Twitter

Africa Mining

South Africa miners’ strike: Labour hero Cyril Ramaphosa urged crackdown, emails show – by Pascal Fletcher and Jon Herskovitz (Reuters/Toronto Star – October 25, 2012)

The Toronto Star has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.

JOHANNESBURG—South African millionaire businessman and one-time anti-apartheid hero Cyril Ramaphosa urged ministers to crack down on a violent platinum miners’ strike the day before 34 miners were killed by police, according to emails revealed this week.

The emails cited on Tuesday by a lawyer for miners arrested over the Aug. 16 “Marikana Massacre” are the latest evidence of a reversal of historical roles for the 59-year-old, who himself led a historic miners’ pay strike under apartheid in 1987.

As a respected and influential member of the National Executive Committee of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), Ramaphosa has long been touted as a possible presidential contender.

Hailed with Nelson Mandela as a champion of anti-apartheid struggle, the man who was once called “South Africa’s Lech Walesa” now finds himself pilloried as a cold-hearted capitalist in his role of shareholder and board member of Lonmin, the company at the heart of the Marikana dispute.

Read more

Gold Fields set to fire 11,000 strikers in South Africa – Reuters (Globe and Mail – October 18, 2012)

Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

JOHANNESBURG — Reuters – Striking miners at one of Gold Fields Ltd.’s South African operations returned to work on Thursday, but the bullion producer still looked set to fire more than 11,000 others taking part in the worst wildcat walkout since the end of apartheid.

More than 80,000 miners have downed tools in the country since August in often violent strikes that are hitting growth and investor confidence in Africa’s biggest economy, and raising questions about President Jacob Zuma’s leadership.

Gold Fields, the world’s fourth-largest bullion producer and second-biggest in Africa, said all of the 9,000 workers at its Beatrix mine were now back at work after responding to a dismissal ultimatum.

Eleven thousand strikers at its KDC West operations in Carletonville, 40 km west of Johannesburg, have until 1200 GMT to return to work or face immediate dismissal. Gold Fields has said it may issue a similar ultimatum to those striking at KDC East.

More and more mines in South Africa have resorted to mass dismissals to tackle the strikes gripping the sector. Around 15,000 workers have been sacked in the last two weeks, although experts say it is more a hard-ball negotiating tactic than outright dismissal.

Read more

Tanzania’s president says critics misrepresent impact of development – by Michael Posner (Globe and Mail – October 11, 2012)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

“There is so much distortion,” complains Jakaya Kikwete. “It’s ridiculous. You see important newspapers writing nonsense.” In an exclusive interview with The Globe and Mail last week, the 62-year-old Tanzanian President – in Canada on an official state visit – says critics are misrepresenting a planned, 480-kilometre highway that will partly traverse Serengeti National Park.

Environmentalists allege the road is designed to bring oil from landlocked Uganda to Tanzanian ports and will imperil the habitats and migratory patterns of wildebeest, zebra and other wildlife. Not so, maintains Mr. Kikwete, holding court at Rideau Hall, residence of Canada’s Governor-General.

“We are building 11,000 kilometres of new roads,” he explains. “The only people left out are the people living in these remote communities. So it’s a development need, not a need to bring oil from Uganda. Second, we are not building a tarmac road through the Serengeti. [And] these people live 80 kilometres away from the Serengeti, I don’t see a risk to wildlife when you build 80 kilometres [away].”

Read more

South African platinum and gold mine mechanisation – no simple path – by Lawrence (Mineweb.com – October 11, 2012)

www.mineweb.com

South Africa’s platinum and gold mining companies are being told to cut their workforces and introduce more mechanisation – but this is not as easy as it sounds

LONDON (MINEWEB) – With the focus over the past couple of months first on South Africa’s platinum mines, and subsequently its gold mines as labour problems have appeared to intensify we find the international mining community, for the most part, totally baffled by the sizes of the huge labour workforces working at some of these properties.

As an example – although this is going back a bit – after working on a South African gold mine where perhaps you would find a gang of 20-30 miners working on a single 3m x 3m development tunnel, the writer went to work on a Canadian underground mine where a similar sized development drive would be staffed by a gang of just two people.

