Open letter to Parliament

OPEN LETTER TO THE PARLIAMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA

To:         The Speaker of the National Assembly
              The Chairperson of the National Council of Provinces
              The Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Mineral and Petroleum Resources
               Members of Parliament

Date:    12 March 2026

 

Re: Lack of Response to Community Petition and Urgent Concerns Regarding the Upcoming MPRDA Amendments

Honourable Speaker of the National Assembly and Members of Parliament,

Mining Affected Communities United in Action (MACUA) and  the Bench Marks Foundation (BMF), the Alliance for Rural Democracy (ARD) together with partners in the 100-Year Debt Campaign, write publicly to express our deep concern regarding Parliament’s continued lack of response to the petition submitted on 26 November 2025 by mining-affected communities and civil society organisations. That petition raised urgent issues concerning mining governance, community rights, environmental liabilities, and systemic regulatory failure in South Africa’s mining sector.

This petition was not a symbolic submission. It was a formal appeal from mining-affected communities across the country asking Parliament to exercise its constitutional oversight responsibilities in relation to the governance of South Africa’s mineral resources.

Yet months later, no substantive response or engagement has been forthcoming.

This silence comes at a moment when recent developments have once again exposed the profound weaknesses in South Africa’s mining governance framework.

 

The Lessons of Stilfontein, Jagersfontein, Kriel and the Liquidation of Ekapa Minerals

Across South Africa’s mining sector, a troubling pattern is emerging, profits are privatised, while liabilities are socialised. The recent crises at Stilfontein, Jagersfontein, Kriel and the liquidation of Ekapa Minerals illustrate how the long-term costs of mining are increasingly borne not by multinational corporations, but by workers, communities and the South African state.

Recent developments across the mining sector should therefore concern Parliament and underline the urgency of the issues raised in our petition.

What connects the crises at Stilfontein, Jagersfontein, Kriel and Ekapa is not coincidence. Each of these operations was previously part of the Anglo-American mining system before being sold or transferred to other operators.

Today, the consequences of those divestments are being borne not by the multinational corporation that built its wealth from these assets, but by workers, communities, municipalities and the public purse.

At Ekapa Minerals in Kimberley, the recent liquidation now threatens workers, surrounding communities and the regional economy.

At Jagersfontein, the catastrophic collapse of the tailings dam destroyed homes, livelihoods and ecosystems in one of the most devastating mining disasters in recent South African history.

At Stilfontein, the crisis surrounding abandoned mining infrastructure and the desperate conditions faced by miners exposed the social and regulatory failures that follow when historic mining systems collapse.

And in Kriel, the eviction of mining-affected households has demonstrated how communities can be displaced and rendered vulnerable while the regulatory system struggles to protect their rights.

Taken together, these cases reveal a clear structural pattern: large multinational mining houses extract value over decades and then divest ageing or high-liability assets to smaller operators, leaving communities and the public to carry the environmental, social and economic consequences when those operations ultimately fail.

Across the mining sector, major multinational corporations increasingly divest ageing, high-risk or high-liability assets to junior companies. While these sales and divestments are often presented as ordinary commercial transactions, and at times celebrated as Black Economic Empowerment by the Minister of Mineral and Petroleum Resources,  the acquiring companies frequently lack the capital base required to sustain operations, meet environmental obligations or fulfil Social and Labour Plan commitments.

When such companies collapse or fail, the consequences are predictable:

In effect, profits are privatised while liabilities are socialised.

These transfers did not occur in a regulatory vacuum. They were approved within South Africa’s existing mining governance framework, raising serious questions about whether the current oversight mechanisms governing the transfer of mining rights and associated liabilities are adequate to protect workers, communities and the public interest.

The crises at Stilfontein, Jagersfontein, Kriel and the liquidation of Ekapa Minerals therefore reveal a profound accountability gap in South Africa’s mining governance system. In each case, operations once controlled by Anglo American were divested, leaving workers, communities and the public to bear the consequences when those systems failed.

What appears at first as a series of isolated incidents increasingly resembles a systemic pattern in which corporate exit precedes governance failure and community harm. While corporate restructuring and asset sales are presented as ordinary commercial transactions, the practical effect has often been the transfer of risk, liability and long-term environmental obligations from large multinational companies to weaker operators, communities and ultimately the South African state.

These developments also raise important questions in light of the recent Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on the obligations of States in respect of climate change. The Court reaffirmed that States have a duty under international law to exercise due diligence in preventing significant environmental harm and to regulate the activities of private actors operating within their jurisdiction. This duty includes adopting and enforcing legislative and regulatory measures capable of preventing foreseeable environmental and social harm.

The repeated crises associated with former Anglo-American operations, from the Jagersfontein disaster to the Stilfontein siege, the Kriel evictions and now the liquidation of Ekapa, raise troubling questions about whether South Africa’s mining governance framework is capable of preventing companies from divesting from operations while leaving communities, workers and the state to bear the consequences.

Without effective oversight and accountability, the pattern will continue: profits privatised, liabilities socialised.

