Cyril Ramaphosa’s history a red flag – expert

A leading scholar on the workings of multinationals, has poohpoohed as “an evasion of tough questions” a move by mining house Glencore to absolve President Cyril Ramaphosa from day-to-day operational involvement in a major coal mine supplying Eskom.

Ramaphosa was chair and co-owner of the company’s subsidiary Optimum Coal Holdings (OCH) prior to being appointed deputy president in 2014.

University of Johannesburg sociology professor Patrick Bond was responding to this week’s statement by Glencore, in which it denied Ramaphosa’s direct involvement in the company’s operations, or in its Eskom-supplying Optimum Coal Mine (OCM).

“Mr Ramaphosa divested his entire interest in OCH on 22 May 2014 – prior to him taking office as deputy president and prior to his involvement with the Eskom war room,” the statement read.

“Mr Ramaphosa therefore, had no interest in OCH, following the conclusion of the cooperative agreement and during the period when OCM/OCH were negotiating with Eskom regarding potential amendments in the coal supply agreement (CSA) with Eskom and an extension to the CSA.

“The suggestion that Glencore involved Mr Ramaphosa in the acquisition of OCH with the view to, or with the expectation of, leveraging Mr Ramaphosa’s influence of OCH – with a view or with the expectation of leveraging Mr Ramaphosa’s influence to achieve amendments to the CSA – is false and baseless.”

ALSO READ: Glencore: Ramaphosa not involved in day-to-day operations of Optimum Coal

Citing Ramaphosa’s past involvement as a director of London Stock Exchange-listed Lonmin, Bond said: “We have learnt a lot about what multinational mining houses want from Cyril Ramaphosa – for example his e-mail on 15 August 2012, to political decision-makers.

“What these multinationals need is a licence to do what they want to do in any country, by assimilating a guy who has influence. In the case of Lonmin, it regrettably meant using Ramaphosa to put down a strike,” said Bond.

“We saw this in an e-mail he sent to then minerals minister Susan Shabangu, describing the Lonmin strike as a criminal act and not a labour dispute.

“We must remember what followed when the police force went overboard in doing what they thought he wanted [now known as the Marikana Massacre].”

ALSO READ: Glencore US scandal brings Ramaphosa’s ties into question

Turning to the Glencore saga in which the company was last week fined more than $1.5 billion (about R23 billion) after pleading guilty in the US to bribery and market manipulation, mainly against Africans, Bond said: “The fine of $1.5 billion they paid is not compared to the revenue they collected over this period, which amounted to $3.2 trillion.

“This is a slap on the wrist. And Washington collects the fine, not victims in Africa.

“They are the single biggest mining and commodities trading house in the world.

“The other question is that when Glencore was fined, its share price went up by six percent on the London Stock Exchange and Johannesburg Stock Exchange. How does this happen?

“Here we are dealing with a company employing bribery as its main technique – seen in other parts of the world like Ghana, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, elsewhere in Africa and Venezuela.”

Former Eskom chief executive Matshela Koko this week told The Citizen of his intention to submit documents to the US attorney-general about flaws in the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture, which he maintained failed to properly investigate Ramaphosa’s role in pushing Optimum’s agenda.