Minerals Council South Africa has established two pilot regional offices as part of its broader aim to enhance community relations, says Minerals Council public affairs and transformation senior executive Tebello Chabana.

Minerals Council social performance head Alex Khumalo explains that the offices – centrally located in Emalahleni, in Mpumalanga, and in Kuruman, in the Northern Cape – are meant to facilitate access to the Minerals Council.

“Their mandates are to ensure collaboration, provide guidance and bring the Minerals Council closer to the people,” Khumalo states. He affirms that the regional presence has allowed for a greater understanding of the “realities on the ground” from a member and community perspective.

“Communities are absolutely key. As the Minerals Council, we’ve tried to do ad hoc engagements with communities but, as a national entity, it became difficult logistically,” Chabana explains.

Khumalo says “there’s an impression that the mining industry doesn’t care, doesn’t consult and doesn’t do enough to address issues”. Further, community protests are becoming prevalent at mining companies because of a confluence of factors, including an element of resource nationalism, a lack of service delivery and the aforementioned impression that mining companies can do more.

The regional offices’ role is to combat that misconception by ensuring that members are “doing the basics” in terms of engaging stakeholders and facilitating collaboration between mining houses, municipalities and civil society to implement impactful “destiny-changing” projects, says Chabana.

Additionally, the Minerals Council and mining companies will look to create more awareness of what their initiatives and programmes have done for communities.

Chabana explains that the Northern Cape Leadership Forum – comprising mining CEOs from the region – analysed social and labour plan (SLP) expenditure and Statistics South Africa data to prioritise challenges within the province to tackle them as a collective.

“Our Shared Value initiative looks at engaging municipalities, communities and other entities that might play a part in realising shared value, including diversifying the regional economy beyond mining by piggy-backing on the value chain,” says Khumalo.

Chabana notes that impact-driven projects cannot be undertaken by a single mining house, given the scope and challenges involved. He says that greater societal value can be derived through stakeholder collaboration.

Khumalo adds that the Minerals Council is pushing an outcomes-based approach for SLPs and corporate social responsibility project implementation. “It’s one thing to build a school, it’s another to ensure that the school does what it’s supposed to – provide a suitable learning environment, with the requisite teachers and facilities to ensure that students receive comprehensive and beneficial instruction.”

Based on the effectiveness of the pilots, the Minerals Council may continue to roll out regional offices in future.

Human Rights Framework

Chabana notes that the Minerals Council has also established a Human Rights Framework, which provides guidance on how best to respect and uphold human rights in the South African mining context.

The framework was drafted in line with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, as well as best practice from the International Council of Mining and Metals, and was fashioned into something suitable for a South African context. The concept was approved by the Minerals Council board late last year.

Chabana says, currently, the Minerals Council is engaging with its members to foster understanding on the framework’s implications.

he Minerals Council also met with eight nongovernmental organisations in April, so that they could comment on the framework.

Chabana states that the framework does not introduce radical ideas, it seeks to give effect to the rights enshrined in the Constitution, and ensure that miners are better corporate citizens in relation to host communities.

Several of the framework’s principles are regulated by existing legislation.

However, a core aspect of the framework is the introduction of a community grievance mechanism, which is not catered for in legislation, and which seeks to enable the airing, acknowledgement, tracking and mitigation of community issues. The Minerals Council wants its members to introduce the mechanism at a company level, as it already has a national anonymous tip-off line.

Chabana says, over the next two to three years, the Minerals Council might decide to make the framework compulsory.