JOHANNESBURG (Business Day) -- Anglo Platinum [JSE:AMS] faces the threat of a court battle over the relocation of the people of two villages in Limpopo if the land affairs department approves agreements between Angloplat's Potgietersrus Platinum (PPRust) and a section 21 company said to be influenced by Angloplat.
The agreements are about the leasing of land to the displaced villagers.
Class-action lawyer Richard Spoor said yesterday that if Angloplat persuaded the land affairs department to lease land to the section 21 company on behalf of the villagers, he would apply for an interdict to nullify the agreement.
He also wants a court order prohibiting the section 21 company from representing the villagers .
Without the lease agreement, there would be nowhere for the villagers to be relocated to, and Angloplat's plans for expanding its mine near Mokopane would be stymied.
Work on the site, to increase the mine's output to take advantage of recent strong platinum prices, is under way.
This week, the relocation of about 10000 people from the villages of Ga-Puka and Ga- Sekhaolelo, at the rate of about 10 families a day, began. It will continue until early next year.
Angloplat met representatives of the land affairs department yesterday to clarify issues related to the expansion of the PPRust North mine and the relocation of the villagers. No decisions were taken, the company said.
Spoor, who gained international recognition for a R480 million ($67.2 million) asbestos debilitation suit against Gencor and now represents a group of discontented villagers, said: "We will look at getting an order prohibiting the section 21 company from representing the communities or acting on their behalf."
Spoor said that in 1998, when members of the two communities were nominated to the board of the section 21 company, the board was a representative body. But since then the elected members had benefited by receiving an income from Angloplat and by being given by Angloplat the right to award contracts and offer employment.
Angloplat said it was paying the board members a stipend for their out-of-pocket expenses and was paying the fees of consultants engaged by the communities.
It said the land to which the villagers were to be relocated had been chosen by them and the relocation now under way was the culmination of years of negotiation. The company had signed agreements with community leaders as well as with every homeowner. These agreements included each homeowner's agreement to move to the new villages at Armoede and Rooibokfontein.
Apart from receiving a modern house, each household would be paid a settling-in allowance of R20000. Other amounts had been committed to community trusts and small-business development funds.
But Spoor said Angloplat was not properly compensating the villagers for what they were losing.
"There are massive social and environmental costs that are not being factored into the equation. Subsistence farmers, which is what these people are, are losing their ability to provide for themselves, which they have done successfully for generations," he said.
"The first massive removal of 7000 people from Ga-Pila to Sterkwater, in 2003, is a case in point. Sterkwater is now a rural slum and the people are very unhappy."
Section 5 of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act made it a criminal offence to prospect on land unless an environmental plan had been approved and landowners had been consulted.
"This (section) is now being replaced with 21 days' notice to appeal, during which time companies can continue to prospect," Spoor said.
