JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – During the five-month platinum strike, the worst in South Africa’s history, the vast majority of Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) employees – some 60% to 70% of them – wanted to return to work but feared that they would be killed if they did so, Anglo American executive director and Chamber of Mines VP Khanyisile Kweyama said on Wednesday evening.

Kweyama, who was speaking at the gala dinner of the third Mining Lekgotla in Midrand at which Minister in the Presidency Jeff Radebe gave the main address in the absence of President Jacob Zuma, said Anglo American wanted to play a part in building a South African industry that was free from violence and intimidation.

Radebe said that the National Development Plan (NDP) envisaged a vibrant South African economy that still had the mining sector playing a crucial role in it.

"We're in this together," he told the Department of Minerals Resources, National Union of Mineworkers and Chamber of Mines function.

Earlier Kweyama had said work was being done to help restore confidence in the industry and the country, and added that Anglo was spending 6.1% of its payroll on education and training of historically disadvantaged South Africans (HDSAs).

This had enabled the company to increase real minimum wages significantly in the past 20 years and 60% of its current management was now HDSA compared with close to zero in 1990.

Last year the company spent R671-million on socioeconomic development initiatives and procured R32.4-billion worth of goods and services from HDSA businesses, many of them created by the company’s Zimele enterprise development unit.

Anglo American had met the Mining Charter requirement for single accommodation in hostels and was providing and increasing volume of family accommodation.

It had implemented antiretroviral programmes for employees with other mining companies ahead of the State health service.

The company had concluded R67-billion worth of black economic-empowerment (BEE) ownership transactions, which have benefitted entrepreneurs, communities and employees.

While the wealth inequality that BEE ownership provisions had spawned had not yet been adequately addressed, adverse impacts on investor confidence would result if the BEE ownership goal posts were now moved.

The phenomenon of living-out allowances had contributed to the spread of informal settlements and there were many obstacles to housing development.

Dismantling or eliminating the migrant labour system would not be an easy matter as the local economies of towns and villages dependent on the remittances of mineworkers would be hard hit, particularly in the Eastern Cape, which received at least R1-billion of remittances from mines in other South African provinces.

Kweyama acknowledged, however, that the industry as a whole needed to make considerable strides in mitigating the adverse impacts of the migrant labour system, while being sensitive to the potential outcomes of the actions taken.

Without better productivity, wage increases would become increasingly difficult to pay.

If cost inflation was allowed to continue without improving productivity, mining industry growth would remain constrained.

“We are committed to doing more and it’s no coincidence that almost all these initiatives are in harmony with the priorities spelled out in the National Development Plan, which is the path our industry and our country must follow if we are to fulfil our potential and ensure better lives for all South Africans,” Kweyama concluded.