TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Africa-focused project developer Ivanhoe Mines on Thursday condemned “in the strongest terms possible” a statement issued late Wednesday by nongovernmental organisation (NGO) Mining Watch Canada, alleging that its subsidiary Ivanplats was engaged in human rights abuses and illegal operations as it pushed ahead with its Platreef project, in South Africa’s Limpopo province.

This was not the first time the NGO had made the same allegations, after alleging early in 2015 that the company used illegal coercive tactics to obtain the necessary permits for its Platreef polymetallic mine, near Mokopane, on the northern limb of the country’s mineral-rich Bushveld Complex.

Ivanplats was a South Africa-based subsidiary company 64%-owned by Ivanhoe Mines, 26%-owned by South African broad-based black economic-empowerment partners – including 20% belonging to 20 local communities with a combined population of about 150 000, 3% in the hands of historically disadvantaged project employees and a further 3% held by local entrepreneurs. The remaining 10% was owned by a Japanese consortium.

“Ivanhoe Mines is disappointed, although not surprised, that Mining Watch Canada has chosen to act as a Canadian blinkered cheerleader for the falsehoods and misrepresentations that have been perpetuated, and violent acts that have been staged, by South African activist Aubrey Langa, who has previously been convicted by South African courts of furnishing false information, robbery and attempted murder,” Ivanhoe stated on Thursday morning.

The company held that Mining Watch had not bothered to contact it, nor Ivanplats regarding any of the concerns, instead choosing to grandstand and seek to mislead shareholders, other stakeholders and the media by issuing a news release hours before Ivanhoe’s scheduled annual general meeting on Thursday, in Vancouver.

OBLIGATION TO CONSULT
For more than 15 years, Ivanplats’ staff, had established productive working relationships with residents and traditional leaders in the 20 communities that surrounded the mine site. Ivanhoe stressed that its subsidiary had demonstrated the utmost respect for historical gravesites and had fully complied with all prescriptions laid down by the relevant authorities.

Ivanplats was granted a mining right for Platreef by South Africa’s Department of Mineral Resources on May 30, 2014, which took legal effect on November 4, 2014. The Limpopo Department of Economic Development, Environmental Affairs and Tourism issued an environmental authorisation to Ivanplats on June 27, 2014, under terms of the National Environmental Management Act, 1998.

According to Ivanplats, it had earned, and respected, the support of the overwhelming majority of the residents of Mokopane. Critics of the company’s planned Platreef mine constituted only a small group that consistently numbered no more than 100 people who staged organised protests. That group was led by individuals who allegedly had self-serving agendas and did not have legitimate concerns relating to the community at large, nor did they have any significant support from the about 150 000 people who comprised the host communities around the mine development.

“The Platreef mine never can be the sole answer to the socioeconomic problems facing the communities of Mokopane, where poverty and unemployment pose huge challenges for all of the people in the area.

“However, we are confident that this multibillion-rand development project not only will become a major mining operation but it will also contribute significantly to job creation, skills training and economic development opportunities, impacting positively on the lives of people living in Mokopane and area communities,” the company stated.