Bokoni Platinum ordered to provide retrenchment details

The Bench Marks Foundation has thrown down the gauntlet to Bokoni Platinum in Limpopo, which is retrenching 2 651 employees, to give details of its plans to mothball shafts as it reiterated its call for mining houses to pay retrenched employees social grants. According to Business Report, Bench Marks, the faith-based non-governmental organisation that monitors corporate performance, said that communities feared that the mine would use this ‘suspension’ as a way of avoiding its requirement to rehabilitate the land. It was responding to news that Bokoni had been placed in a two-year period of care and maintenance to regain its financial strength. Bench Marks executive director, John Capel, also said that mining companies should establish a system of social grants to support the mineworkers they were retrenching. He said that responsibility to workers and communities did not end when a mine suspended its operations, and that the onus was on mining companies to ensure sustainable life for affected communities.