Mining Weekly reports that the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) has called on Sibanye-Stillwater’s shareholders to remove Neal Froneman as the company’s CEO with immediate effect.

According to the trade union, Froneman has consistently refused to meet with trade union leaders in SA. “If Sibanye shareholders want their mining operations to prosper in South Africa, they should remove him as CEO,” NUM president Joseph Montisetse stated. He claimed Froneman was the “major destroyer of jobs in the mining industry in the country”. Montisetse recalled that Froneman bought the Cook operations in SA, and immediately put them on care and maintenance, which resulted in considerable job losses or retrenchments. Moreover, he noted, Froneman bought Lonmin and Anglo American Platinum operations in the platinum belt, and also put some of the operations on care and maintenance. “He then retrenched a lot of workers,” claimed Montisetse, and called for him to apologise to mineworkers. “The NUM is calling on the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy to withdraw the mining licences on all mines or operations that have been put on care and maintenance by Sibanye,” Montisetse indicated. Currently, thousands of mineworkers across Sibanye-Stillwater’s SA gold operations are on indefinite strike action, in a dispute over wage increases. The NUM said it was determined to pursue its demands for a monthly wage increase of R1,000 for surface and underground miners and a 6% increase for artisans, miners and officials working at Sibanye’s gold mines.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard at Mining Weekly

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