Controversial Verlorenvlei prospecting rights granted
Affected landowners in the Moutonshoek Valley, farm workers and residents of Redelinghuys, Verlorenvlei and Eland's Bay on the Cape West Coast are shocked by news that the Department of Mineral Resources has granted an application to prospect for tungsten ore in the headwaters of the ecologically sensitive Verlorenvlei.
Verlorenvlei looking south-east towards Piketberg/Moutonshoek
This extensive estuarine wetland system is registered as a RAMSAR site and an Important Bird Area yet is afforded little environmental protection.
On 1 July 2011 the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) apparently granted Bongani Minerals a right to prospect for tungsten in the catchment of the Verlorenvlei, situated in the West Coast District Municipality and feeding into the sea at Elands Bay, 80 km northwest of Piketberg.
"We don't even know if this is true," said Dr Bennie van der Merwe, one of the affected landowners. "We've had no official notification from the DMR, nor have we had sight of a valid Prospecting Right (PR), Work Programme, or the approved Environmental Management Programme (EMP). Until we have hard evidence, this so-called prospecting right may as well be fictitious."
Verlorenvlei at dusk
The Verlorenvlei Coalition, which represents a wide constituency, including residents, landowners, farmworkers, environmentalists, businesses and civic groups, has stated that the Department has made a grave error in awarding the licence, to Bongani Minerals, a company which in the interim has been intimately linked to officials within the DMR.
"It is our opinion that the DMR has ignored the material substance of objections raised by ourselves and other concerned parties, and the damning threat which prospecting and eventually possible mining, would bring to the local livelihoods, agriculture, water supply and quality of water in the already water-stressed Sandveld region and the long-term effects this would have on the communities, most of whom are supported by women breadwinners who work on productive farms in the area," said Malie Grütter, media liaison for the Verlorenvlei Coalition.
Looking down towards Verlorenvlei.
Landowners and the Verlorenvlei Coalition will now lodge an appeal against the prospecting approval with the Minister, Ms Susan Shabangu. It is their hope that she will engage constructively with their concerns and recommendations.
The disputed mineral deposit is known as Riviera Tungsten, a belt of low grade and widely dispersed tungsten ore in the Moutonshoek Valley. Mining the ore would pose a serious threat to precious water resources (the valley provides 60% of the ecologically sensitive Verlorenvlei's water). It would require blasting through the Krom Antonies River on the surface and two vital, fragile aquifers.
"Why does it feel like we are being systematically ignored?" asked Ms Grütter. "We are not convinced that the DMR has in fact engaged sufficiently with the objections. This was a highly contestible application - even a simple attribute such as the financial competence to run such an expensive project came in the form of a questionable guarantee signed by some bank manager's personal assistant! No financial statements, no audits - you wouldn't even raise a property bond for a small bachelor flat on such a worthless piece of paper."
Coalition member Dr Herman Grütter, who heads an exploration division of BHP Billiton in Canada, flew to South Africa in July 2010 to present his findings with respect to the lack of financial and geological viability of prospecting (and mining) of Riviera Tungsten. However, despite the Coalition's repeated requests to do so, they were denied the opportunity to present objections to the RMDEC committee - made up of officials from a variety of departments, including Water Affairs, Agriculture and Cape Nature and chaired by the Regional Manager of the DMR - which could inform the final recommendation to the Minister in regard the granting or refusal of a prospecting right.
"In May 2011 Mr Bheki Khumalo, DMR spokesperson, went on record saying that in 2009 the DMR completely withdrew the mineral rights [to actually mine the same ore deposit and brought by the same applicant] 'due to environmental concerns'. Where have these concerns disappeared to in the interim?" asked Ms Grütter.
The mouth of Verlorenvlei where it flows into the sea.
The Coalition is particularly concerned that the granting of this prospecting licence is in flagrant disregard for the policy stance which the DMR took, in earlier similar applications, not to mine valuable agricultural land. Former Director General of the DMR, Adv Sandile Nogxina, was clear in his pronouncement at the time when applications were lodged to prospect in the Cape Winelands. Nogxina said an application to mine land under agricultural production would never be granted as the government had to balance the interests of the exploitation of mineral resources with food security.
Procedurally this latest prospecting application remains suspicious. In September last year, the Regional Manager of the DMR in the Western Cape, Mr Sivuyile Mpakane, attempted to convene a meeting between Bongani Minerals and the affected landowners - who are also objectors to the application - to discuss Bongani 's prospecting application and in particular, the 'the way forward' in terms of 'recommendations for a revised prospecting plan'. This seemed highly irregular, as the outcome of the application had not at that stage been finalised, which made this look like a thinly veiled attempt to push through the application.
Then there was the farcical outcome of attempts to get sight of the Western Cape DMR's recommendation to the Minister in respect of this prospecting application. After numerous failed attempts by landowners and the Verlorenvlei Coalition to gain access to the minutes of a RMDEC meeting held on 28 July 2010 to discuss the terms of this application, the Centre for Environmental Rights (CER) finally made a successful application under the Public Access to Information Act (PAIA), which was granted in February 2011.
However, when a CER representative presented this notice to the Western Cape DMR in March 2011, she was eventually dismissed by a public official with the excuse that the minutes were 'of a sensitive nature' and were not going to be released , despite the directive from the National DMR. In addition, the public official initially refused to give his name, which CER's representative politely requested in order to follow up the failed outcome of her visit.
"We have, through our legal counsel Adv Martin Coetzee, requested reasons from the Minister for the granting of this licence. What is going on here? How is it that Bongani Minerals so consistently, since 2005, manages to cling on to this mineral right?" commented Ms Grütter.
Bongani Minerals is after all a company with no mining infrastructure or experience - in fact, no assets at all - all it seems to have going for it are three rather influential BEE partners. Two of these, Trevor Pikwane and Phemelo Sehunelo - have independently been under the spotlight in the media and linked to controversial deals.
Bongani Mineral's first application to prospect was refused on grounds of potential for pollution. In 2006 Bongani again brought an application to prospect. This time the licence was granted but was challenged by a judicial review brought on procedural grounds. This right lapsed before the review could go ahead but not before Bongani Minerals lodged a premature mining right application in 2009, based on the technicality that they still owned the prospecting right for the Riviera Tungsten.
[This application was recently brought into disrepute by the fact that the acting Regional Manager who presided over this application at the time, Ms Duduzile Sibongile Kunene, was the girlfriend of one of the directors of Bongani Minerals, Phemelo Sehunelo. In fact, their commonly owned property in Eldoraigne was registered on 21 April 2009, barely a month after the mining right application was lodged with the Western Cape DMR on 25 March 2009. Ms Kunene had taken office a month before this application was lodged. ]
Verlorenvlei Coalition Press Release
Photographs: Felicity Strange
Posted at 01:06PM Jul 27, 2011 by Editor in Cities and Towns |