BL Premium reports that a senior manager at Richards Bay Minerals (RMB) in northern KwaZulu-Natal was shot dead on Monday while driving to work at the mineral sands operation, which has been the source of violent community conflict.
The circumstances of the attack on Nico Swart, GM of operational services, are as yet unknown. RBM is owned by Australia’s Rio Tinto. There has been violence and intimidation at the RBM operation since 2016. Rio Tinto stopped its investment in its new R6.5bn Zulti South project since December 2019 because of community unrest and violence, with an employee shot and wounded. At the time Rio cited an “escalation of criminal activity towards Richards Bay Minerals employees” as its reason for stopping work at Zulti. The rest of its operations continue to produce titanium dioxide. Rio Tinto has been tight-lipped about the troubles around RBM, keeping its communication on the matter to a bare minimum. Meantime, the IFP has listed three people killed in what it said were events linked to violence around the RBM operations. One of those killed was human resources manager Ronny Nzimande, who was shot dead outside his house in 2016. Earlier that same year, the leader of a jobseekers’ committee dealing with RBM, Thokozani Mbika, was shot dead. “We are concerned about what appears to be a growing disturbing culture of violent and criminal activities being orchestrated to eliminate and intimidate leadership of RBM,” the IFP said.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Allan Seccombe at BusinessLive (paywall access only)
- Read too, KZN premier calls for calm after RBM mining executive gunned down, at TimesLIVE
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