Glasenberg tackles Glencore scrutiny
GLENCORE boss Ivan Glasenberg will tonight take to the airwaves to battle fresh allegations about the firm’s environmental and human rights record.
The South African mining boss, worth more than £4bn, will deny that Glencore profits from child labour and causes acid pollution in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Fresh controversy over the commodities giant’s record in Africa comes at a delicate moment for Glencore, with its £50bn merger with miner Xstrata facing regulatory delays and investor opposition.
Glasenberg will appear on the BBC’S Panorama programme to address information gathered with Bread for All, a campaign group from Glencore’s native Switzerland.
The programme, ‘Billionaires Behaving Badly’, alleges that Glencore sources minerals from the Tilwezembe mine, via middleman companies, from artisanal miners.
Many are children who dig for ore, often with bare hands, in highly dangerous and frequently fatal conditions.
Glencore says it does not profit from Tilwezembe because it is ‘dormant’ after being illegally overrun by artisanal miners.
But Panorama’s evidence suggests that Glencore’s Mopani copper smelter in Zambia has taken copper ore from Tilwezembe via a company called Groupe Bazano.
The company says it does not buy from Groupe Bazano.
Glasenberg said: ‘We definitely do not profit from child labour in any part of the world. This is adhered to strictly.’
The report also highlights an ‘acid waterfall’ in Congo’s luilu river caused by a hydrometallurgical plant used to extract copper from ore.
Glencore, which took over the plant in 2009, says it inherited badly neglected infrastructure from the nationalised mining industry.
It claims to have fixed the acid pollution problem since receiving the report.
‘That is what people have dumped into the river for 50 years,’ said Glasenberg.
‘ Not correct. Terrible. That’s why Glencore has spent vast amounts of money to get rid of this problem, to ensure clean water will be discharged into that river.’
Glencore faces separate allegations from Panorama relating to operations in Colombia. The programme will raise a controversial $1.8m payment in 2008 to people the Colombian authorities say are linked to killers responsible for the deaths of 10 people at El Prado. Glencore denies any impropriety. The string of accusations piles more pressure on Glencore, whose environmental and social record in Zambia has been the subject of intense scrutiny.
The firm has struggled to polish its image since going public last year, after decades as a secretive private company.
Glencore was founded in 1974 by Marc Rich, once one of America’s most wanted men, but given a presidential pardon on Bill Clinton’s last day in office.
Rich was wanted for illegal oil dealing with Iran and tax evasion.