these led to an untold human tragedy of poor mineworkers driven to death, left destitute." Phathiswa Magopeni

Dianne Hawker has worked as a legal journalist and editor. She is currently the multimedia editor at TimesLive. She coaches journalists through her company, iNtatheliMedia, and lives in Johannesburg.