The part answer to this, of course, was mechanisation, whereby the drilling itself would be undertaken by an early stage single boom drill jumbo rather than by four or five rock drill operators plus their attendants, working off and under a drill platform in the South African case.

Read more

Harper to talk ‘blood minerals’ conflict, trade in DRC – by Colin Horgan (iPolitics.com – October 9, 2012)

http://www.ipolitics.ca/

The prime minister hopes to discuss the worsening security situation in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo during his trip there for the Francophonie summit later this week, but the economy will still be on his mind.

Canada is looking to strengthen commercial relations with other members of the Francophonie in order to “benefit Canadian businesses,” the prime minister’s press secretary, Andrew MacDougall, told reporters during a briefing Monday. “For instance, Canada is currently negotiating a free trade agreement with 22 Francophonie member countries or observers.”

In an accompanying release, the government outlines one of its objectives within the Francophonie is “to promote the principles of sound economic management and policies aimed at ensuring greater transparency in public administration.” To that end, it says, Canada will call for the Francophonie “to focus on elaborating on an economic strategy as part of its next ten-year plan.”

Part of Canada’s focus will be on natural resources and environmental issues. “Canada believes it is in the interest of all partners (governments, civil society and the private sector) that the extractive industries operate in a responsible manner,” the government said in its release.

Read more

South Africa’s ruling party paralyzed as strikes choke off economy – by Geoffrey York (Globe and Mail – October 8, 2012)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

JOHANNESBURG — Fuel and food supplies are beginning to run out as labour violence escalates in South Africa, leaving its ruling party facing a mounting national economic crisis while it is paralyzed by a leadership struggle.

The wildcat strikes are inflicting heavy damage on some of the world’s biggest gold and platinum producers in a country that remains Africa’s economic powerhouse. South Africa is the world’s biggest platinum producer and the fifth-biggest gold producer.

Two more people were reported murdered on the weekend in Marikana, the platinum mining town where 34 protesters were gunned down by police in August.

The labour unrest could become more chaotic this week as rail and port workers threaten to join 28,000 truckers whose strike has already disrupted fuel and food deliveries across South Africa, leaving some gas stations out of supplies, bank machines running out of cash and supermarkets suffering shortages of some products.

Read more

12,000 striking South African miners fired as unrest deepens – by Rodney Muhumuza (Globe and Mail – October 6, 2012)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

JOHANNESBURG — The Associated Press – Anglo American Platinum has fired 12,000 striking miners for staging an unlawful strike that is one of several that are slowly paralyzing South Africa’s crucial mining sector.

About 80,000 miners, representing 16 per cent of the country’s mine work force, are currently striking in a wave of wildcat work stoppages that have serious economic and political implications for South Africa.

Strike leader Gaddafi Mdoda, a mine worker at Anglo American Platinum, or Amplats, said he was one of the workers who received e-mails or SMS messages telling them they had been dismissed. “Things are bad here,” Mr. Mdoda said. The strike leader said he was shocked by the decision to dismiss striking workers, even though “it is nothing to be afraid of.”

“Approximately 12,000 striking employees chose not to make representations, nor attend the hearings, and have therefore been dismissed in their absence,” a statement from Amplats said, according to the South African Press Agency.

Read more

Platinum producer fires 12,000 striking South African miners as unrest deepens – by Agnieszka Flak (Globe and Mail – October 5, 2012)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

JOHANNESBURG — Reuters – Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) fired 12,000 wildcat strikers on Friday, a high-stakes attempt by the world’s biggest platinum producer to push back at a wave of illegal stoppages sweeping through South Africa’s mining sector and beyond.

The rand fell sharply after the announcement, suggesting investors fear the sackings could worsen what is shaping up to be the most damaging period of labour unrest in Africa’s biggest economy since the end of apartheid in 1994.

Police shot dead one striking miner overnight, bringing the death toll in two months of unrest to 48. Strikes have spread beyond the mining sector, with Shell declaring on Friday that it would not be able to honour contracts to deliver fuel near Johannesburg because of a trucking strike.

