Rockwell Diamonds Inc.  announced yesterday  that its  Chief Executive Officer James Campbell,  has tendered his resignation. The Company also said that in an “unrelated development”, two directors -- Stephen Dietrich and Rick Menell -- have also tendered their resignations.

“The board undertook a strategic review on August 28, 2016, by means of a special board committee,” Rockwell said in a press release. “The goal was to evaluate the positioning of Rockwell in the diamond mining space, as well as the effectiveness of defined strategies that were implemented over the past period by the company. This review included the performance of its Remhoogte acquisition, which has been below plan, and the construction of the new Wouterspan plant that is behind schedule with a higher cost. Notwithstanding this, the first phase of the wet plant at Wouterspan, being the first two of four circuits, is substantially complete and diamond grades are in line with expectations.”

The Company said that the board also carried out a “management review following the recent exit of two senior managers”.  As a result of this review, Rockwell said, “The board determined that further intervention on operations and plant completion was necessary, while new opportunities are being assessed”.

Meanwhile Campbell, the Company said, had agreed “on a structured handover” before leaving at the end of November 2016, as per his employment contract. However, he will remain as a director of the Company, working closely with the board and the newly appointed Chief Executive Officer Tjaart Willemse.

“Tjaart will assume chief executive authority for day to day operations and plant completion, reporting to the Chairman of the board,” the Company declared.

A mining engineer with 25 years of senior operational, production and executive management experience, Tjaart is familiar with the diamond industry having worked  with De Beers in South Africa. “Tjaart will also work with the board to continue the review of the company’s management structures and operating plans going forward,” the Company said.

The structure of the board will change “to accommodate the resignation of two non-executive directors”.

While Stephen Dietrich resigned for personal health reasons; Rick Menell resigned for reasons relating to his already demanding schedule, the Company revealed.

Rockwell has appointed Richard Mhlontlo who will represent Rockwell’s Black Economic Empowerment shareholder. Richard was previously the Group Human Resource and Industrial Relations Manager for Rockwell.