JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Midtier platinum miner Platmin, in which Brian Gilbertson’s Pallinghurst has a 51% interest, was inwardly listed on the JSE on Wednesday, augmenting its presence on TSX and Aim, and giving the local community a platform to participate at listed ownership level.

The JSE listing created a platform for the company’s black economic Bakgatla Ba Kgafela empowerment partners to participate at listed ownership level, Kgosi Molefe J Pilane told Mining Weekly Online.

Pilane told Mining Weekly Online that the empowerment transaction with Pallinghurst had been brought about at the initiative of the 350 000-strong Bakgatla community, which was modelling its leverage of the platinum mineral resources ion the success of the nearby Bafokeng community.

“Our investment totals R1-billion,” Pilane told Mining Weekly Online, adding that the Bagkatla involvement in Platmin was an example of communities taking charge of their resources and leveraging off them to develop their communities.

He said that the community’s platinum resources had an 80-year horizon, during which time the proceeds of mining would be used for economic and social upliftment in the form of education, healthcare, infrastructure, job creation and poverty alleviation.

An initiative was already under way to train people living in the area as artisans for employment on the mines.

The first Platmin operation in the area, the Pilansberg platinum mine, was already operational and was on schedule to be producing at a rate of 250 000 oz of platinum-group metals a year by year-end, Pilane added.

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