Who protest mine expansion
Du Preez disputed that the money paid to the families was bribes, and said it was to assist with Christmas groceries and school uniforms, as part of signed relocation agreements.
“This [ the allegation of bribery] is nonsense. We have signed agreements with 128 families. By December 2018, we only had a few agreements in Ophondweni, and a few desperate families needed some funds.”
He added that although the company had made loan agreements, stating that future payments would be received when all families had signed the relocation agreement, after a meeting with the department of mineral resources in January, the mine had decided to discontinue what it called “pre-payments” because “we have no idea whether there will be a relocation or not”.
The department said it is not aware of any allegations of bribery relating to this matter. “We urge all people with information of such allegations to report them to the law enforcement agencies,” it said in a statement to the M&G.
Relocation compensation
However, according to Tendele documents seen by the M&G, there is a host of financial plans breaking down how families the mine wants to be relocated would be compensated.
According to the documents, an independent valuation company estimated that families would be paid from R10 870 to more than R1.5-million.
The assessments encompassed values of the houses, rondavels and amaqhungwa (beehive-shaped huts) on a homestead to determine compensation.
An “upset allowance” would also be included for “psychological uncertainty of relocating to a new location”.
Customary rituals to move a homestead would be capped at R15 000 a homestead that would include a cow, a goat, a tent, groceries and other requirements. The value of a cow is capped at R9000; a goat is R1 500.
The majority of the homesteads in the area have grave sites and Tendele said it was prepared to pay a cow, a goat and R5 000 for the relocation of the head of the household’s grave site and. Any other graves would be compensated at a rate of R4 000 plus a goat.
But one family rejected the grave relocation valuation, saying when they buried more than five elders on their homestead, each burial was accompanied by a goat and a cow. “They [Tendele] don’t count the groceries we bought for each funeral or the other costs.”
Du Preez said it was “nonsense” that the mine was compensating people less than R400 000 for them to relocate. “The lowest that any family will receive for legitimate houses is R400 000. I have declared this under oath in our application to ask the court to determine what is fair.
“All our agreements with people to be relocated have been negotiated with 100% locally based, locally born teams, and all negotiations are in isizulu, and actual final agreements are in isizulu and English,” Du Preez said, adding that the average payment was about R750 000.
Official assessment records from Tendele, which the M&G has seen, show that seven families could be offered less than the R400 000, with the lowest amount being R10 870. The other six sub-par amounts are: R26 000, R32 129, R44 645, R61 329 and R70 086.30.
Traumatised boys
Psychologists visited Ophondweni this week to assist Ntshangase’s 13-year-old grandson and his two friends, aged eight and 10, who had to endure the horrific experience of hearing screams and gunshots as the matriarch’s life was snuffed out.
The three boys were visibly shaken when the M&G visited this week, with a family elder saying the children sprinted towards the nearest neighbour (more than 100m away) when bullets blasted from inside the house.
“The psychologists took the three boys on a leisurely trip to town for them to clear their minds and become children again, and they will receive extensive counselling thereafter to deal with the trauma,” said an elder, who asked to remain anonymous.
A bullet pierced straight through Ntshangase’s body, with a gaping hole visible on the concrete floor she was seated on while peeling onions for supper. “This shows that those assassins shot her even after she had fallen to finish her off,” said the anonymous elder.