Johannesburg - As South Africa commemorated four years since the Marikana massacre yesterday, underlying issues which led to the single most lethal use of force by the police post apartheid continue unabated and posed a risk to future prospects of the mining industry which directly accounts for 8 percent of gross domestic product.
Since Marikana, the high unemployment, the migrant labour system, squalid living conditions and escalating tensions between mining companies and surrounding host communities over unfulfilled expectations remain major problems in mining areas including Marikana, said experts.
Plight
Thirty-four mineworkers were killed by police, shot outside Lonmin’s Marikana platinum mine near Rustenburg during a wildcat strike over wages on August 16, 2012. Ten others, including security personnel and police officers, died in violent clashes days preceding the massacre.
Marius Oosthuizen, the strategic foresight lecturer at The Gordon Institute of Business Science, said yesterday the plight of South Africa’s mining communities was the embodiment of everything that is wrong with South Africa.
“Their daily social struggle is a microcosm of the social injustice that marks our unequal society. Only when we as a nation recognise our collective interdependence and make the trade-offs and investments in not only new industries but the new labour cohort that must power them, will the scars of Marikana and all it represents finally be healed. Neither labour, nor business nor government have fully adopted this moral imperative,” said Oosthuizen.
Peter Major, the director for mining at Cape Town based Cadiz Corporate Solutions, blamed the government on not having a clue about how difficult mining and job creation were.
“They constantly complain and nit-pick about everything - thus totally confusing (and angering) the people in South Africa - thereby generating unrealistic beliefs and perceptions. Even worse - they constantly demonise the industry at every opportunity for cheap political points. And worse, though, is that almost all of their actions these past 20 years have made mining in South Africa a horrible place for investment and career opportunity,” he said.
No changes
John Capel, managing director at the Bench Marks Foundation, an independent organisation monitoring corporate performance, said that platinum mining houses with operations in Rustenburg had missed a window of opportunity to improve the lives of mineworkers and surrounding communities and there had been no significant changes to living conditions for workers.
“There are a lot of promises on paper, but nothing has been done,” said Capel, referring to how Lonmin had built less than 500 houses out of 5 500 which it had promised to build by 2011 in its social and labour plan.
The Farlam Commission of Inquiry in its findings into the massacre last year found Lonmin had failed in a number of areas, as it had not used its best endeavour when it came to handling the events related to the massacre.
Lonmin was also condemned by human rights group Amnesty International .
The Chamber of Mines, which represents 80 percent of South Africa’s mining industry, said that it was committed to ensure Marikana was not repeated again. It was working to address issues including employee indebtedness.
BUSINESS REPORT