Broken promises hit communities in platinum region of South Africa

Broken promises hit communities in platinum region of South Africa

30th June 2007

Last week we announced that the South African government planned legislation to safeguard the life and livelihoods of workers in the country's platinum industry - who are dying at an unacceptably high rate; and to address the companies' failures to recognise the rights of many of the communities who are being impacted by the huge, and unparalleled, expansion of that industry.

[see: http://www.minesandcommunities.org/Action/press1546.htm]

On June 25, Benchmarks Southern Africa for Corporate Social Responsibility, part of the eponymous global coalition, published a damning report on the operations of the four major platinum mining groups in the country, focusing particularly on the biggest member company, Angloplat (a managed subsidiary of UK-based Anglo American.)

The report makes for highly-disturbing reading: while the companies mostly have adequate policies in place, virtually all of these are failing or are not being implemented