Gov�t denies yielding to political pressure on BCL, Tati
Ryder Gabathuse | Friday February 24, 2017 17:37
Minister of Mineral Resources, Green Technology and Energy Security, Sadique Kebonang has dismissed allegations of mounting political pressure as hogwash and figment of people’s imaginations.
He said Government as a 100% shareholder in the mines had to bear the burden of running the mines.
He denied that the latest move by Government to engage mining giants in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are far from political expediency.
“It’s a case of Government doing everything possible to sustain towns like Selebi-Phikwe and Francistown which depended solely on mining,” Kebonang said yesterday.
Fresh media reports this week reflect that Government and the UAE-based Emirates Investment House have signed a Memorandum of Agreement on the sale of the BCL Group.
Asked why his Government is finding it necessary to market the BCL Group now when trade Unions and other organisations are mounting pressure on Government that it had taken a wrong decision, he was quick to dismiss the reports.
“There are processes that have to be observed before a decision can be taken to dispose of the assets of a company placed under provisional liquidation. This is not a quick event,” he explained in a telephone interview.
Last October, when addressing stunned ex-miners at the BCL Mine and Tati Nickel, Tati East MP and chairperson of the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Samson Moyo Guma painted a gloomy picture on the future of the Mines.
He was blunt that the Government led by the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) has no money to save the ailing BCL.
“It was not necessary to romanticise or compromise, but for the government to tell people the truth that nothing else can be done to save the BCL mine,” he had said this at both BCL and Tati mines whilst in company of Kebonang.
As Guma spoke this at both the BCL and Tati mines, there was a loud murmur of disapproval and threats from the aggrieved mine workers with some loudly declaring ‘…we will meet in 2019’. We are not going to vote for you’.
“As a Government I have to protect the assets of the country and there is no money that Parliament can approve to save the situation and I am going to tell Tati Nickel Mine Company employees the same thing,” was one of the statements made by Guma last October as he articulated the position of his Government.
BCL Mine, according to Government, needed P8 billion to stay in operation, an amount Government said it could not commit to without sabotaging other national economic needs. But contrary to the Government's position, Botswana Chamber of Mines (BCM) CEO, Charles Siwawa told Mmegi then that both Tati and BCL Mines remained attractive to investors.
He maintained that the Mines would generate significant interest buoyed by presentations made by the BCL Group, which indicated that TNMC and BCL have a combined lifespan of 25 years, which is why he believed that the two Mines would generate much interest.
From the information that the BCM had, “The BCL Group is not a dead horse as assumed by many. It is just that it has a cash flow problem that needs to be dealt with.”
Stakeholders, the Botswana Mine Workers Union (BMWU) always maintained a strong view that Government has taken a wrong decision to order the closure of the Mines instead of funding them.
Even this week, BMWU president Jack Tlhagale laughed off the position of Government, insinuating that its action was very wrong and insisting that the Mines were profitable.
Tlhagale found it very interesting that Kebonang was recently in the UAE to find possible suitors to the BCL Group.
He holds a strong view that the Government is only yielding to political pressure as forces are seemingly united against the government of the BDP.
The BMWU president recently returned from an official trip in the UK where he and some members of the BMWU NEC had attended the Mines and Money London Conference to sell the BCL Group to potential suitors.
Tlhagale described the Government as a bunch of reactionaries who only react when interest is being expressed by a lot of investors. BMWU general secretary, Mbiganyi Ramokate recently announced at the opposition Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) rally that, frustrated by the ruling BDP’s decisions, the Union has decided to join the UDC in an endeavour to topple the stubborn Government through elections.
He was insistent that the BDP-led government has mishandled the BCL Group issue as there were other options.
Botswana Federation of Public, Private and Parastatal Sector Trade Unions has taken a deliberate position against the BDP government to support the UDC. They are also against the closure of the Mines which rendered over 3,900 people directly jobless.
As for the Business Botswana, it has always argued that the decision to close the Mines will have implications on the wider business community across Botswana.