More than 200 miners stay underground in protest
JSE-LISTED information technology group EOH Holdings appointed three independent non-executive directors to its board in an effort to strengthen its corporate governance.
The new appointments follow that of Dr Xolani Mkhwanazi as the new chairperson at the beginning of the month.
EOH said on Friday that it has appointed Dr Anushka Bogdanov, Andrew Mthembu and Michael Bosman as independent non-executive directors, with immediate effect.
Mkhwanazi hailed the new board members and said he was looking forward to their contribution to the group. “These appointments are another important milestone for the EOH Group as the skill and experience brought by our incoming directors will go a long way towards enhancing and complementing our leadership capability and governance oversight. Our board is now also compliant with the King Code of Corporate Governance,” Mkhwanazi said.
The directors have a proven track record in their industries, with Bogdanov’s recent corporate role at the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA), before she established her own risk management consulting firm.
Mthembu previously had stints with companies like Vodacom, DBSA, Murray & Roberts as well as serving as an adviser to the Minister of the Department of Public Enterprises on ICT industry. He is currently managing his investment company and consults to various clients on ICT strategies.
Bosman started his career in corporate and project finance before moving into the creative world of advertising. He is also a former chief executive of the large communications group TBWASouth Africa.
Peter Takaendesa, a portfolio manager at Mergence Investment Managers, said EOH needed to refresh and strengthen its board with independent directors, given the challenging corporate governance concerns it has gone through.
“The executive team has been refreshed and there are ongoing investigations after Microsoft terminated its relationship with the company, so EOH needs to keep improving its corporate governance structures to regain its position in the market,” Takaendesa said.
EOH was notified in February by multinational technology giant Microsoft that it wanted to terminate its contract with its subsidiary EOH Mthombo, with the news sending the group’s share price into a tailspin, losing 30 percent in one day.
In an effort to clean up the image of the group, chief executive Stephen van Coller conducted an internal investigation, supported by ENSafrica, into EOH Mthombo’s channel partner business unit.
ENSafrica was also tasked with investigating potential corruption involving government contracts with the group.
However, on Thursday last week, the company confirmed that it had received the report from ENSafrica and was currently studying its contents before making public pronouncements. MORE THAN 200 employees at Lanxess Chrome mine in Rustenburg have staged an underground sit-in to protest against the sexual harassment and victimisation of a female worker.
The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) said on Friday that its members had been underground for days without food and clean water to demand that management immediately suspend and discipline the alleged perpetrator.
The union has also called for the mine’s human resources manager to be suspended for failing to provide a conducive and caring work environment for victims of sexual harassment and for colluding with the perpetrator.
Numsa spokesperson Phakamile Hlubi said on Friday that the alleged perpetrator had never been suspended and no disciplinary action had been taken against him, despite the incident being reported in August last year.
“The management of the company has been reluctant to deal decisively and discipline him for harassing the worker,” said Hlubi.
The underground sit in had begun on Wednesday. Hlubi alleged that the mine captain had tried to demand sexual favours from the woman in exchange for a full-time position.
“She refused his advances, and exposed him. To make matters worse, management is pressurising her to withdraw the case and they are unwilling to take action against the mine captain.
“This has angered our members who are now staging a sit-in underground as a result,” Hlubi said.
A Lanxess spokesperson said the company took these developments seriously.
“We have repeatedly made clear the company’s availability to discuss all matters once the workers are back on surface, but that we do not engage with colleagues while they are underground.
“Therefore the main focus currently is on resolving this situation quickly and safely and bringing all employees back to the surface, well and safe. Meanwhile, supply of potable water and fresh air underground is maintained,” said the spokesperson.
Numsa’s Hlanganani regional secretary, Jerry Morulane, charged that Lanxess was not a caring employer for refusing to engage with employees, despite them being underground.
Morulane also said sexual harassment against female employees was rife in the mining industry. “In the past the mining industry was dominated by males and cases of sexual harassment have picked up since women entered the industry. For example, shift bosses and mine captains take advantage of women,” said Morulane.
In November 2015 the Centre for Applied Legal Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand submitted evidence of gender-based violence in mines to the UN Commission on Human Rights.
“The phenomenon is occurring in part due to the regulation that requires a percentage of all mineworkers to be female. This small percentage, however, means that women are in a minority as underground workers and, as such, are extremely vulnerable to sexual violence,” the centre said.
The centre said contributing factors included gender norms in mining, lack of security and a lack of policies around gender-based violence in mining.