 

Parliament’s Constitutional Responsibility

The Constitution vests custodianship of South Africa’s mineral resources in the state on behalf of its people. Parliament therefore carries a critical responsibility to ensure that the legal and regulatory framework governing mining protects communities, workers, ecosystems and the long-term national interest.

Effective oversight is particularly important in the mining sector, where the social, environmental and economic consequences of regulatory failure can extend across generations. When governance failures emerge, Parliament has both the authority and the obligation to examine whether the existing legal and regulatory framework remains fit for purpose.

The events described above are not isolated accidents. They reflect the foreseeable consequences of a governance system that permits value to be extracted while responsibility for long-term social, environmental and financial liabilities is progressively transferred downward to weaker operators, affected communities and ultimately the public purse.

Mining-affected communities raised these concerns directly with Parliament through the petition submitted in November 2025. The developments now unfolding across the mining sector demonstrate that the risks identified in that petition were neither hypothetical nor remote.

They are unfolding in real time.

 

Serious Concerns Regarding the Pending Amendments to the MPRDA

Our concern is heightened by indications that the Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources (DMPR) intends to introduce amendments to the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act (MPRDA).

MACUA and other civil society organisations participated in consultation engagements with the Department regarding these proposed amendments, including discussions held with the DMPR in December 2025.

While these consultations were presented as an opportunity to incorporate community perspectives, we remain concerned that the forthcoming amendments may proceed without addressing the fundamental governance failures raised in the petition before Parliament.

In particular, the proposed reform process appears unlikely to address several structural weaknesses that continue to undermine mining governance in South Africa.

1. Liability Transfers and Asset Divestment

The current legal framework allows major mining houses to divest assets without adequate safeguards to ensure that environmental, social and closure liabilities remain enforceable against the original operators.

Without meaningful reform, the pattern seen in Stilfontein, Jagersfontein, Kriel and Ekapa will continue to repeat itself: large companies exit high-liability assets while communities and the state carry the consequences when those operations fail.

 

 

2. Weak Enforcement of Social and Labour Plans (SLPs)

Across South Africa, Social and Labour Plans remain among the most systematically violated instruments in mining governance.

Communities continue to experience:

Despite the central role that SLPs are intended to play in ensuring community development and local economic participation, enforcement remains inconsistent and weak.

3. Lack of Binding Community Participation

Communities affected by mining operations continue to be treated primarily as stakeholders to be consulted, rather than as rights-bearing participants whose consent meaningfully shapes decisions affecting their land, livelihoods and futures.

This structural exclusion undermines democratic governance, weakens accountability and contributes to growing social conflict across mining regions.

4. Inadequate Financial Provisioning for Mine Closure

South Africa faces billions of rand in unfunded environmental liabilities linked to historic and ongoing mining operations.

Without stronger financial provisioning requirements and enforceable guarantees for mine closure and rehabilitation, the public continues to absorb costs that should remain the responsibility of mining companies.

5. Failure to Regulate Corporate Exit and Restructuring

Major mining companies are increasingly restructuring, relocating or divesting South African assets while retaining profits accumulated over decades of extraction.

The current legal framework provides no effective public-interest test governing corporate exit or asset restructuring in the mining sector. As a result, communities and workers remain exposed to the consequences of abandoned or weakened operations.

 

The Risk of Reform Without Transformation

Parliament must therefore be alert to a serious risk: that the forthcoming MPRDA amendments may be presented as reform while leaving the underlying governance failures largely untouched.

South Africa cannot afford legislative changes that prioritise investment certainty while leaving communities, workers and ecosystems structurally unprotected.

The cases of Stilfontein, Jagersfontein, Kriel and Ekapa demonstrate the consequences of weak oversight, insufficient liability safeguards and inadequate enforcement mechanisms.

Unless these structural weaknesses are addressed, similar crises will continue to emerge across the mining sector.

The responsibility to prevent such outcomes ultimately rests with the institutions charged with safeguarding the public interest, and Parliament’s oversight role is therefore indispensable.

 

Our Call to Parliament

In light of the concerns outlined above, we respectfully call on Parliament to take the following steps:

 

 

Securing South Africa’s Mining Future

Mining remains central to South Africa’s economy and development trajectory. However, unless the governance framework is strengthened, the sector risks perpetuating a pattern in which wealth generated through extraction flows outward while the environmental, social and financial liabilities remain behind.

The crises unfolding across former Anglo-American operations illustrate the urgency of confronting this structural challenge.

Parliament now faces a clear responsibility: to ensure that South Africa’s mineral resources are governed in a manner consistent with the Constitution, the public interest and the international obligation, recently reaffirmed by the International Court of Justice, to prevent environmental harm and ensure that private actors do not profit while communities and the state are left to bear the consequences.

Mining-affected communities and civil society organisations stand ready to engage constructively with Parliament in pursuit of meaningful reform.

However, continued silence or inaction in the face of these realities would represent a failure to address a governance crisis that is already unfolding across the mining sector.

We respectfully request a written response to this letter within fourteen (14) days of receipt, indicating what steps Parliament will take to address the issues raised and to respond to the petition submitted by mining-affected communities on 26 November 2025.

 

Yours Sincerely