SOUTH African mines minister, Gwede Mantashe, said he would visit the premises of Zululand Anthracite Colliery and the Tendele Colliery between September 22 – 23 as part of an effort to “rebuild relationships and levels of trust in the mining sector”, said the Department of Mineral Resources in a statement.
The two collieries have been the site of community unrest in the past couple of years with trouble most recently experienced at Tendele, an operation owned by Petmin which recently delisted from the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.
“In an effort to promote a conducive mining environment, the ministerial community meetings will also provide the minister and the department an opportunity to directly listen to concerns raised by communities in relation to the challenges they face as a result of mining,” said the DMR in its statement.
Mantashe would also engage with community members in the Xolobeni village, Mbizana, in the Eastern Cape province which is the site for long-standing unrest regarding the controversial development of a mineral sands resource by an Australian company.
