Residents of Clayville in Olifantsfontein near Kempton Park are locked in a fierce battle with a nearby hazardous waste-disposal company they say is poisoning them. And they maintain that it has links with the African National Congress (ANC).
The company in question is Thermopower Process Technology, Africa’s largest hazardous waste disposer and a client of major companies such as Sasol, Monsanto, BASF, AngloGold Ashanti and Afrox Gas.
Thermopower is under investigation by the government’s environmental police, the Green Scorpions. A neighbouring tile factory, Norcross, says it has had to shut down twice because its workers have become ill from emissions.
Norcross and a local landowner commissioned environmental consultants to produce a report on Thermopower. It painted a damning picture of environmental abuse and called for an official investigation.
Political connections
A Mail & Guardian investigation has revealed that Alan Norman, a former Absa executive described by some who have dealt with him as ”the ANC’s banker”, has been central to the company’s efforts to find an empowerment partner. Among those considered was Smuts Ngonyama, when he was head of the ANC Presidency under Thabo Mbeki.
Norman set up an empowerment company, Clidet 445. This later became Impepho Management, of which he is sole director and which was intended as a vehicle for the Thermopower empowerment deal.
However, a well-placed insider said Thermopower started getting cold feet early last year after the ANC’s Polokwane conference toppled Mbeki and his circle and the empowerment talks were called off this year. Ngonyama has since joined Cope.
Norman confirmed that the deal was no longer on, but said there was interest from other ”private individuals”.
He denied that Ngonyama had ever been involved, but Ngonyama confirmed that he had shown ”initial interest”. In addition, community leaders claimed they were shown Thermopower documents signed by him.
The M&G has established that Norman is now trying to craft an empowerment deal with ANC local councillors in the Olifantsfontein area.
Norman confirmed that Thermopower approached eight ANC councillors to assist with a ”broad-based BEE deal”. The M&G is in possession of a letter from local ANC councillors thanking the company profusely for engaging with the community.
The letter was in response to one Thermopower had written to the local branches of the ANC about the problems they had with the community. Councillor Tshilidzi Munyai responded in the letter, writing: ”With greatest humility, the zonal executive committee of the ANC appreciate with much gratitude indeed for your company to avail its highest management to engage … Despite short notice your cooperation has been way above and beyond our expectations.”
The company’s chief executive, Christos Eleftheriades, denied that the company had links with the ANC. ”There’s no link at all,” he said. ”We looked for an empowerment company, we tried to set one up. You should go talk to the ANC if you want to find out more. I’m bound by confidentiality.”
Chemical stench
Clayville residents say a suffocating chemical stench that drifts into their houses from the Thermopower plant, about 500m away, has made summer nights ”a nightmare”.
At first the residents thought the smell, which started in about 2005, was from the nearby sewage plant. Community leader Ishmael Seeta said his night-time quests to trace the source led to Thermopower.
”That’s when we realised it’s dangerous chemicals we were inhaling,” he said. ”It must be toxic, judged by the smell and taste. We’re scared to death of what it can do to our children and families.”
Residents — especially the young and the elderly — suffer from chronic coughs, dry throats and headaches. Asthma is rife in the community. ”You can actually feel how the smell impregnates your tongue and inner organs,” said Anthony Deal, who works at Norcross. ”You can literally taste the pungency.”
Goodman Mncina said his wife had developed chronic asthma for the first time after living in Clayville.
Eulinder Ramashidzha (19) told the M&G: ”The first time I smelled this horrible smell, it made me ill. I couldn’t breathe.”
She consulted a doctor, who diagnosed asthma. ”In summer, when things are worse, I have to use my asthma pump an average of four times a day,” Ramashidzha said.
Residents said that when they suffer common ailments such as colds, they persist for weeks.
Thirteen-year-old Bright Mashimbye had suffered from flu for several weeks. He said in a barely audible voice: ”Sometimes when we’re playing the smoke comes and we start coughing. We’re scared of the smell because it affects our voices.”
The community has rallied around Seeta and fellow community leader Kgomotso Modiselle, who led a march to Thermopower last November after struggling to engage with the company.
”The company directors have told us directly we’re ‘too plain’ and that they have Luthuli House [ANC headquarters] on their side. They said 40% of the company is owned by Luthuli House and we should speak to the ANC if we need any information,” said Seeta.
Modiselle said Thermopower had befriended local ANC councillors because it believed this ”gave them a close relationship with the community”.
Green Scorpions raid
Environmental NGO groundWork wrote several letters to the government questioning Thermopower’s record, and two years ago a Green Scorpions raid found evidence of pollution after workers blew the whistle.
”The contraventions mainly related to storage of both untreated and treated waste on the site for a period longer than permitted, as well as the facility’s failure to dispose of some of the residue as legally required,” said Joanne Yawitch, Deputy Director General in the Environmental Affairs Department.
The Green Scorpions handed the case over to the National Prosecuting Authority for prosecution. It is understood that Thermopower has dismissed the whistle-blowers.
The company’s directors have also filed a complaint of intimidation at the local police station against Modiselle, alleging that he is ”threatening” them and the firm.
Modiselle claims Thermopower officials phoned his workplace in an ”attempt to get me fired”.
Eleftheriades admitted filing a complaint against Modiselle. ”But I don’t want to give him that much credit. I don’t want to engage in any conversation about him,” he said.
