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WE WANT TITLE DEEDS!

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Rietspruit residents march to South32 Mine to deliver their letter of demands.  Photo by Bongani Mthimunye
Rietspruit residents march to South32 Mine to deliver their letter of demands. Photo by Bongani Mthimunye

WORKERS claim the mine promised that after 10 years they would take ownership of the houses they were renting.

But 13 years later they allege the promise has been broken and many workers have been forced out of their houses and their furniture has been seized!

Angry residents of Rietspruit, near Ogies in Mpumalanga, marched to the South32 Mine on Thursday to hand over a memorandum of demands they wanted to be met within 72 hours.

Community leader Joseph Ndzimande said they had been in discussions with the mine for 13 long years.

Among their demands were that the mine close a slurry dump making residents sick; that former workers be paid their provident fund cash; and the mine stop evicting people from their houses.

“At least 20 families have been evicted since 2006 and their furniture was taken,” said Joseph. “We want those belongings to be brought back and for the mine to provide everyone with a title deed to prevent evictions.”

Joseph claimed the slurry dump was causing people to get chest diseases. He said whenever there was wind the coal dust made everything black.

“We also want to know where R3 million donated by the mine to the community for development went. Rietspruit has grown, but we do not have enough water because the mine failed to upgrade the reservoir.”

Tribe Bhengu, senior manager for community development at South32, received the protesters’ letter of demands.

He promised to sit down with the mine’s management to discuss the memorandum and report back in a week.

“If need be, we will request more time to deal with their demands,” he said.

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