‘We are finished with mining in this area’
Since last year, the Westside Urban Newspaper has been following meetings and discussions with residents from Ward 68 over the mining issues in our communities.
Since last year, the Westside Urban Newspaper has been following meetings and discussions with residents from Ward 68 over the mining issues in our communities.
Many issues were brought up during these meetings and the Bench Mark Foundation has also been assisting and informing residents about the mines and the impact or danger they have on our communities.
In many of those published meetings, none of the mining companies have been present. In Ward 68, there are two mining companies operating in the area, namely Central Rand Gold (CRG) and DRDGold.
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A few weeks back the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of DRDGold, Niël Pretorius, and the environmental manager Louis Kleynhans met with a few residents from Riverlea to hear their complaints and to iron out a few creases about the relationship between the company and the community.
The meeting took place at one of the sites behind zone 1, where we had to enter through Pennyville. The initial plan was to first have a few site visits and thereafter have a question and answer section in Riverlea but that did not happen. Instead, question and answers were done at the two sites, the second was on Nasrec Road.
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Pretorius led the meeting and engaged more with the residents. According to Pretorius, the mining company goes through a certain procedure to closing all the holes and rehabilitating the ground.
DRDGold has a 14-month project where they rehabilitating the ground behind Riverlea Extension 3, and Pretorius said that after about two years, the ground will be ready for houses to be built on them.
Residents noticed that the workers onsite do not have any masks on whilst working but Pretorius and Kleynhans claimed that they sent their employees for regular industrial health check-ups.
When it comes to the water leakages, Kleynhuis stated that their water is in a closed system and goes all the way to City Deep in their water systems.
“We saw that silica dust affects the function of the lungs and it causes damages to the lungs. If you have been living here for many years under the dust I think it would be naive to that the dust isn’t a problem.
“The big social and health dilemma for communities in Johannesburg is that our company did not build this dump here, it was built in the 1940-1950’s and we didn’t establish the community either so if you look at the geology point of view the community is built in a slop and all the dust is falling down on it.
“For a healthy environment, we need to remove these mine dumps. How we see it is that we didn’t put it here but we will remove it from the community,” said Pretorius.
The CEO also said that they very limited with certain issues such as leaching and water seepages, and they limited by things such as the railway lines, they hoping that once they have done rehabilitating the area that all of the leakings will stop too.
Pretorius explained that the mining was done on the incorrect side and that’s why Riverlea experiences the amount of dust and that their experiments of using sprinklers only assisted in a small manner and now the vegetation seems to be another failure.
When it comes to what the community gained from the mining company with regards to the social responsibility.
Pretorius said: “We got conflicting messages from the community because some agreed to the 500 gas stoves and concrete benches and tables and then some disagreed, others wanted different suppliers.
“We thought that this was a good way to get in the hearts and the mind of the community but it was a fragmented community with different views so the projects broke down.
“The problem is that we are done here, we are finished with mining in this area, there’s no longer revenue and the bus has left to other stations now. The process will happen again but we will come back with a smaller budget for the projects in the community.”
Mining equipment.
“Our company is not in the position of building infrastructures but what we do is we teach but what I need to do is manage your expectations. We are done here. The initiatives which we tried here has failed and now we have to move on to new sites so that we do not fail in those communities as well. We learnt from the failed initiatives.”
Pretorius explained that they have no desire to become the community’s best friend but they would like to have a functional relationship with the community.
In closing, Pretorius said: “If there’s one thing that I must make very clear is that our company has a limited capacity but we want to make lives bearable for people of Soweto and Riverlea.”
As it stands, the divided community’s expectation exceeds what the mining company can do for the people.
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