Shabangu gets 'shafted'

27 August 2014 - 02:15 By Niren Tolsi
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ON HOLD: Former minerals resources minister Susan Shabangu at the Farlam Commission of Inquiry on Marikana yesterday
ON HOLD: Former minerals resources minister Susan Shabangu at the Farlam Commission of Inquiry on Marikana yesterday

Former minister of mineral resources Susan Shabangu claimed in testimony at the Farlam Commission of Inquiry yesterday that platinum mining company Lonmin had wanted to "remove" the National Union of Mineworkers "from the face of the earth".

She also contradicted earlier testimony by Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Legal Resources Centre lawyer Tembeka Ngcukaitobi questioned Shabangu on her correspondence with Ramaphosa not long before the Marikana massacre on August 16 2012.

In an earlier statement, Shabangu had characterised the strike as a labour dispute but her correspondence with Ramaphosa suggested that she saw it as criminal.

In one of the e-mails that Ramaphosa, then a non-executive director of Lonmin, sent to Lonmin executives on August 15, he wrote that Shabangu "agrees that what we are going through is not a labour dispute but a criminal act".

Ramaphosa also wrote that Shabangu is "going into cabinet and will brief the president [Jacob Zuma]" and will convince former police minister Nathi Mthethwa "to act in a more pointed way".

Ramaphosa confirmed that he made these statements when he testified earlier this month.

But Shabangu said yesterday: "[This] is not true. [Ramaphosa] never convinced me."

The lawyers for the miners said Shabangu's conflicting accounts raised "serious questions about the reliability" of her testimony and that of Ramaphosa .

Dali Mpofu, acting for the miners arrested and injured on August 16, said the e-mail suggested that Shabangu saw the strike as criminal and was prepared to "facilitate [the use of] the full might of the state, police and army" on the striking miners.

Mpofu also referred to comments Shabangu made in 2008 while deputy police minister. She had told the police "not to worry about the regulations" when dealing with criminals and to "kill the bastards".

When asked by Mpofu who had made these statements, Shabangu responded: "Mr Chairman, Mr Mpofu is very pathetic."

Shabangu, now Minister of Women's Affairs, told evidence leader Kameshnee Pillay that she had not made telephonic contact with Ramaphosa on August 14.

Pillay then presented telephone records that showed otherwise.

Shabangu claimed that when she told NUM members in May 2012 that they "were under attack by forces determined to use every trick in the book to remove you from the face of the earth", she was referring to Lonmin, not the Associated Mineworkers and Construction Union.

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