The unrest is causing political trouble for President Jacob Zuma and his ruling African National Congress (ANC), the veteran liberation movement with long-standing ties to labour unions. “You fire 12,000 people, and it’s like ‘Oh my god, what happens now?’” one Johannesburg-based currency strategist said.

Read more

Platinum, gold, coal, diamonds, iron ore. No end in sight for SA mine strikes – by Lawrence Williams (Mineweb.com – October 4, 2012)

www.mineweb.com

The South African mine strikes, and associated intimidation of any who wish to return to work, appear to be continuing to spread – from platinum, to gold and now to other mining sectors as well.

LONDON (MINEWEB) – Writing here on Mineweb in mid-August (Platinum mine violence impact – could it spread to gold mines too?) we commented thus on the prospect of the strikes and associated violence then being experienced on the platinum mines spreading to the country’s gold mining sector: “But, the issues which have led to the platinum mining violence are potentially mirrored in South Africa’s gold mines – an even bigger sector (just) – and the government will be hugely worried about the potential spread of mine unrest given the potentially major impact on the South African economy of a mining meltdown.

South Africa may no longer be the world’s largest gold producer – a position it held for nigh on a century, but it still remains one of the world’s biggest and disruption here could have a very negative impact on global mine supply – and again lead to the permanent closure of some of the more marginal operations, which are struggling to stay afloat even at current gold prices. The platinum and gold mines operate in a very similar manner and employ huge workforces by western standards. If the AMCU starts to move into the gold mines in a similar manner the impact could be equally destabilising.”

Read more

Ex-Implats CEO speaks out on strikes, mine conditions – by Christy Filen (Mineweb.com – October 1, 2012)

www.mineweb.com

In his first interview with Mineweb since leaving Impala Platinum, David Brown, hits back at critics accusing the company of starting the wave of strikes.

JOHANNESBURG (MINEWEB) – The former CEO of Impala Platinum, David Brown, has said that accusations that the miner had, while he was at the helm, kicked off the recent spate of wild-cat strikes by negotiating and settling with illegally striking workers is misplaced.

Brown said that the accusations are not accurate as nothing extra was given to striking workers until they had returned to work and there was normality.

In the CEO’s first interview since announcing his resignation from the platinum miner, Brown said “Well you can go back to Adam beget Cain, as to who started it, I think that they are missing the point. The point is that we all pay subtly different wages and benefits and that has been one of the issues”.

We saw Implats hurry up an annual increase to workers earlier on in the year after a violent six week strike in which three people died and then Lonmin agreeing to a 11% to 22% increase across the categories after a lengthy strike resulted in the deaths of 46 people and scores injured.

Read more

South Africa on the brink – Northern Miner Editorial (October 1, 2012)

The Northern Miner, first published in 1915, during the Cobalt Silver Rush, is considered Canada’s leading authority on the mining industry.

Post-apartheid South Africa has provided duelling optimists and pessimists with plenty of fodder to back up their long-standing positions. There have been unabashed triumphs — such as the country’s avoidance of Zimbabwe-style de-evolution, and its wonderful job hosting the World Cup — bumping right up against major societal obstacles, such as the flood of truly appalling violent crime, and the intractability of the nation’s simmering racial, class and tribal divides.

The strikes this year in the country’s platinum and gold mines, and particularly the recently settled strike at Lonmin’s Marikana platinum mine near Rustenburg, are once again causing miners and investors around the world to pause and wonder what’s next for South Africa’s mining sector, which accounts for a fifth of the country’s gross domestic product.

The 46-person death toll during the now-settled Marikana strike made headlines around the world, as it echoed some of the worst political violence of the apartheid era. As has been detailed in this and past issues, on Aug. 16, what appear on video to be trigger happy police — both black and white — opened fire with automatic weapons on a group of 3,000 strikers that had refused orders to disperse, killing 34 workers and wounding another 78. Some 270 strikers were arrested.

Read more

Africa’s investment boom offers valuable lessons – by Geoffrey York (Globe and Mail – September 29, 2012)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

GOULGOULTOUN, BURKINA FASO – Within sight of the biggest gold mine in Burkina Faso, hundreds of children are slipping silently into starvation.

