Johannesburg– The Bench Marks Foundation said on Thursday 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. John Capel, executive director of the Bench Marks Foundation, was responding to reports about 25 families who were refusing to leave the town of Dingleton, Northern Cape, to make way for mining by Kumba Iron Ore.
Kumba, a subsidiary of Anglo American, has a 73.9 percent interest in Sishen.
In a statement, 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.
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 for their homes than is on offer before they agree to relocate.
Ongoing
"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,” Capel added.
Another community whose woes have recently been in the spotlight is that of the defunct Blyvooruitzicht Gold Mine near Carletonville in Gauteng.
A report released last week revealed that the 6 000 people of the village were existing on the edge of the mine in extreme poverty.
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In 2013 the mine initiated insolvency proceedings and operations stopped overnight after 70 years of profitability, according to a statement from the Bench Marks Foundation.
Capel said they had lobbied on numerous occasions for mines to make provision and plan for the end of their economic lives.
"Without this, communities that have grown up around them and the environment are usually left impoverished and devastated," Capel said.
"Of course, such provisions will impact on their bottom line; but this is one of the costs of mining that cannot be ignored."
Capel said that organisations such as Bench Marks Foundation and others would continue to lobby the mining industry and government to ensure that adequate planning for rehabilitation was done.