‘Nothing grows there’
Former workers told the M&G that Thermopower has struggled to dispose of certain chemicals. Fired worker Ephraim Mabila said factory manager Martin Oosthuizen had told him to not burn the substances before 8pm because Norcross would complain. Mabila was one of the whistle-blowers who prompted the Green Scorpions raid.
”On Good Friday night [in 2007], I was asked to work on a night and they put a hosepipe inside the drain at the back of Thermopower,” he said. ”Today nothing can grow there.”
Eleftheriades said the effluent came from Norcross. ”I’m telling you this for the first and last time: this factory has not had effluent emissions. Don’t even believe that we generate liquids from there.”
The community is also up in arms because Thermopower has applied for a licence to handle medical waste and tendered to manage effluent from Thor Mercury in KwaZulu-Natal. Thor closed in the 1990s after an investigation found its effluent was affecting the health of the Cato Ridge community.
GroundWork activist Rico Euripidou said the Green Scorpions investigation pointed to systemic bad practice at Thermopower affecting the health of workers and local residents.
”It would be irresponsible to allow them to proceed with expansion until the investigation is complete,” he said.
‘It wasn’t us’
Thermopower process engineer Shaan Prithiraj said that when he logged most of the complaints from Norcross, the wind was blowing in the wrong direction for his company to be responsible.
”It couldn’t have been us,” he said. ”And if you look at our monitoring reports, you’ll see that we’ve adhered to our emission licence limits.”
Independent consultants hired by Thermopower, Margot Saner and Lorraine Hodge, told the M&G that the community had targeted the company because it was easiest to label ”your friendly neighbourhood hazardous chemical plant”.
They claimed that Thermopower had exceeded the emissions limit once or twice when the tile plant had to shut down, but that this had not happened in recent years. Purple smoke was photographed billowing from Thermopower’s smokestack at the time.
”Does anyone in the world not make a mistake?” Eleftheriades asked. ”That was four years ago.”
He alleged the community had been coached.
”If someone comes and tells children that we’re the problem, what would they do or believe?” asked Eleftheriades.
”Some of those people who attend the community gatherings are getting paid to do so. They get T-shirts and food.”
He said a bad smell ”didn’t mean [the substance in question] was dangerous”.
The chemical culprits
Workers interviewed by the M&G identified palladium chloride and phosphorus trichloride as the main chemicals responsible for the complaints of the Clayville community.
Most are said to come from Sasol’s Sasolburg plant. Thermopower issues a certificate to its clients to assure them that the chemicals have been properly and safely disposed of.
Chemical engineers consulted by the M&G said the phosphorous chlorides would be the most dangerous, but that palladium chloride could also be dangerous — especially if it was ignited.
Phosphorus trichloride is an important industrial chemical used in herbicides, insecticides, plasticisers, oil additives and flame retardants. It is classified as ”very toxic” and ”corrosive”.
Inhalation of the chemical can be fatal and causes coughing, chest pains, breathing difficulty, nausea and fainting spells. Chronic effects of exposure include kidney and liver damage.
Palladium chloride causes skin irritation and may affect the metabolism if absorbed through the skin. It causes eye irritation and may cause chemical conjunctivitis.
If inhaled it causes respiratory tract and mucous membrane irritation and if inhaled in large doses it may be carcinogenic. — Yolandi Groenewald
Who is Alan Norman?
Alan Norman has gained a reputation for arranging secretive BEE deals that are linked with ”old” ANC stalwarts such as former ANC spin doctor Ngonyama and former ANC treasurer Mendi Msimang. Many of his ANC connections have now jumped ship to Cope.
Norman came to public attention on the back of the controversial Elephant Consortium. The consortium is thought to have profited to the tune of R2,3-billion from the unbundling of Vodacom.
The name ”Clidet” has become signature when he sets up empowerment deals. He first registers a particular shelf company as a Clidet — in the case of Thermopower, Clidet 445. When negotiations have progressed the name changes; Clidet 445 changed to Impepho Management in February 2007.
Norman is the sole director of Impepho Management and of his company Alcorp Investments.
He usually starts out as the sole director of a Clidet company, only revealing the identity of the true directors of the proposed empowerment company once the deal has been finalised. The supposed shareholders of the company are not necessarily listed as directors.
The Sunday Times reported that Msimang and Norman are thought to control more than a million shares in the Elephant Consortium, through shelf companies Clidet 531 and Clidet 532, listed as Elephant shareholders.
The names of the two companies were recently changed to MMTB Investment Holdings and Indoni Investments.
Ngonyama’s Elephant shares were also allegedly housed in these Clidet companies.
Norman, Msimang and South Africa’s high commissioner to Mozambique, Thandi Lujabe Rankoe, were listed as directors of MMTB Investment Holdings. Six months later Norman and Lujabe Rankoe resigned.
All three are also shareholders in and directors of Indoni Investments, the Sunday Times reported. Norman owns stakes in the two companies through Alcorp Investments and is a director of 63 other companies that include Chancellor House Holdings and Impepho Building and Civils.
The M&G exposed Chancellor as an ”ANC business front” in 2006. ANC treasurer Msimang was closely linked with Chancellor.
Impepho Building and Civils, which lists Ngonyama as its director, owns a 30% share in the Liviero construction group. — Yolandi Groenewald