In July of 2012 it became obvious that the tailings plant failed...

In July of 2012 it became obvious that the tailings plant failed to perform (93% short of expectations). Missed once.

In November of 2012, shortly after a costly "upgrade" had been installed, one had to confess that the plant still severely underperformed (85% short of expectations). Missed twice.

Now the company aims to have a third attempt with their hard rock project but this time $70M - 10x the price of the tailings plant - are at stake. With this kind of track record it surely is an extremely difficult task to scrape up such an amount. Mr. Donkin comes to mind who had joined the board in February of 2013 and who was supposed to do the job. The press release stated: "Mr. Donkin’s experience primarily relates to structuring and executing transactions for mining companies, including project finance, corporate finance, acquisition finance, pre-export finance, and early stage investment capital."

Mr. Donkin quit after just 8 weeks.

The ousting of Mr. Pretorious was long overdue. Hopefully the new board will order the managing director to come clean quickly and publicly revise both the grossly overstated production targets and the unattainable construction schedule.