Royal Bafokeng rejects Chaneng intimidation accusations: iLIVE

Royal Bafokeng Platinum (RBP) wishes to place on record the company’s response to the open letter published by the Bench Marks Foundation on Tuesday, 8 May, particularly the references to Macharora In Action (MIA) which is among the community with whom we engage through an elected forum.

• 'Police‚ mines and municipality are abusing Chaneng's activists'

The issues that MIA raises are being discussed through the forum.

From RBP’s standpoint, our regular interactions with the Macharora communities are through a consultative forum made up of openly elected community representatives and traditional leaders. These discussions help, amongst other things, to form the basis on which we prioritise the spending on our social and labour plan (SLP) – R488 million in the past five years – to reflect the communities’ wider needs and aspirations.

Our primary concern is for the safety and security of our employees and of community members. This is one factor behind our decision not to accept a memorandum from the MIA – a memorandum that should best be channelled through the forum that represents the entire community.

It is our experience that RBP’s employees have been threatened with violence should they report for work and schoolchildren have been threatened should they not participate in MIA demonstrations.

Our experience, too, is that the marches that accompany delivery of memoranda that seek to by-pass or even undermine the openly elected structures tend to be accompanied by unlawful behaviour, violence and the destruction of property.

We reject the allegations that our security personnel have intimidated MIA members. They operate strictly within the mine perimeter.

We once again place on record that we are open to engage on issues in a cordial and civilised manner that are brought to us through the relevant community structures, and would urge community members to work through these structures to ensure meaningful engagement and dialogue on issues that have genuine community concerns at heart.