[miningmx.com] – A ZIMBABWEAN minister launched a verbal attack on
Impala Platinum CEO, David Brown, saying on Wednesday he was “sick and tired” of
the mining group’s failure to comply with local black ownership laws.
“The problem with Brown is that he talks too much. We are sick and tired of his
delaying tactics,” Saviour Kasukuwere, the minister in charge of Zimbabwe’s black
empowerment drive, told Reuters.
Implats is the biggest foreign investor in Zimbabwe’s mining sector and has become
the prime target of a government drive to get all outside companies to hand over
majority stakes in their local operations to black Zimbabwean investors.
Brown has been seeking talks with Harare, but told Reuters he was still in South
Africa, where he is dealing with a strike at the company’s Rustenburg mine that has
cost it R2bn in lost output.
“We can only engage him if he comes here to implement the law,” Kasukuwere, a
member of President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party, said.
This weekend, Harare gave Implats two weeks to surrender 29.5% of its Zimplats unit
to a state-run fund and threatened unspecified sanctions if it did not comply.
Kasukuwere has previously threatened to cancel the mining licences of non-compliant
firms.
