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After having been side-lined by the Minister of Mineral Resources and the Department of Mineral Resources during the consultations on Mining Charter III, despite a court order directing the Minister to engage MACUA, WAMUA and MEJCON as interested and affected stakeholders, over 100 community representatives from these organisations gathered in Johannesburg on the 2nd and 3rd of July to consider the Mining Charter gazetted by the Minister.

During two days of deliberation, which included a presentation by the DMR, communities overwhelmingly rejected the current Mining Charter as gazetted by the Minister.

At the centre of the rejection, stands the way the DMR refused to include MACUA, WAMUA and MEJCON in negotiations on the Charter despite a court directing the DMR to do so. Communities expressed their anger and disappointment that the Minister and the DMR had shown a complete disregard for their fundamental human right to be treated as equals and instead the DMR treated communities as if they had no rights.

Meshack Mbangula, the national coordinator for MACUA appealed to the DMR by asking them to “listen to communities who have a fundamental and inalienable human right to be heard and as such the DMR should start formulating the charter that will appropriately reflect what communities have been asking for in the Peoples Mining Charter”.

Over the last five years MACUA and WAMUA have led a broad movement to claim the rights of mining affected communities in South Africa and have consulted hundreds of communities to affirm the clause in the Peoples Mining Charter which says that :

“We affirm that Democracy is premised on the following:

That affected people must determine their own destinies. For us this means choosing for our-selves both our own developmental paths, and to participate in all decision making and manage or co-manage the utilisation of our resources if we so choose”.

During the two days it emerged that the proposed Mining Charter III is deeply flawed and some of the key concerns were as follows:

• Definition of communities does not specify affected community and the interpretation of communities must specify the difference between an affected community and the broader municipality. This has been used to enrich municipalities at the expense of those who suffer under mining.
• Gender is not included extensively enough to shift the patriarchal nature of the sector and the targets for women`s empowerment need to be significantly increased in all areas of the Charter.
• SLP budgets need to be specified according to an agreed target and be made transparent. The way SLP`s are drafted should be clearly set out to include consent from the affected communities. The budget, if not spent, needs to be carried over into the new period and not amended.
• The new charter excludes the principle of Free Prior and Informed Consent or the right to say no to mining which is a vital requirement for communities to receive any kind of justice in the historical exploitative sector.
• The charter does not adequately explain how community trusts are to be managed, this will be exposed to abuse from traditional leaders and connected politicians which will lead to increased conflict in communities. The Charter should clearly outline how the community trusts will be managed, elected and governed and which must include extensive community participation.
• Insufficient attention paid to environmental rehabilitation post-mining and the exclusion of this element from the current Charter is indicative of the interests that the Charter seeks to serve, namely that of big business and not communities.
• Insufficient attention paid to zama zamas or the promotion of community work programmes through local procurement that can help to lift communities out of poverty.
• The lack of focus on youth is glaring within the Mining Charter III, considering the demographics of the country where youth make up a significant portion of the population and where youth unemployment is estimated at almost 60%. The issue of youth unemployment cannot be side-lined or glossed over and the Charter III must include substantive targets and programmes to empower and benefit youth.
• The allocation of 14% to entrepreneurs should not be derived from the community and worker shares and should be dealt with separately as business transaction’s. The full complement of 30% should be allocated to affected communities living in poverty and should not be used to benefit and enrich politically connected individuals. The DMR, during its presentation at the Conference, indicated that the shareholding will be according to the state`s appetite to acquire these shares, if the state so wishes. This reduces the community benefits and, exposes the nature of a predatory state opening up shareholdings to politically connected individuals based on the claim by the state to exploit their “custodianship” of mineral wealth.
• The nature of how this was delivered was also troubling, as this is not clearly defined in the draft charter, but rather communicated in person during a presentation.
• The Peoples Mining Charter should be incorporated into the Mining Charter as an expression of the Will and Aspirations of affected communities as opposed to the current expression of the Charter as a conduit to enrich the politically connected.

It was noted during the conference that the DMR had been inviting selected individuals to attend the Mining Charter Summit as community representatives and the conference rejected this blatant attempt to divide communities and to further disregard and side-line MACUA, WAMUA and MEJCON.

Besides inviting selected individuals to the Mining Charter Summit, the DMR has made no arrangements to assist with transport to the venue in Johannesburg, leaving communities who live in poverty, unable to attend and excluded from having their voices heard.

The conference resolved that those invited to what is amounting to yet another form of exclusion for communities, to attend and to express the collective outcomes of the Community conference at the Mining Charter summit.

Issued by MACUA and WAMUA