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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
Jul 4
A politically connected developer is building another shopping mall in Marite near Bushbuckridge. She needs to move a whole bunch of people who have lived there forever to clear the land she needs. She hired the local chief to do the removals.
The Chief is Lamack Mokoena the chairperson of the Mpumalanga House of Traditional Leaders and the national president of the Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa (Contralesa).likely the most powerful chief in Mpumalanga.
The Chief allocates land and can take it away by having a community resolution passed approving the mall development and resolving that residents permits to occupy the land be taken from them. He had such a resolution passed.
Read 9 tweets
Richard Spoor Profile picture
Jun 10
Following a resettlement of a community by a large platinum mining company in Limpopo and as part of livelihoods restoration project, the resettled community became the BEE partner of a big contractor on the mine.
It has been incredibly successful, the community got jobs, a profit share to all the families and significant skills development. However the contract is coming to an end. The mining company then says that they will renew it but only if the contractor replaces the community…
with a new BEE partner of the company’s choosing. The nominated BEE partner is a trust headed by the local chief, a politically connected local attorney and a senior executive of the mining company concerned. They demand that the community sell their shares to the trust at a…
Read 8 tweets
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

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