Minister wants to meet billionaire over spat

Mineral Resources Minister Ngoako Ramatlhodi. Picture: Timothy Bernard

Mineral Resources Minister Ngoako Ramatlhodi. Picture: Timothy Bernard

Published Oct 30, 2014

Share

Johannesburg - South African Mineral Resources Minister Ngoako Ramatlhodi has asked to meet Ivanhoe Mines executive chairman Robert Friedland to resolve issues relating to the government’s approval for a $1.6 billion (R18 billion) platinum mine.

People living in the Mokopane area in the northern Limpopo province, one of the country’s poorest regions, are lobbying the government to delay the mining license of Ivanhoe’s local unit, Ivanplats.

They’re unhappy because the company sold the community a 20 percent stake in the Platreef project to fulfill the state’s demands for black shareholding without all of the residents being part of the talks over the deal’s terms.

Ivanplats on October 15 started a process that may lead to 325 jobs being cut at Platreef, because it said it didn’t have any “definite indication” of when the right would be executed.

The project is one of three in Africa that make up Ivanhoe’s assets.

It sits alongside Anglo American Platinum’s Mogalakwena, the biggest and most profitable mine of the world’s largest producer of the metal.

The Department of Mineral Resources “has not delayed the issuing of the mining right,” and talks with the company relating to compliance with social, labor and environmental plans continue, it said in an e-mailed response to questions today.

The DMR “cannot ignore complaints from the community and is duty-bound to listen to the communities and address their concerns,” it said.

Matter Escalated

The department escalated the issue to Ramatlhodi, who then met with an Ivanhoe representative and requested the meeting with Friedland “to find a speedy resolution to this matter,” it said.

“Officials of the department continue to hold meetings with representatives of the company and communities to find an amicable solution,” it said.

Ivanhoe, based in Vancouver, and Ivanplats “have engaged with the DMR through direct discussions and the exchange of correspondence, concerning the long awaited, formal activation by the department that is required to give full legal effect to the mining right,” the company said in an e-mailed response to questions today.

“We are confident that the mining right will take legal effect within the near future, permitting us to resume construction on the Platreef project,” it said in a separate e-mail.

Engagements between the DMR and the company are strictly confidential, the company said. - Bloomberg News

Related Topics: