Although AGA has retrenched thousands of employees in the past two years, the company’s mine village next to Mponeng mine is still neat and in full use.
It recently came to light that the mine may have new plans for the village, however. One of the options is to have it declared as a town and incorporate it into the municipal area. The other is to demolish the village and the buildings surrounding it so the area can eventually be rehabilitated.
According to someone with knowledge of the process, it would have a negative impact on the area if the village was to be demolished completely.
AGA’s mining village is situated next to an important access road. Because of its location in the centre of various other mining areas, it could be developed into an industrial park of some sort.
Unfortunately, the government often has very strict requirements for private villages to be incorporated into municipal areas. These are much stricter than those applied to their own developments.
With this in mind, the Herald asked AGA’s vice-president in the office of the chairman for strategy and business development, Mr Chris Nthite, to shed more light on the future of the village.
‘We are currently consulting with the municipality on possibly incorporating the mine villages into the municipality. Once the consultation process has been completed, we will update the stakeholders accordingly,’ he told the newspaper.
