Diehards dig in, thwarting Kumba’s plans
Old-town holdouts and riots among the relocated beset Sishen expansion
● The only thing standing between Kumba Iron Ore and the expansion of its Sishen operation in the Northern Cape is 14 households.
An aerial view of the small town of Dingleton, near themine, reveals a few intact houses and a lot of empty space and demolished buildings.
Most of the town has already been relocated to Kathu, 30km away. The remaining few have chosen to continue fighting the Anglo American-owned mining house for better compensation.
Sishen, Kumba’s opencast mine, has a life of 13 years. The expansion would extend this by another 20 years.
But this cannot happen unless the whole community agrees to relocate from the 68-year-old town. Kumba has spent the past five years constructing the relocation area.
It spent the five years before that doing feasibility studies in the area to see where else it could get access to more of the premium lumpy grade iron ore — which is currently selling at a premium of $82 a ton due to high demand in China, the EU, India, Japan, the Middle East and South Korea.
Since last year Kumba has relocated 517 households to Kathu and its new and improved churches, police stations and spaza shops, but 14 households don’t want to go anywhere.
According to George Maluleka, project manager of the Siyathemba project at Kumba, it cost the company just under R3-billion to build the new town and relocate 3 000 of Dingleton’s people.
Kumba needs to mine only about 300m of Dingleton territory, said Maluleka, but had to relocate the whole town for safety reasons.
“We need . . . to create a buffer between the community and the mine given the fact that a lot of blasting takes place in the mine and if houses are too close, they will be affected,” he said.
According to Kumba, the 14 households want more money than Kumba has offered and given to other households. There are no sacred places in the area, such as graves, which are usually the reason for communities to refuse to move, said Kumba. It is just that the remaining households “have a certain idea about mining companies” and think that they can get millions out of them, Maluleka said.
Several lawyers are representing the households re- maining in Dingleton, which number scores of renters among them.
One of these is Richard Spoor, who said a significant number of people had not moved because the mining house has not yet reached an agreement with the townsfolk.
Spoor said the community itself was fragmented in terms of what people wanted from Kumba.
Kumba has grouped the people into two categories — homeowners and renters. The homeowners are not happy with the amount of money offered by Kumba and want to negotiate a better deal, and there are renters who do not want to move into the flats Kumba has built for them saying blocks of flats are unsafe.
Spoor said it would be in the interests of the remaining households to reach an agreement and move as conditions in Dingleton are deteriorating — there is no proper water supply and there is a lot of crime, with destroyed community facilities and spaces presenting health hazards.
But some of those who have moved are not happy either, particularly those in a suburb of Kathu called Siyathemba, where the compensation they received is a flashpoint.
“In Siyathemba you will realise that people who moved earlier are disappointed and angry. There has been a lot of trouble, threats of land occupations, there has been rioting and protesting,” said Spoor.
“We have been engaging in a process with Kumba to try to find a resolution but the process is very slow and we have only had very limited success so far. It’s a big concern.”
Of the six households he represents only three have so far reached an agreement and moved.
He said the biggest dispute was with the rental people — 175 of whom are his clients. According to Spoor, in terms of international guidelines they are entitled to secure tenure when they relocate.
“What that means is they are entitled to a basic RDP house and a stand to call their own. Kumba does not accept that and we are trying to persuade Kumba to accept that,” Spoor said.
According to Kumba, this is because if it compensates the last group more than those who-moved earlier, this will create an even bigger problem.
Spoor said that there were indeed some people with unrealistic expectations — such as asking for R50-million or R100-million. However, those with realistic expectations ought not to be disadvantaged because other people accepted less than they were entitled to. “People deserve to be treated well,” he said.
Spoor described the process — which has taken over a year since he took the case and lasted much longer for other lawyers — as “unacceptably slow”.
If no agreement can be reached between the two parties then it is likely that either the community or Kumba will have to take the other party to court.
‘People who moved earlier are disappointed and angry’