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Richard Spoor Profile picture
@Richard_Spoor
Sep 14, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read • Read on X
Fantastic court victory for our Xolobeni clients. The N.Gauteng High Court has ruled that the owners and occupiers of land in respect of which a mining rights application is filed are entitled to be furnished with a copy of the application as of right.
To date the only way to see the application was through a complex and lengthy PAIA request and even then in most cases it is still not provided. Now owners and occupiers are allowed to demand it and it must be furnished to them.
This is going to make it much easier to oppose mining rights, prospecting and mining permit applications, because you can now see the full details of who is applying and what they propose to do.
The DMRE routinely approves bad applications by fly by night companies headed up by cronies who don’t have the skills or resources to mine sustainably. This will make it much easier to put a stop to that kind of abuse. ✊🏽

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More from @Richard_Spoor

Richard Spoor Profile picture
Feb 26
Our trade union client gets good information that Samancor Chrome is engaged in large scale transfer pricing. They sell chrome that they mine in SA to a related offshore company at a heavy discount to the market price. They do so to lower their profit in SA and their taxes.
This is bad news for the unions members who have shares in the company through a worker empowerment trust set up by the company as part of its BEE obligations. The trust gets a reduced dividend and workers get a smaller distribution.
The Union calls upon Samancor Ito Section 165 of the Companies Act to investigate the allegations and to recover the moneys lost through the transfer pricing scheme. Samancor appoints an audit firm to do the investigation.
Read 10 tweets
Richard Spoor Profile picture
Feb 14
This is how SANRAl moves rural people in Pondoland to make way for their grand vanity project, the N2 greenfields freeway along the Transkei Wild Coast. You know the one, it’s a toll road with the highest bridges in the world built and designed to facilitate dune strip mining.
But perhaps the first thing is to explain how they should move them. Because SANRAL uses foreign (Chinese) contractors and uses World Bank money it is obliged to subscribe to IFC social and environmental standards. These require that SANRAl prepare a RAP.
A Relocation Action Plan requires that SANRAl consider the social and economic consequences of its forced displacement on the people it plans to move. Where will they be moved to? The minimum housing standards that will apply, compensation and provision of alternative livelihoods
Read 17 tweets
Richard Spoor Profile picture
Jan 12, 2024
Well, that was a very impressive and dignified response by Israel. The confidence we had coming out of yesterday’s hearing has pretty much evaporated. It does appear that SA’s case was light on hard evidence.
The evidence of genocidal intent in the form of statements by leaders is much less impactful when placed in context and countered with other statements, orders and directives requiring the Israeli military to respect the rules of war. We missed Israel’s humanitarian initiatives.
Our reliance on evidence of massive civilian casualties and damage to property and infrastructure, to prove intent, is not that telling in circumstances where we are unable to show that the harm and damage would have been any less, if Israel had complied with the rule of law.
Read 9 tweets
Richard Spoor Profile picture
Jan 12, 2024
Let’s clear up some of the common misunderstandings about what South Africa’s complaint is about.
1. Israel’s contention that Hamas is an antisemitic terrorist organisation with a genocidal intent, is not in issue.
2. The scale and nature of the Oct 7 atrocity is not in issue.
3. Israel’s right to self defense and its right to wage war against Hamas in order to destroy for good, its capacity to attack Israel and its people and to free the hostages is not in issue.
What is in issue is the manner in and intention with which Israel is conducting that war.
South Africa contends that based on the utterances of senior Israeli political and military leaders and the conduct of its military forces in Gaza that it is clear that Israel’s strategy to destroy Hamas is to target the civilian population of Gaza and to punish them.
Read 8 tweets
Richard Spoor Profile picture
Jan 12, 2023
Consulted with a client today. His experience is representative of how SOE’s work.
Telkom is rolling out fibre in some townships in Gauteng. It appointed a main contractor but because the contractor lacks local influence, it insists on the use of a local subcontractor.
The main contractor does the buying and pays the subcontractor. The main contractor gets 30% of the contract value, the subcontractor gets 70%. The work goes well till other local political players decide to muscle in. They start destroying the installed fibre infrastructure.
The Telkom contract manager tells the main contractor he must split the subcontracting work between all those demanding a share of the subcontracting work. My client, the subcontractor refuses to agree to the splitting of his sub contract.
Read 7 tweets
Richard Spoor Profile picture
Aug 25, 2022
Got a letter today from SASOL’s attorneys, the estimable firm of Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr. My client is a farmer with a farm downstream from one of SASOL’s waste water dams, known as Dam F. Dam F was built in the 80’s to accommodate toxic waste water from the coal mines.
Dam F was designed to leak waste water. The clay was carefully removed to build the dam wall exposing the weathered dolorite, that constitutes the floor of the dam, which leaks like a seive. It’s a cunning way to leach polluted waste water into the ground water.
This is much cheaper than treating the water or evaporating it. From Dam F the waste water flows into the ground water and eventually surfaces in the dams in the stream flowing through my clients property. His animals drink the waste water and get sick and die.
Read 9 tweets

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