They live in flimsy wattle or mud huts in a scrub wasteland. They help their parents scrounge for flecks of gold in the sand. And every month, hundreds are so malnourished that they need emergency food at the village clinic – just a short walk from the perimeter of the massive high-tech gold mine, owned by a Canadian company.

I’ve seen the same contrasts and inequities across Africa: poverty and hunger in the shadow of gleaming new mines and plantations; luxury hotel towers rising near crowded slums; villagers gaining jobs from multinational projects while others lose their land; local entrepreneurs capitalizing on the economic growth even as most of the profits go to foreign shareholders.

Today’s investment boom is Africa’s biggest opportunity in decades, but will it seize the moment or squander it? Some African countries are getting it right and there are lessons to be drawn from their successes.

Read more

S.African mine labour strife halts slide in chrome – by Harpreet Bhal and Silvia Antonioli (Reuters.com – September 26, 2012)

http://af.reuters.com/

LONDON (Reuters) – The impact of South African mine labour unrest has spread beyond precious metals to UG2 chrome ore, a by product of platinum and key ingredient in stainless steel, with output cuts putting a floor under prices after four months of decline.

In recent months, violent labour unrest over pay has disrupted production at some of the largest South African platinum mines, including those owned by Anglo American Platinum, Lonmin and Aquarius Platinum.

South Africa accounts for more than 80 percent of global platinum supply, but it also produces over half of the world’s chrome. Both markets are in global surplus, but uncertainty created by production cuts has induced fresh buying.

Although disputes at some south African shafts have been resolved, strikes are in full force at others and continuing to spread, raising worries that prolonged disruptions might hit production further.

So far strikes have cut output of UG2 chrome ore by about 150,000-250,000 tonnes, market players said, a significant enough amount to have an effect on prices, even in an over supplied market.

Read more

Africa next: With investment outpacing aid, is this a new golden age for the poorest continent? – by Geoffry York (Globe and Mail – September 22, 2012)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

Sierra Leone — In the dusty streets of the tiny village of Romaro, a building boom is under way. Crumbling mud shacks are being replaced by new tin-roofed houses. Almost overnight, the village’s ancient way of life has vanished. Most of its farmland has been swallowed up by a Swiss multinational, Addax Bioenergy, which has leased more than 14,000 hectares of Sierra Leone for a $330-million sugar-cane plantation to produce ethanol for the European market.

Centuries of subsistence farming have been replaced by wage labour as the 200 villagers are propelled into the globalized economy. Most families in Romaro now have at least one person employed by the Swiss company, which pays leases and helps to plow the remaining farmland. The money has allowed the villagers to build 13 new houses.

“We get a wage every month,” says Mohamed Kamara, a security guard at the sugar-cane plantation. “Now, I have job security, and I can get credit from a bank. It’s far better than before.”

It’s the unexpected message of today’s Africa. Every week, another bank or investment fund is touting it as the next big thing, an emerging lion to follow the Asian tigers. Resource exports are soaring, and growth is climbing to unprecedented heights – second only to Asia, and fast catching up. And for the first time in generations, Africa is receiving more investment than foreign aid.

Read more

Africa next: The quest for Africa’s riches – by Geoffrey York (Globe and Mail – September 24, 2012)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

LUBUMBASHI, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO – Driving north in Africa’s copper belt, Mark Crandon marvels at the new factories and offices along the highway. “It’s crazy,” he says. “None of this was here three weeks ago.”

upermarkets and shopping malls are opening too. They’re fresh fuel for his theory that anyone can make money in this corner of Africa. “You could almost blindly open any business here and it would be a success,” he says . There’s just no competition.”

It’s an unlikely place for a foreign investor to be raving about. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is one of the world’s most corrupt, impoverished and war-torn countries. Millions have died in the military and political chaos of recent years. Yet even here, the lure of the Africa boom is proving irresistible.

In the copper-belt city of Lubumbashi, the nouveaux riches of the mining industry can be spotted at upscale businesses such as La Plage – a glitzy suburban mall with a gelato shop, high-priced supermarket and cafés, not to mention a swimming pool and an artificial sand beach with parasols and volleyball nets.

Read more