Platinum-miner Anglo Platinum (Angloplat) on Monday reaffirmed its controversial commitment to developing the Unki project in Zimbabwe, with new CEO Neville Nicolau saying the country was strategically important for the company’s growth plans.

He commented that Angloplat did not “hang its future on a political party banner, but rather the country”.

Nicolau was responding to questions after his first results presentation in his new role, which he began on June 1. “Unless the rules of the game change, this is an important strategic growth [area] for Angloplat,” he affirmed.

Angloplat, which was building the Unki project in Zimbabwe’s Great Dyke region, had come under fire for its investment in the country that had been under President Robert Mugabe’s rule since independence from Britain, nearly three decades ago.

Last month, British media hit out at the company’s 75% shareholder, Anglo American, for its $400-million investment in Zimbabwe, at a time when the British government was putting pressure on companies to withdraw from the country.

This came after this year’s elections, which Mugabe was widely regarded to have stolen. Many of the economically tattered country’s opposition party members have been beaten and killed since the start of the election.

“We are quite careful that we tread carefully,” Nicolau stated.

“It is the one geology that is outside South Africa that is significant in the platinum-group metals world, and we think that there is a long-term growth position in Zimbabwe.” This was why it was of strategic importance to Angloplat, he added.

Unki was in the construction phase at the moment, which Nicolau said would continue for the “next two years or so”, after which it would move to become a 150 000 oz/y platinum producer, under current mine plans.

“It will be influenced by events in Zimbabwe and around Zimbabwe, in terms of getting stuff in and building it,” said Nicolau. “We continue with the project while we are still about.”

He commented that Angloplat would react to shifts in the economic, political and social landscapes “as they occur”.

There was nothing “underhanded” with the company’s dealings in the country, Nicolau added. “There is a process under way in Zimbabwe to look at previously disadvantaged Zimbabwean ownership, as we have had in South Africa.”

Angloplat had earlier this year signed over mineral resources to the government, in return for empowerment credits. The concessions that it ceded were shortly afterward sold to Aim-listed Camec for $100-million.

Opposition party the Movement for Democratic Change in June warned that that business deals struck with Mugabe’s government during the last few years will be “scrutinised and dealt with accordingly”, if the party comes to power.

Meanwhile, reports last week said that mediator in Zimbabwe President Thabo Mbeki was close to negotiating a truce between the two parties, with a government of national unity the most probable outcome.

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