/ 26 February 2001

ACCIDENT SINKS NAMCO’S SA UNITS

NAMIBIAN Minerals Corp, Africa’s second-largest ocean diamond producer, says an accident on its seabed crawler has crippled its cash flows and forced it to put its South African subsidiaries into liquidation. Namibian Minerals, or Namco, expects the provisional winding-up order to be finalised within six weeks. The NamSSol system was damaged while the crawler was operating off the coast of Namibia. The system was estimated to recover about 200 000 carats in 2001. The company has been urgently seeking financing to address its working capital requirements, in particular to secure the interests of its creditors,” Namco said. It said, however, growing uncertainty and mounting pressure from creditors had left the company with no option but to liquidate its South African units. – Reuters