Outrageous and untrue, says Ramaphosa

GOOD comrades had chastised him for it and it was something he regretted, ANC heavyweight and Shanduka chief Cyril Ramaphosa said yesterday.

He was apologising for bidding “an excessive price” at an auction for a buffalo bull, when the majority of South Africans were living in “a sea of poverty”. But while Ramaphosa was sorry about the bull, the purpose of the interview was more serious.

An online article by one Arthur Mackay, posted on a website, www.marikanatruth. – had alleged he owned a company to which Lonmin paid its mineworkers’ salaries, but that he only paid over half their wages and pocketed the rest.

Dismissing the allegation as “outrageous”, the former National Union of Mineworkers leader said neither Shanduka nor he owned a company involved in labour broking.

Mackay also suggested the Marikana mineworkers who died had done so to protect his interests.

“That is really untrue,” said Ramaphosa, explaining there were other shareholders in Lonmin, apart from Shanduka, which has a 9 percent stake.

It was “the highest tree that tended to catch the fiercest wind”, Ramaphosa said. And while he might have been expected, given his background, to have been aware of the conditions under which the mineworkers were labouring, eradicating them was “not an overnight thing”.

He and fellow board members who were black raised issues at meetings, he said.

He added that he had been “depressed” and “devastated” by the killings and believed that Marikana would be a turning point for the industry.

Mining companies had not met the prescripts laid down in the mining charter. He also had advice for his old union, saying: “They need to increase [workers’] trust in themselves, their leaders – there are a number of gaps.”

He agreed with Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi that while the Lonmin miners deserved the increase they received, the means of achieving it put the entire collective bargaining system at risk.