The Mining Forum of South Africa (MFSA) says the Mafikeng High Court will, on October 26, hold a hearing into an application lodged by the MFSA against the Mineral Resources Minister over allegations that platinum miner Lonmin is not complying with its social and labour plans (SLPs).
The application seeks the court to compel the Mineral Resources Minister to act against Lonmin.
The MFSA says this comes after the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) conducted inspection audits of Lonmin’s SLPs in August 2017. The forum says the DMR found that Lonmin failed to comply with obligations committed to in its 2014 to 2018 SLPs.
The forum states that Lonmin failed to fulfil obligations in terms of housing, local economic development, human resource development, employment equity and procurement, for the last two decades – two SLP cycles.
The MFSA says the minister has failed to take reasonable steps to enforce the social contract concluded between Lonmin and people of South Africa.
“The Minister is in breach of Section 25 of the Constitution in that he arbitrarily took away the right to insist on the fulfilment with the SLPs by September, as Lonmin was obliged to do.”
Lonmin has confirmed it is party to the legal proceedings as respondents, but could not make provide further comment before the hearing has taken place.