This disaster wasn’t entirely unexpected, was it?
Yes it was entirely unexpected.
Hadn’t residents been voicing concern for some years about the volume of sludge in the dam?
There’s various speculations now, but from the company’s side, and personally as well, we’ve had no specific complaints as to the slimes dam.
Didn’t you get a directive from the department of water & sanitation two years ago telling you to do something about the volume of sludge in the dam?
No. The directive from the department was always about the amount of slimes that’s not within the limits of the licence. The dam was declared safe and they issued a new licence in July last year.
So more than a year ago?
Yes. And we had to do engineering reports every three months after that on the safety of the dam. We have a report in July of this year declaring the dam safe.
Was it peer reviewed?
Well, it was sent to the department. And it’s done by a registered engineer.
Did the same engineer do all these reports?
It’s a firm of engineers and it could have been different engineers. That will come out in the investigation. But a firm of engineers was appointed.
And they declared that the dam was 100% safe?
Yes.
So in the event the engineers were wrong, and the residents were right?
It’s too early to speculate on that. We must wait for the investigation so that we can talk factually.
Surely, it’s a fact that the dam wall did burst?
Yes, that is so. We can’t get past that. But what the cause was nobody knows at this stage.
Should residents have been living so close to the dam wall?
That was how the town developed after diamonds were found there in the 1890s. Obviously it’s not ideal but that’s how it was
Didn’t the department stipulate as a condition for your new licence last year that you reduce the volume of sludge in the dam?
No. They issue you with a quantum per year, the quantity of cubes [cubic metres] that you can dispose into the dam. That renewal was issued for six months and obviously it was reduced then because it was only six months and not a year. Then it was extended for another three-month period, and it was reduced again because it was only a three-month period.
Did the department do regular on-site inspections to monitor your compliance?
They do inspections quarterly, they do audits. They’ve been very diligent as to that specific licence.
Since their last inspection haven’t the owners been seeking to maximise the extraction of diamonds from the old dumps?
No, we were just carrying on as normal.
So no burst of activity since then might have led to slurry beyond the allowed quantum being pumped into the dam?
No, we were within our limits. Remember, there was a 5-metre freeboard.
Meaning?
There was a 5-metre gap between the slimes level and the top of the dam.
How recently?
The Thursday before the event happened.
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