Lonmin promises housing plan after S. Africa’s Zuma threatens to revoke permit – by Tiisetso Motsoeneng (Daily Mail/Reuters – December 12, 2016)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/

JOHANNESBURG, Dec 12 (Reuters) – South Africa-focused platinum miner Lonmin is confident of submitting a plan to build workers’ housing that meets government requirements, it said on Monday, after President Jacob Zuma threatened to revoke its mining permit if it failed to do so.

Zuma’s warning on Sunday piles pressure on the company to spend more on workers’ housing at a time when it is cutting costs after being saved from the brink of collapse last year by a deeply discounted $400 million equity cash call.

To secure a mining licence, mining companies must submit a plan for housing and living conditions for their workers, many of whom come from former “homelands”, far from the mines, where blacks were forced to live in South Africa’s racist past.

An inquiry into the death of 34 striking miners, shot by South African police outside Lonmin’s Marikana mine in 2012, criticised Lonmin in 2015 for failing to comply with its social and housing obligations.

The 2015 report, chaired by retired judge Ian Farlam, said the mines department should take steps to enforce the rules. After South Africa’s Department of Mineral Resources asked for revisions to Lonmin’s housing plan in September, “the company is currently reviewing its plan and is confident that it will submit a plan that is compliant,” Lonmin said in a statement.

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