Following protests over water shortages in Musina, Limpopo, over the past few days, a meeting was convened between the Musina local municipality, the Vhembe district municipality and diamond miner De Beers’ Venetia mine to find ways to assist the municipalities in efficiently and safely resolving the issue.

In a statement issued by the mining company on May 13, it said that, while the provision of water is the responsibility of the municipality, the Venetia mine has always been committed to working in partnership with the municipalities and host communities to address concerns in a responsible and consultative manner.

“We welcome the constructive engagements we had, and Venetia mine is engaging with the municipality to discuss options on how we can provide support through [several] interventions.

“We value our communities, employees, contracting partners and stakeholders, and we will continue to engage on issues that are brought forward to find an amicable solution,” De Beers said.

The first of these interventions will be for Venetia mine to work with the municipalities and submit a short-term proposal to supply additional water tanks to the municipality.

The second intervention will be for the mine to assist the municipalities with conducting a detailed study of the water supply, storage and distribution capacity in the municipality.

Finally, a third intervention will see De Beers supporting the implementation of a medium-term solution by exploring the drilling of boreholes to augment the current water supply.

De Beers said the safety of its employees and contractors, as well as the community of Musina, was the number one priority.

“We continue to monitor the protests and work closely with the local authorities and community structures to ensure the safety of our people. We understand the frustration of our community and appeal for calm whilst we are working in partnership with our local municipality to deal with water challenges,” the company said.