Kumba Iron Ore bridges digital divide in township schools with sun’s help

1st September 2014

By: Martin Creamer

Creamer Media Editor

  

Font size: - +

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Anglo American company Kumba Iron Ore on Monday opened a sun-powered Internet school in Tembisa.

The initiative, at Jiyana Secondary School, is the first of four such projects to better education, feed pupils and produce cooking gas from recycled waste.

The solar Internet interventions are designed to bridge the digital divide in underprivileged areas that have limited access to education and connectivity, allowing learners to access curricula on iPads and tablets.

Kumba will spend R10.5-million on the initiative that will supply similar netschools, as well as on vegetable gardens, biodigesters that produce gas from recycled waste, and building upgrades in the Northern Cape and Limpopo provinces, where it mines iron-ore for export to countries like China, Japan, Korea, Europe and the Middle East.

“We believe that our clean energy interventions will improve learner performance,” said Kumba Iron Ore public affairs head Yvonne Mfolo.

Last year close to half of the company’s R34.8-million education and training budget was directed at pre-primary and primary schools to ensure adequate facilities that would attract skilled and committed teachers.

Since listing on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in 2006, Kumba’s cash return to its black shareholding has totalled R23.5-billion and its near-mine communities have been receiving dividends of more than R500-million a year.

In 2011, Kumba turned each of its 6 209 employees into pretax half-millionaires when each of them received a R576 000 capital pay-out.

Kumba's employees who own 3% of Sishen Iron Ore Company stand to receive another large pay-out when the Envision employee share ownership plan matures again in November 2016. They have also received dividends in between.

Twenty-six per cent of Kumba, headed by CEO Norman Mbazima, has been in black hands for the last eight years, following the unbundling of the mining assets out of the former State-owned integrated steelmaking corporation, Iscor, now ArcelorMittal South Africa.

Kumba obtains its empowerment credentials from the black-controlled JSE-listed Exxaro, which incorporated the black-owned Eyesizwe coal business, Tiso, Eyabantu, Basadi Bakopane and the State-owned Industrial Development Corporation holdings to create South Africa’s largest 55% black-held company.

The three mines in Kumba’s stable have relatively long lives. The new Kolomela mine, in the Northern Cape, has a 25-year horizon, excluding all the exploration potential; Sishen has at least another 19 years to go, and the Thabazimbi mine, in Limpopo, is being reconfigured into a low-cost, long-life operation.

The company expects to be producing at a rate of 50-million tons a year from 2016.

South Africa’s State-owned Transnet has been able to transport every single ton of iron-ore that Kumba has produced, sometimes even going beyond its 44-million-ton contract obligation.
 

Edited by Creamer Media Reporter

Comments

The content you are trying to access is only available to subscribers.

If you are already a subscriber, you can Login Here.

If you are not a subscriber, you can subscribe now, by selecting one of the below options.

For more information or assistance, please contact us at subscriptions@creamermedia.co.za.

Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):

Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format

Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):

All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.

Already a subscriber?

Forgotten your password?

MAGAZINE & ONLINE

SUBSCRIBE

RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA

SUBSCRIBE

CORPORATE PACKAGES

CLICK FOR A QUOTATION