NOLITHA FAKUDE: Cultivating our shared impact beyond mining

Our mining industry and country are at another crossroad: we are at the intersection between hope and despair. When the news of the Jagersfontein tailings tragedy broke a few weeks ago, one of our worst fears as an industry came true.

This tragedy left a family without their loved one and considerable destruction and the displacement of people in its wake. As an industry, we rallied to support relief efforts.  Immediate and longer-term humanitarian interventions through partnerships with recognised and credible aid organisations are under way in Jagersfontein. 

While the effects of the devastation on both people and the environment continue to be assessed, it is the nature of mining and mining practices, and the appropriate level of regulation and our responsibilities as an industry that have come into sharp focus. We could point out where the government has failed in this context, but this is also a critical opportunity for us as an industry to reflect on what we can do better.

Over the past few months and years several mining companies belonging to Minerals Council SA have been hard at work reviewing the integrity of their tailings facilities. This is reassuring because it demonstrates our commitment to ensuring we proactively identify any areas of improvement we may find.

A number of Minerals Council members have committed to applying the International Council on Mining & Metals’ Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management, which includes inputs from the Minerals Council, in addition to the national standards and regulatory requirements.

The imperative is clear: we must work together to ensure that we protect people and our industry from future calamity. Simply put, anything less than every tailings facility in our industry being responsibly managed is just not good enough.

While we continue to deal with the far-reaching security challenges plaguing our operations, the criminality associated with illegal mining is also escalating. Turf wars between various syndicates are known for their violence, but now their activities are affecting the very freedom, safety and security of our communities.

Our hearts collectively sank in July when eight women were brutally violated at a Krugersdorp mine — a crime linked to illegal mining. Also extremely worrying is that some mining community members are retaliating with violence. Organised criminal syndicates are one of the biggest threats to SA’s mining industry, posing a real risk to employees, their families, mining operations and the environment.

The violence making headlines has also sparked intense public debate over whose task it is to ensure the safe closure of disused mines. These are under the remit of the department of mineral resources & energy, which has noted it has limited funding to undertake this massive task.

There are 6,100 derelict and ownerless mines in SA, the majority of which were abandoned long before the advent of democracy and implementation of the Mineral & Petroleum Resources Development Act in 2004, when tougher rehabilitation and environmental conditions were imposed on mining companies to avoid the mistakes of the past.

We need innovative thinking when it comes to addressing these legacy operations, and we as the industry are ready and willing to work with the department to expedite the process, especially where derelict properties neighbour existing operations and are used to invade working mines.

Another issue we cannot ignore is the abuse of women in our industry, and in society more broadly. As the number of women in mining has increased, so too has the societal ill of gender-based violence (GBV) increased at our operations. Earlier this year the Report on Workplace Culture at Rio Tinto provided a critical inflection point and reignited the urgency for us to act.

In SA, when the Covid pandemic shone a horrific spotlight on GBV and child abuse, Anglo American launched its Living with Dignity framework, aimed at preventing and responding to violence in the various spheres of employees’ lives — at home, at work and in our schools, with a particular focus on violence against women and children.

We also recently updated our policy on bullying, harassment and victimisation, and in March established an independent GBV office we’ve called the Living with Dignity Hub, which offers additional and necessary resources to provide ongoing and committed support to employees.

Given the extent of GBV in our country and the need to enable transformation and a truly inclusive workplace, it may feel impossible for us to solve the challenges that face the nation on our own. If you consider what I’ve shared — coupled with our enduring challenges of high levels of unemployment, inequality and slow economic growth — you might be tempted to despair.

The late author Alan Paton said in 1985: “SA is a place where you despair on Monday and hope on Tuesday.” This was a different era, to be sure, but that is still relevant today. We are often caught between despair and hope, but by choosing hope over despair we can see our future not as something that is out of our control but something we can shape for the better. 

There are already signs of this. With the global energy transition well under way, it is many of the metals and minerals we produce in SA that are required to support this transition. Our abundant sun and wind resources give us yet another wonderful opportunity to produce and benefit from renewable electricity sources.

However, the question we hear others ask of us remains: will SA’s policymakers, and indeed the mining industry, organise themselves enough and in time to really benefit from this enviable position? If we do — and I believe it is our responsibility to work together with the government to make it happen — we truly have the power and potential to be the lighthouse industry for SA.

Not only would we catalyse the growth and socioeconomic development that our country so desperately needs, we would create a pathway for other industries to follow, while helping SA’s own decarbonisation journey as we address global climate change together. 

The biggest opportunity we have as an industry, and as a country, is the transition to a net-zero carbon world, but this will be neither sustainable nor just if we do not invest in advancing the progress of women and young people. Youth and gender transformation have often been undermined, with young people and women being told to “wait in the queue” while the other dimensions of transformation — be it racial or economic — take centre stage.

As the energy transition gains pace, we as an industry can play a leading role in building a more collaborative and inclusive economy — one that places people and the principle of shared prosperity at the heart of development. No-one must be worse off after this transition. We have several opportunities to unlock inclusive economic growth and drive greater social cohesion that we can all rally behind. 

We must believe progress is possible because the path of any nation is rooted in progress, not perfection. And so we must never lose hope.

• Fakude chairs Anglo American’s management board in SA and is president of the Minerals Council SA.