Mining Weekly reports that on Thursday African Rainbow Minerals (ARM) executive chairperson Patrice Motsepe urged the SA mining industry to take community engagement extremely seriously to prevent SA’s global competitiveness from being negatively impacted.
Answering questions after a results presentation, the ARM founder spoke of the importance of the mining industry building community trust and goodwill through creating employment, education and upskilling, including at senior level employment. Proper training, he said, would ensure that recruitment was strictly merit based, with communities being made fully aware of the losses suffered if mines were forced to close through a lack of profitability. Motsepe was speaking a day after he attended a mass meeting at the company’s troubled Modikwa platinum mine, where R734-million had to be written off in the six months to December. He said that what he witnessed at Modikwa emphasised the critical importance of partnering with employees and communities that lived next to mines. Companies that failed to do so in "this highly politicised environment in South Africa", would end up having problems.
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