Newsletter | “Before the mine was opened people here were farming. Life was better before the mine started operating because people did not depend on money. Now the mine is closed and there’s no more money. People are stranded.”
Nelly Nkosi walks wearily towards the motlopi where her colleagues are taking a break in the shade, sharing a lunch of bread and atchar washed down with cold drink.
All the people on the project are unemployed and depend on government social grants to provide for their children. A group of 20 women and two men are clearing a 2ha piece of land with their bare hands, hoping to turn it into a profitable agricultural business venture. Picture: Lucas Ledwaba Anglo chief executive officer Chris Griffith told the company’s indaba in 2015 that Twickenham mine would be the first mechanised mine to demonstrate low-profile technology.The company has an overall modernisation programme in place and feasibility studies have shown that, for Twickenham mine to be viable, it would need to be fully mechanised.
Taeya Hlongwa, chairperson of the Community Engagement Forum which represents at least 40 000 people from nine villages close to the mine, says the residents want Twickenham reopened. Former mine employees, such as Evans Baloyi, a rock drill operator who was retrenched in 2017, remain in the dark waiting for news. He says the reason he was given when laid off work was that “the company is introducing machines”.
A research paper by North-West University concluded that “mine closures, in general, have a devastating effect on the surrounding mining communities as well as on the employees”. He earns R10 for every trip he makes transporting goods, which include firewood, groceries, building sand and other goods on a donkey cart with six others.
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