ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS OVER GREEN CHERT MINING AT MALOLOTJA

MBABANE – There is an intention to petition Michael Lee Enterprises (MLE) (Pty) Ltd over concerns with their prospecting licence to mine green chert at Malolotja National Park.

Residents and concerned citizens are demanding a full, independent and transparent Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) on the green chert proposed mine at Malolotja. This follows a scoping meeting that was held at Killarney Stadium in Pigg’s Peak a week ago, where residents, environmentalists and other stakeholders forwarded their grievances on the activity occurring inside the Malolotja National Park as a result of the issuing of a prospect mining licence to Michael Lee Enterprises Eswatini (Pty) Ltd.

Among the multiple concerns raised by the residents and stakeholders was that during the prospecting, the Republic of China (Taiwan) based company developed a road to the site, destroyed forest and grassland, bulldozed soil and has been blasting rock and removing it from the site using excavating machines and removal trucks.

Consultation

There is also the concern that there was no public consultation process, prior to issuing the prospecting licence and there was no public review of the documented proposed activities. This is contained in a communiqué shared among all concerned parties, which depicts that a full, independent and transparent environmental impact assessment must be carried out by the relevant authorities, with results shared to the general public. The communiqué also has it that there was a clear intention to mine gold, as it was evidently seen by environmentalists on site but it is not indicated in the project description.

The communiqué seeks to inform all concerned parties to raise official concerns, which would be considered in the EIA. The residents have until midnight today to forward their comments, concerns or queries to project consultants Geo Solutions on the email address futhid@gmail.com or a secondary email address protectmalolotja@gmail.com, as stipulated in the communiqué.

Petition

The proposed petition was further fuelled by the project description posted through an advert in the local publications, which the concerned parties said was very short on details about the project. They highlighted that there was a clear and seemingly intentional lack of transparency, accountability and community involvement in the project and this became even clearer, as the scoping meeting went on. Neither the newspaper advert or project description made mention of the gold or the other colours of chert discovered on the site. It was not mentioned in the meeting, until it was raised by a speaker.

It seems MLE had intended to keep the community fully in the dark about their intentions to mine gold, evidenced by the shocked reactions of many people present when it was revealed that gold was on their agenda. During the scoping meeting, which was held on April 27, 2024, Geo-Solutions representative identified as Themba, acknowledged that they know it looked as if they had already started mining, and they wanted to let people know that they had not.

However, to those living close to the mine, it seemed as if the company has already started mining. This was evidenced by people’s reports of many trucks passing every day for some time by homesteads close to the road and the massive scale of extraction clearly seen in the pictures taken of the site, as well as large chunks of green chert sitting at the offloading site that was already built, close to the Maguga dam.

Suspect

“When some of us asked if we could visit the mining site as concerned environmentalists, we were told no. It seems they have something to hide, and I suspect one of them is the scale at which they are already operating,” said one of the concerned parties. Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Tourism and Environmental Affairs Khangeziwe Mabuza said as a ministry, they were not mandated to address issues of the mining prospect, as they were only landlords at Malolotja.

She mentioned that the Ministry of Natural Resources and Energy were better positioned to address issues pertaining to the prospect mining at the game reserve. It should be mentioned that Mabuza once mentioned that Malolotja National Park was a protected area of global, regional and national conservation priority, owing to its unique biodiversity, geology, ecological connectivity and as a ministry, there were skeptical of the proposed mining at the park.The Ministry of Natural Resources and Energy Communications Officer, Sikelela Khoza, advised that the company issued with the prospecting licence was better positioned to attend to matters of concern on their prospecting, but the ministry was ready to intervene if need be.

Submissions

MLE Mouthpiece Prince Makhosonkhe Dlamini said the entity made the undertaking to call residents and all interested parties to make public submissions on the proposed mining of the green chert at the park. He revealed that the expectation was that all concerned parties would forward their concerns or queries whether spoken or in writing. He mentioned that it was a concern to him and the entity that some people were now lobbying for the concerned parties to make comments or queries and concerns for purposes of forwarding to the entity yet a room for doing that was formally and publicly declared.

“The concerns that were forwarded by all the stakeholders will be attended to by Geo Solutions and they would act as the constitution of MLE.
“They would be made public so that the concerned parties are satisfied that their concerns were all attended to and thereafter, the Eswatini Environment Authority will look into them,” he said. Dlamini said as much as they made submissions open to the public, they would still receive a petition from concerned parties because as a company they had nothing to hide.

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