Kumba hosts Stakeholders day

THABAZIMBI – Thabazimbi Mine hosted its annual Kumba Stakeholder Day on 30 October 2012 to engage the community and other key stakeholders like the local municipally about their business.

The main issues discussed included, safety and health, mining activities, community upliftment and mine closure. The General Manager of the mine Cornelia Holtzhausen gave feedback and an update on mine and its future. “It is important for me to give feedback on issues raised by the community as they are the mine’s key stakeholders while fostering relationships and engaging on the mine’s progress”, said Cornelia.

Thabazimbi Mine aspires to be a responsible miner with zero fatalities, zero injuries and no repeats of incidents that occur on the mine. Cornelia shared the safety statistics with the stakeholders and demonstrated the importance of safety in the operation. As part of mining responsibly the mine has a continuous environmental and rehabilitation programme that will ensure the mined mountains are rehabilitated.

Progress on the mining activities on the mine such as blasting, dust control and exploration was given to stakeholders to assure that extensive controls are taken to ensure neighbouring farms are not affected negatively by these activities.

One of the subject matter that was of interest to the stakeholders was preferential procurement. This subject also being important to Kumba, the mine reported localised payments of R266.4 million which is 42% of the mine expenditure on local business. On the other hand, the employment rate is low due to the size of the mine and the low turnover of employees on the mine. This means there are fewer vacancies advertised that will give the local community an opportunity to apply for jobs. However the amount of money spent on local businesses will increase the chances of employment in the area.

As part of the Social Labour Plan (SLP), the mine invests in sustainable Local Economic Development (LED) community projects. Some of the LED Projects Kumba, Thabazimbi Mine has invested in include the Thabazimbi Wellness Centre which was opened early in the year. Not only does the wellness centre cater for the mine employees, contractors and their families it also runs health programmes for the community. In addition LED projects such as the debussing project in Raputhi that is owned by four community members of Raputhi and the Bakery project also owned by community members will empower the community and ensure a sustainable future. The mine is also working close with the local Thabazimbi Municipality to ensure major projects such as the installation of new water pipes are fully support. The mine has committed R19 million rands towards the project and experts from the mine that will form part of the project team.

The final issue the stakeholders were engaged on was the mine closure. Kumba, Thabazimbi Mine being one of the oldest mines in the country, the life of mine seems like a reality. As Cornelia, the general manager explained that the process of mine closure takes a long time before the mine is given the mine closure certificate. As a requirement by the Department of Mineral Resource, a mine closure plan must be developed. Kumba, Thabazimbi Mine recently conducted surveys in the community to assess what the perception the community had on the mine closure. The results showed that community members do not believe the mine will close.

The progress on the mine was well received by the stakeholders present, which included Non Profit Organisation, different government departments, the Mayor Cllr. P Mosito and executive members of the local municipality, community members and other key stakeholders.