[miningmx.com] – CYRIL Ramaphosa said the failure to avoid the events of August 16, 2012 when 34 miners were shot dead by police at Lonmin’s Marikana premises was a collective one.
Bloomberg News quoted Ramaphosa responding to questions at the Farlam inquiry which has been investigating the atrocity in which a total of 44 people were killed during protests at the mine in 2012.
Said Ramaphosa: “The responsibility has to be collective. As a nation we should dip our heads and accept that we did fail the miners of Marikana and their families.’
Ramaphosa, whose Shanduka Group is invested in Lonmin, and who was a non-executive director of Lonmin at the time, said in the Bloomberg News article that he should have thought more deeply about the “unintended consequences” of paying miners a living-out allowance.
“I should also have explored the unintended consequences of paying miners a living-out allowance’ instead of providing them with accommodation, he said.
“The living conditions that workers were exposed to are not something I would be proud to associate myself with, in fact they are appalling, they are inhumane. I should have paid, and indeed, that board should have paid, close attention to’ that.
Ramaphosa severed direct business links with Shanduka soon after being elected deputy president of South Africa earlier this year.
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