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Miningmx writes that about 50 employees at Sibanye-Stillwater’s Marikana mine were held hostage over two nights in May, according to a letter addressed by the company to the alleged perpetrator, the Marikana Unemployment Forum.
The forum was ordered in terms of the letter dated 11 June to repay R2.26m representing lost PGM ounces that ought to have been mined during the forced lock-in of employees. Sibanye says instances such as this are not uncommon. “It’s a frequent occurrence. Generally, we’re able to manage it, but it’s a problem as a result of the political environment. There’s a lot of stuff going on in the background,” the gold and platinum group metals (PGM) producer’s James Wellsted indicated. Thabisile Phumo, head of stakeholder affairs at Sibanye, said in this particular case the forum’s leaders enlisted community members – some of whom might not not have been employees – to march to the K3 shaft at Marikana. They locked the gate at 6pm on 11 May. Employees were eventually released on the evening of 12 May. “It’s a risk because some employees could have health issues and there’s also the trauma of the event. It’s a health and safety risk,” Wellsted pointed out. Phumo indicated: “We do anticipate more of this… We have been engaging robustly, informing the community on what we are doing, hoping for peace”. Community demands relate to jobs and procurement opportunities. Sibanye says it keeps an open door policy provided community members follow the channels. While it claims its intelligence is good, protests sometimes take it completely by surprise. Now, with the tenth anniversary of the Marikana atrocity on the horizon (August 16) and the ANC’s elective conference scheduled for December, the political temperature in society is rising. “Should there be any instability or heightened political conflict, we get caught in the middle. We get caught in the cross-fire,” Phumo lamented. SA’s mines are often the only employer in their regions. In June, auditor-general Tsakani Maluleke painted a bleak picture of local government performance. Mining companies, and even the larger contractors, think increasingly that supplementing municipal functions will become a common practice.
Read the full original of the report in the above regard by David McKay at Miningmx
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