In the heat of a summer afternoon in Limpopo, a motley group of men cling to the shade of a broad tree. They’ve come to demand more money from the mining company they have provided security services to.
Dithabeng denies this, saying that it has at all times been dealing with what it understands is the legally constituted traditional authority. Dithabeng said other companies had submitted proposals to the community trust that controls the rights: “The Mphahlele Trust required a strategic, financial and operational partner to prospect and mine… Dithabeng was the only company that proposed a 51%- 49% partnership in favour of the community.”A year ago, angry residents of Ga-Mphahlele spilt onto its potholed roads, blocking access and closing down schools in protest against what they said was Dithabeng’s “illegal” chrome mine.
Dithabeng, which describes itself on its website as “progressive, trailblazing, socially conscious”, maintains that it consulted widely, saying that in February 2017 it held a meeting attended by more than 800 community members where “consensus was reached to sign an agreement in public as a sign of a broader buy-in”.
In 2018, the Constitutional Court handed down a landmark ruling in favour of the Lesetlheng community in the North West in its battle against a mining company. Another victory against mining capital came the following month, when in November the North Gauteng High Court reaffirmed the importance of IPILRA in relation to mining laws.
amaBhungane reached out to several signatories of the letter, who voiced their anger at the alleged failure to have been adequately consulted or compensated. It is unclear what proportion of those actually affected would receive compensation – a matter complicated by the messy and seemingly intractable divisions within the community, and the fact that those who use the land have informal customary rights to it, handed down over generations, but no title deeds.People just know each other and who owns what,” says Hamilton Mphahlele, one of the Sefalaolo owners who negotiated with Dithabeng.
In September 2017, community members sent a letter to EFF Limpopo leader Jossey Buthane, accusing the EFF of meddling in the community’s affairs and siding with the mine.
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