‘A need for proper compensation’

THE BENCH Marks Foundation yesterday said the plight of a community near Sishen Iron Ore mine in the Northern Cape highlighted the need to properly compensate people whose lives were impacted by mining.

The foundation’s executive director, John Capel, said this was a story of mining companies who negotiated with communities from a position of strength rather than of fair play. He said the end result often was that people were persuaded to move for pitiful sums of money, which in no way reflected the value to the mining company of the land they owned.

Capel was responding to reports about 25 families who are refusing to leave the town of Dingleton to make way for mining by Kumba Iron Ore. Kumba, a subsidiary of Anglo American, has a 73.9 percent interest in Sishen.

Talks about relocating Dingleton town have been going on since the 1980s. Many of the residents were moved in the last two years following a lengthy process of consultation and impact studies. But a handful of residents refuse to be moved while some want substantially more compensation.

“Until mining companies play fair with communities in compensating them correctly according to the mineral rights contained in their land, these kinds of disputes will continue,” Capel said.

“Not only do the actions of mining companies create dissension between those who have moved and those who refuse to move, they hold up the economic progress of the expanding mine anyway. It’s a lose-lose for everyone and underlines the need to provide fair compensation in the first place.”