Communities enter mining fray
FOUR mining communities will launch an urgent court application tomorrow to join the fray in the bid by the Chamber of Mines of South Africa to have the controversial 2017 Mining Charter set aside.
The implementation of the charter by Mineral Resources Minister Mosebenzi Zwane was earlier – by agreement – placed on hold, pending the outcome of the review proceedings, expected to be heard by the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, next month.
The communities of Bakgatla Ba Sefikile, Lesethleng, Babina Phuthi Ba Ga-Makola and Kgatlu said they had a direct interest in the outcome of the review proceedings.
They are launching these proceedings with the help of Lawyers for Human Rights.
The communities said in court papers they were all so-called mine hosting communities and were directly affected by the mining operations around them. The Sefikile village, for instance, hosts the mining operations of Anglo American.
Obakeng Keromeng, one of the community leaders, said in papers before court it was important that communities be granted leave to intervene in the main application.
“This is because the charter was enacted without the minister properly consulting mine hosting communities. The charter fails to properly safeguard the rights of these communities.”
Not only would the communities ask that the charter be set aside, they would also ask that they be allowed to participate in formulating its replacement.
Keromeng said as things now stood, if the Chamber of Mines succeeded in setting aside the charter, it would mean that the 2010 version remained in force. That charter also did not address the concerns of affected communities, he said.
Little confidence
Over the years these communities derived no benefit from the neighbouring mining activities and had little confidence that this would change in future if their voices were not heard.
“Justice simply cannot be served if only the perspectives of big business and government are presented in court.”
Keromeng said about 4 000 people lived in his community, where mining began around 1946. The Swartkop Mine was one of the major platinum mining concerns in the Platinum Belt.
Keromeng said the community was receiving very little benefit.
“There have been certain infrastructure improvements made over the years, but the majority of our community live in poverty. I, like most of the residents, am unemployed. It remains a struggle to meet our basic needs.”
The mining activities left the community with social unrest, cracked houses as a result of blasting and high levels of dust and health problems, he said.
The 2017 charter was more progressive in respect of its intentions to transform the mining industry, but it simply had not gone far enough in considering the rights and interests of hosting communities, the applicants said.
Keromeng blamed this on the minister’s failure to “properly consult the very constituency that the 2017 charter aims to benefit”.
Zwane announced the mining charter in June this year, which he said would address the effects brought on by decades of colonialism and apartheid.
The new charter required mining companies to up black ownership levels by 4% to 30% within a year.
In introducing the charter, the minister said a 14% shareholding had to go to black entrepreneurs as it was designed to encourage new black shareholding in mining.