Scrap the MPRDA - Nothing About Us, Without Us

14 April 2015 After  concerted efforts by mining affected communities to engage parliament on the MPRDA failed, and the Bill rushed through the NCOP, communities wrote to the President to call on him to return the Bill to Parliament for further consultation and after the  decision by President Zuma to refer the Mineral & Petroleum Resources Development Act (MPRDA) back to Parliament for reconsideration, a broad coalition of mining affected communities from across South Africa and civil society organisations deliberated over 3 days to set out  a declaration which captures the demands of mining affected communities and which sets out the vision of the coalition  for mining-affected communities to attain greater social and environmental justice in mining in South Africa.

The key declaration is based on the following principles:

Community Voice in Decision Making through negotiation based on right of consent to determine what activities occur on one’s land.

Democratic Community representation and customary decision making processes that are community based and not based on undemocratic traditional Authority.

Benefits from mining activities (profits, employment, procurement, and local economic development) should be shared equitably distributed to directly affected communities, near mining communities, workers and the public through a democratic process.

The public, specifically mining affected communities must have the right to Free and accessible access to information regarding all operations that affect the economic, social and environmental well-being of communities.

Communities bear a disproportionate burden of the costs of mining and there should be independent, accessible, speedy, and effective recourse mechanisms, before during and after mining. Rehabilitation standards should ensure that the land is no worse than when mining started.

Restitution and Reparations should correct historical wrongs and should include environmental, social, cultural and heritage rights including spiritual connections to land, people and nature.

Compensation for loss of livelihoods and economic social, environmental, cultural and heritage resources should be based on full cost accounting including future losses of alternative development paths and value loss of minerals.  

The Coalition also demands proper and comprehensive opportunities for input by mining-affected communities on the revision of the MPRDA.

The Civil Society Coalition on the MPRDA

The Civil Society Coalition on the MPRDA was formed at the Alternative Mining Indaba held in Cape Town in February, and given the mandate to demand and ensure a just extractives law and policy is adopted for  mining in South Africa. The Coalition is made up of mining affected communities, civil society organisations, community based organisations and networks, unions and individuals, and is advised on legal matters by four law clinics working to protect and advance the rights of mining-affected communities. (See a full list of Coalition members and advisors below.) According to Lerato Mphalane “Those most severely impacted by mining are also those most excluded from decision making about or benefits from mining. The formation of the Coalition is a response, after many years of fruitless attempts at engagement, and many broken promises by government and industry, to the closed-door policy of the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) and the ongoing failure of the Chamber of Mines to take community concerns seriously.” In March 2015, the Coalition held a national meeting in Berea, Johannesburg, to develop a strategy to ensure that community and environmental concerns are included in the draft MPRDA sent back to Parliament by President Zuma in January 2015.

Community representations on MPRDA Amendment Bill ignored

During the National Assembly hearings on the MPRDA Amendment Bill in 2013, civil society and mining-affected communities made numerous detailed representations to Parliament. They highlighted the fact that the Amendment Bill failed to deal with any of the long-standing problems with the previous legislation, inter alia: ·         the inability of the public to access vital information about mining; ·         The further exclusion of communities from claiming their rights to Free prior and Informed Consent. ·         the widespread disregard for environmental laws and rehabilitation obligations; ·         the abject failure of “social and labour plans” to make many meaningful improvement in the lives of mining communities; and ·         the inappropriateness of making the DMR the authority that oversees environmental compliance by the mining industry.  “All of these representations were ignored by Parliament, and the Bill was rushed through the National Council of Provinces with unseemly haste in what appears to have been a deliberate attempt to prevent public participation. Furthermore, community representatives were treated with contempt and prejudice by the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Mineral Resources, which displayed a total lack of understanding of their concerns,” says Mashile Philane.

Community requests for meetings ignored

Mining Affected Communities United in Action (MACUA), which represents over 70 community based organisations across South Africa, requested a meeting with Minister Ngoako Ramatlhodi as far back as May 2014 when he was appointed, but to date he has not had the courtesy to respond to this request. Prior to that, in early 2013, the Mining and Environmental Justice Community Network of South Africa, a network of mining affected communities, requested a meeting with the previous Minister of Mineral Resources, Susan Shabangu, but this request was also ignored. Instead the Minister has gone from conference to conference to meet with business leaders across the world in order to sell the very minerals that communities are contesting. In all the presentations made from Cape Town to Davos, we have not discerned any significant concern or focus on communities and their consistent demand for a just and inclusive mining policy, regulation and legislation. The Minister seems to be deliberately ignoring the most pressing needs of society when dealing with the mining question and is intently focussed on attracting and appeasing corporate business interests at the expense of both communities and South Africa as a whole. The Minister urgently needs to meet with civil society and mining affected communities to plan for a proper consultative conference where government, labour, business and communities are able to work through the many challenging and vexing problems faced by the industry. 

The Berea Meeting

Over 60 community representatives from all nine provinces of South Africa spent 3 days unpacking the current Bill and developing their own responses, actions and demands to be presented during the legislative process that is expected to unfold as a result of the Bill having been referred back to Parliament.  The delegates finalised a formal declaration on 26 March 2015, noting that the current mining laws limit our democratic and inalienable right to self-determination and setting out the basis on which the Coalition will engage with the legislature, the DMR and industry in the upcoming legislative process and beyond. “By bringing together organisations and individuals from across the country, each with a long history of opposition to a mining industry which continues to enrich a small group of business leaders and politicians while wreaking havoc on our livelihoods and our environment, the formation of the Coalition marks a turning point in the struggle for mining justice in South Africa,” says Meshack Mbunagula 

The Coalition will make detailed submissions to the 9 Provincial Parliaments on the MPRDDA Bill and will continue to engage with Government and the mining industry in other fora on mining law and practices that impinge on our rights. Christopher Rutledge for the Coalition points out that “should the Minister, Parliament and the Chamber of Mines continue to ignore the legitimate demands of mining affected communities and calls for a just extractives law and policy, that the Coalition will increase its efforts to mobilise communities through various activities such as calling a Peoples Tribunal, and Local, Provincial and National Peoples Assemblies to collect demands from mining affected communities and to expose the unjust nature of the current dispensation. We support the call of communities that there must be Nothing about Us without Us” he said.