EDITOR’S COMMENT

Mirroring the world, mining and local government pipedreams

Driving along the N1 in Gauteng the other day, and for once in the passenger seat, I didn’t have to pay attention to the road. Instead, I could look at the office blocks, factories and other buildings, and the pavements, seeing things I hadn’t noticed before.

At a point, we passed a dump site just metres away from the never-ending lines of traffic, cars and trucks that push the speed limits, emitting noxious fumes and a 24/7 thrum of noise. To the side were some shacks, homes for a few of the millions of people who live below the poverty line, in a country which, according to Aljazeera.com, now has the world’s highest unemployment rate. “South Africa’s unemployment rate surged to the highest on a global list of 82 countries monitored by Bloomberg,” it reported, with the unemployment rate, which includes people who have stopped looking for work, rising to 44.4% in the second quarter of 2021.

Beautiful South Africa, with all its possibilities, its rich history, its many fascinating cultures, its abundant mountains and rivers and mineral wealth, is also riddled with ugliness: crime, corruption, joblessness, hunger, hatred and fear. It’s a constant challenge to stay upbeat, with the pandemic adding angst. Difficult for those of us with jobs and money to buy food and pay for security, how much worse is it for the woman sorting through the dirty and the discarded for items to sell, the recyclers who push heavy burdens up and down hills with impatient motorists hooting at them to get out of their way, the beggars (yes, some are drug addicts and alcoholics), the homeless, the unemployed, and the persecuted (including our children and whistleblowers). Now, more than ever before, we as individuals need to show kindness, compassion and courage — and I couldn’t put it better than this passage (shortened) by Mohandas Gandhi in 1913, which I found on QuoteInvestigator.com: “We but mirror the world... If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him… A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.”

There are good people among us: those who leave big tips on small restaurant bills, those who volunteer their time in soup kitchens, the ones who pick up stray animals and take them home or to places of safety, the carers at orphanages and retirement centres, and the man behind me in Checkers the other day. While the security guards gathered at the entrance, waiting to catch a shoplifter whose pilfering had been caught on camera, I was paying for my groceries. I wanted to get out of there before the arrest, so I told the cashier not to worry about my Checkers card. The man behind me then handed his card to her, for my benefit. It saved me R30. He got nothing out of it — it was a genuine act of kindness. I promised him I would pay it forward, and I did.

Mining

With our main feature in this issue being mining security (page 12), I was researching the subject when I came across an address by Neal Froneman, CEO of the SibanyeStillwater mine.

He delivered it at the second Marikana Memorial Lecture, which took place on 17 August 2021 to honour those killed in the 2012 Marikana tragedy, to promote thought leadership and ‘to create a new horizon for all of us’.

“Earlier this year, His Grace, the Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, Bishop Thabo Makgoba, spoke of the challenges that South Africa faces as a people and as a country,” Froneman said. “He called on all role players to find common ground, established on a mutual recognition of truth and justice, to overcome our differences and to work with common purpose for a common good for all of us. He asked parties to reach across those chasms that separate us, to begin to build bridges and a South Africa for everyone.”

His words were supported by action. Earlier this year, Sibanye-Stillwater announced a R4 billion investment in the Marikana-based K4 mine shaft to bring it into production, with the hope that the initiative will create 4,400 new jobs. This, he said, would help provide sustained local employment, which will help address “the crisis of unemployment, especially amongst the youth, and also create the potential to build local supply chains that will support entrepreneurial growth in the local communities”.

The mining giant has also launched a programme that will help twenty local entrepreneurs build their businesses and participate in its supply chains. Big and small, acts of kindness and caring matter.

We need to protect our whistleblowers

Writing in the recently released 2021 Analysis of Corruption Trends (ACT) report by Corruption Watch, Melusi Ncala, researcher at Corruption Watch, stressed the urgency around protecting vulnerable whistleblowers. “As key role-players in dismantling patterns of abuse and impunity by the corrupt, whistleblowers deserve commitment and support from the highest echelons of power to ensure their safety, and to create an environment that encourages reporting corruption. It will take all sectors of society coming together to make serious inroads in tackling the corruption that occurs at every layer of public and private authority in the country. This is the least that is owed to the people represented in this report, who have demonstrated courage in stepping up, driven by their belief in a corruption-free South Africa,” she said. She is right, and brave, and so are those people who stand up for what’s right, even when doing so puts their lives at risk.

CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA: Party officials wait at information booths during municipal elections, in Cape Town, South Africa on 18 May 2011

Local government

Ahead of South Africa’s local elections, scheduled to take place on 1 November, President Cyril Ramaphosa wrote in his weekly ‘From the desk of the president’ of the importance of local government being ‘accessible, visible and above all, reachable’, with electricity being a critical aspect of their service delivery. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the election promises turned into reality this time?

As President Ramaphosa said, public confidence in local government is eroded when people are deprived of basic services, and the result in South Africa as often as not leads to protest action and even violence. The latest data from the Public Violence and Protest Monitor, produced by the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), shows that of the 585 water and sanitation service delivery protests recorded between January 2013 and April 2021 in South Africa, 65% turned violent.

Be careful, be safe, and be kind.

Ingrid Olivier, Editor

ingridolivier@idotwrite.co.za