Transworld’s latest rights application reopens old wounds
THE application by mining company Transworld Energy & Mineral Resources to exploit mineral sands in the Xolobeni area of the Eastern Cape has reopened a wound for a significant part of the local community, it emerged on Friday.
Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu last year withdrew Transworld’s mining right after it was vociferously opposed, over several years, by traditional leaders and the Amadiba Crisis Committee, which pointed to the area’s environmental importance as part of southern Africa’s second most species-rich floristic region.
Ms Shabangu last year gave Transworld an opportunity to resubmit a mining right application after addressing the environmental concerns that led to the withdrawal.
Transworld director Andrew Lashbrooke said it had applied for rights for one of the four blocks originally in its sights, and was “still convinced we can show we can (mine at Xolobeni) responsibly”.
Amapondo King Justice Mpondombini Sigcau said it was “alarming” that Ms Shabangu had accepted a new application when the community had already successfully convinced her predecessor to revoke Transworld’s mining rights in July 2008. It had been accepted then that the Eastern Cape Biodiversity Conservation Plan pinpointed the area as being “of the highest conservation priority from both aquatic and terrestrial perspectives”.
The committee’s lawyer was not available for comment, but social worker John Clarke said legal advice was that a recent Constitutional Court ruling that holders of mining rights may not mine until the land in question had been zoned for mining under a Western Cape ordinance was “unlikely” to be relevant here. Mr Clarke said that judgment dealt with municipal zoning. The land in the Xolobeni area was tribal trust land and an argument similar to that made in the “Maccsand judgment” could be made in that the community had a constitutional right over what happened in its area.
The Department of Mineral Resources did not respond to a request for comment.