Minister holds back Xolobeni mining licence
October 2, 2008
DAILY DISPATCH ONLINE
By Malungelo Booi
MINERALS and Energy Minister Buyelwa Sonjica has put on hold a licence awarded to an Australian company that was due to mine titanium at Xolobeni on the Wild Coast.
The move comes after lawyers representing the Xolobeni villagers who are opposed to the project wrote to Sonjica a week ago demanding she suspend or withdraw the licence before October 1, failing which they would approach the courts.
In the letter, Sarah Sephton of the Grahamstown-based Legal Resource Centre (LRC) demanded an appeal by villagers opposed to the mining project be heard and that a process of proper consultation takes place.
Sonjica awarded the mining rights to Australian-based company Mineral Resources Commodities (MRC) and its South African partner Transworld Minerals and Energy Resources (TEM), to mine titanium in Xolobeni earlier this year. The licence was due to come into effect on October 31.
“The licence has been put on hold because the minister made an undertaking to consult with various stakeholders such as traditional leaders who claimed (they) were not consulted on this, and also to allow the appeal process against the mining to take place,” said ministerial spokesperson Sputnik Ratau.
He said the licence would not take effect until the appeal process was finalised. Ratau could not say when the consultation process with traditional leaders would start. He however denied the minister was under pressure to hold the licence following threats of legal action from lawyers representing villagers.
Sephton said the villagers were thrilled by the decision “and hope the minister will set aside the decision to grant the mining licence altogether”.
Zeka Mnyamana, chief executive officer of Xolobeni Empowerment Company (Xolco), which has a 26 percent stake in the mining project, said the appeal process should go ahead.
Attempts by the Daily Dispatch to get comment from John Barnes, chief executive officer of TEM, were unsuccessful.
Public hearings to resolve dispute on Wild Coast mining
September 30, 2008
BUSINESS REPORT, ONLINE EDITION
By Samantha Enslin-Payne and Slindile Khanyile
Durban - The department of minerals and energy will hold public hearings on controversial mining on the Wild Coast after it decided recently to delay the issuing of the certificate that would have enabled Mineral Resource Commodities (MRC) and local subsidiary Transworld Energy and Minerals (TEM) to begin mining in the area next month.
Bheki Khumalo, the spokesperson for the department of minerals and energy, said yesterday that the intention to grant the mining licence remained, but the implementation had been delayed.
At the time of going to press MRC, which is listed on the Australian stock exchange, had yet to inform shareholders of the delay. The company's local representatives could not be reached for comment.
The certificate giving MRC the right to proceed with the mining, which would be issued by the regional manager of the department, was due to be issued next month.
But in light of an appeal from the Legal Resource Centre (LRC) on the decision to grant the licence, the department has now adopted a cautious approach.
Khumalo said it was considered "prudent and pragmatic to deal with the appeal first before giving the certificate".
A minerals advisory board would hold public hearings to give the mining firm and those who opposed the project the opportunity to argue their cases, he said.
"Once this has happened, the board would make a recommendation to the minister."
The controversial mining project, if it proceeds, will result in sand dunes along the Wild Coast being mined for titanium.
This action has been opposed on the grounds that people living in the area will lose access to grazing and ancestral land, and that endemic plant species will be destroyed.
Sarah Sephton, an attorney at the LRC, said the group was pleased with the decision and was looking forward to the minister putting a permanent stop to the proposed mining.
Sephton said: "We are now waiting for the department [of minerals and energy] to tell us when they will hold the [public] hearings. But before the hearings take place, the department must give us reasons for granting the [mining] licence.
"The company [TEM] must comment on our appeal and then we will reply to that."
Sephton said that if, after the appeal process, the minister upheld the decision to permit the mining, then the matter would be challenged.
South Africa: 'Licence to Mine in Xolobeni Stands'
30 September 2008
BUSINESS DAY
By Franny Rabkin, Johannesburg
MINERALS and Energy Minister Buyelwa Sonjica's decision to halt the mining of titanium in Xolobeni, Eastern Cape was not a suspension of the licence, but merely a delay in its execution, Jacinto Rocha, deputy director-general in the department, said yesterday.
"The mining licence stands," Rocha said.
The execution of the licence, granted to Transworld Energy and Minerals, was supposed to begin at the end of next month . But following an internal appeal by community organisation, the AmaDiba Crisis Committee, Sonjica delayed the commencement of mining so that she could receive representations from the committee and consult King Mpondombini Sigcau and Queen MaSobhuza Sigcau.
Rocha said the reason for the delay was pragmatic: to deal with the appeal.
The committee had said in its appeal that Transworld had not consulted with those sections of the Xolobeni community most affected by the decision. It also said that the traditional leaders that were consulted were not the correct ones -- as registered in the Traditional Leaders Act.
The intended mining project has, since its inception, divided the Xolobeni community, based in the Transkei region. Some support it in the hope that it will bring jobs to the poverty- stricken area. Others, represented by the committee, say the proposed mine would destroy the community's traditional way of life and ancestral graves.
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