The volatile face of poverty

(Photo: Beeld)

Yesterday our team could not go on site to a client as members from their host community and retrenched workers had a violent protest in which they stopped the mine bus, rolled it over and set it on fire with nine people seated inside. Fortunately the commuters all escaped the fire, however, one of the men that has been working in a senior position at the mine for two years tried to calm the crowd down and got stoned to death as a result.

Our team was right there, on their way to the mine to have a meeting with the senior management on sustainable development principles. We had a recent audit on site in which we indicated to management that there were work to be done in respect of their approach to the host community. This incident however has highlighted to me the dire position communities are in and the need for transparent relationships between corporate, government and communities. We have a lot of work to do and I believe we have run out of time.