FRIDAY, 11.00AM
THE Workers’ Mouthpeace, the trade union involved in a running war with the National Uniuon of Mineworkers at Anglo American Platinum Mines that has so far claimed eight lives, may have been set up as an elaborate insurance scam.
The union, which first appeared after the crippling illegal strike at Amplats last year that led to the firing of 10 000 workers, is run by brothers Piet and Matt Joubert and former mine hostel manager Peter McCleod. All three have outstanding civil debt judgments against them, and the Joubert brothers run an insurance agancy called Peoples’ Assurance Brokers from the same offices as the union in Carletonville on the West Rand. New recruits to the union are required to pay a R500 signing fee, an unusual procedure, and are obliged to take out life insurance policies.
It emerged this week that Safrican, a life assurer jointly owned by Fedsure and Thebe Investments, is investigating the cancellations of policies sold to miners through the union. It is alleged the union cancels the policies soon after signing the new recruits, while still collecting premiums. The North-West province is also investigating the union for possible right-wing connections. The Rustenburg area and especially the mines in the area, are notorious hotbeds of white right-wing sympathy.
Amplats officials say they first came across Workers’ Mouthpeace earlier this year, They believe it emerged from the remnants of a group known as Five Madoda, a motley, violent gang who precipitated last year’s crippling strike. Workers not rehired after the strike approached former NUM lawyer Caesar Bungane, who knew the Jouberts and McCleod.
Meanwhile, Amplats’s Amandelbult section was the scene of further violence this week, when Mouthpeace members on Tuesday attacked police at a roadblock during an attempt to disarm Mouthpeace members. Police fired rubber bullets, injuring three people. Police arrested 21 suspects, 18 of whom are expected to apopear in the Thabazimbi Magistrate’s Court on Friday.