"Bokoni Platinum must come clean", 14 Aug 2017

The Bench Marks Foundation has thrown down the gauntlet to Bokoni Platinum in Limpopo, which is retrenching 2651 employees, to give details of its plans to mothball shafts as it reiterated its call for mining houses to pay retrenched employees social grants...Around 20 000 job losses are looming in the mining industry as Bokoni, a joint venture between Atlatsa Resources and Anglo American Platinum, the world’s biggest platinum producer, affect jobs...Bench Marks executive director, John Capel, said there were many unanswered questions around Bokoni...“Communities such as Monametse, Sefateng, Mosotse and other nearby villages are going to be deeply affected by Bokoni’s decision,” he said. “The mine has failed to help people in these villages generate a sustainable income. Most of these villagers’ ploughing fields have been denuded by mining operations and there are still a lot of people living in abject poverty,” he said.Capel said one of the biggest fears of communities was that the mine would use this “suspension” as a way of avoiding its requirement to rehabilitate the land...