the application from the Mining Forum of South Africa, representing the Bapo-Ba-Mogale community, to declare the minister responsible for mineral resources in breach of his statutory obligation to hold Lonmin to account for not complying with its Social and Labour Plan.
Even though these SLPs are designed to address the needs of the local host community and mitigate the impact of an influx of labour, these community members often have no idea what promises the mining companies have made to improve their lives. Companies long argued that the SLPs contained sensitive commercial information and therefore couldn’t be disclosed. Communities countered that they had no way of holding mining companies to account if they didn’t know what they had committed to doing.
Lonmin, in reply, told the Court that while it may not have complied with the SLP precisely as it was set out, it had spent a substantial amount of money “on upliftment programmes” and other BEE projects and therefore could not be accused of attempting to escape its SLP responsibilities.