Johannesburg - Human rights group Amnesty International has accused Lonmin of failing its workers and ignoring its social responsibilities in the platinum belt.
The group said Lonmin had failed to live up to its promises of building houses for its employees and employing contradictory excuses for its failures to implement its social and labour plan.
In the report, titled Smoke and Mirrors: Lonmin’s Failure , Amnesty International said the Farlam Commission, which was established to investigate the Marikana (massacre), found that thousands of Lonmin employees still lived in squalid conditions in informal settlements around Lonmin’s mine.
“Lonmin was well aware of the situation and had, under its 2006 social and labour plan, committed to construct 5 500 houses for workers by 2011. By 2012 it had built just three. Social and labour plans are legally binding documents based on South Africa’s Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act and the Broad-Based Socio-Economic Empowerment Charter for the South African mining and minerals industry (known as the Mining Charter),” Amnesty International said.
The stunning rebuke of Lonmin’s obligations to its employees comes as the country today commemorates the 2012 Marikana massacre which left 34 mineworkers dead after 10 people had been killed in clashes between striking workers and mine security guards and the police. Two weeks ago Business Report reported on Lonmin’s empowerment deal with a community in Rustenburg which now hangs in the balance following complaints that the company had pitted Bapo Ba Mogale Traditional Authority and residents against each other.
The Amnesty International report, released yesterday, shifted the focus to Lonmin’s failure to deliver on its legal obligation to build its employees houses.
Amnesty International said Lonmin had no intention to build the 5 500 houses. The international human rights lobby group said Lonmin had put forward a number of explanations for not building the houses.
“This is not an undertaking that any mining company can do successfully on its own. Success requires partnership with government, the industry, community leaders, employees and NGOs like Amnesty International,” Lonmin said.
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