Bua Mining Communities

Hundreds of the community members across Bafokeng communities came to celebrate a court victory against their Chief on the 21 March. The Royal Bafokeng Chief/Kgosi Leruo Molotlegi and his lieutenants in the Royal Bafokeng Traditional leadership have faced fierce objections from the community on their attempt to snatch land without consultation. Hundreds of the community members across Bafokeng communities came to celebrate a court victory against their Chief on the 21 March. The Royal Bafokeng Chief/Kgosi Leruo Molotlegi and his lieutenants in the Royal Bafokeng Traditional leadership have faced fierce objections from the community on their attempt to snatch land without consultation. The Bafokeng self-crowned monarch has since in the mid 1990’s referred to their chief as the King. This has generated crude arrogance amongst the authority and was visible in its staff towards the subjects. Bafokeng are known locally as people full of pride. This attitude has led to the culture  o...

Two years after shooting to fame, an association of blind people in Chaneng village remains hopeless amidst millions of rand donations from the Royal Bafokeng Platinum (RBPlat) and a North West provincial government department. ‘We started on 08 th June 2005. Every member was contributing R30-00 per month towards the development of the project including buying seedlings’, explained Tadidi Letupu; a blind granny seated at the corner of their full office. Production charts, trophies, certificates of achievements and attendance of workshops and trainings attract you to enter an office with cupboards and a shelf-less display stands. Around a flowery table cloth is four whitish cane chairs, ledger books and files of the daily and weekly sales of the tried and tested Chaneng Association for the Blind. In 2011, the RBPlat approached the Association for the Blind to upgrade their gardening project. The RBPlat’s 2002 Integrated Annual Report (IAR) highlights that, “The Ch...

It was on the 10 th  February 2017 in North West of South Africa near Sun City, community members of the village called Chaneng marched to Styldrift mine. The last past 2 years the community have been trying to apply for a legal march, and the Public Safety department rejected all applications. The ward 2 EFF applied for the march on behalf of the community and it was approved. On the day of the march we saw youth dominating. When the community arrived at the mine they found that the police had already barricaded the entrance with razor wire and having dogs as if the community were in an illegal march. Leadership asked for mine management to come and receive the memorandum, unfortunately  no one came and they responded by saying they didn’t know anything about the march, ironically they had jerked up security even without knowledge of the march.

Communities oppose relocation of Farlam Commission to Pretoria. Mining  community members oppose the proposed relocation of the F arlam  Commission from R ustenberg  to Pretoria  as it will reduce them to being merely spectators rather than giving them the opportunity to effectively participate in the process.   As integral stakeholders in the Marikana massacre, the relocation would prevent many of them from attending as the costs involved would be unaffordable as the communities are poor and mainly live in informal and rural settlements.   “While we understand the reasons behind the request to move the Commission to  Pretoria  by Advocate  Dali Mpofu , we urge Judge  Farlam  to consider our request not to do so,” says  Chris Molebatsi , from Marikana community and spokesperson for  Bua Mining Communities .   “It would put us in an extremely disadvantaged position and would alienate us completely.”   Moleb...