Phalaborwa, a mining town on the edge of the Kruger Park with a previously racist image, has successfully embraced the new South Africa, writes Mungo Soggot
The huge trucks which ferry copper-rich rubble out of the Palabora Mining Company’s (PMC) pit around the clock stopped hauling for a few hours last Sunday morning and the world’s second-biggest man- made hole fell silent.
The event which warranted this break in production was the annual Phalaborwa Open Pit Copper Race in which about 480 participants spiral their way 7km up the crater and then run — or hobble — to the finishing line at the company’s luxurious Hans Merensky Country Club.
The club, named after the man who discovered the copper in the early 1960s, borders the Kruger National Park. Like the mine area itself, its famous golf course regularly hosts hippo, crocodile, lion and elephant.
The crowd cheering the athletes as they emerged from the pit included portly, bearded Afrikaners, young white women plastered in make-up and sporting cockerel hairstyles, and lavishly dressed, plump black women.
Only four years ago Phalaborwa became synonymous with white rightwingers when the khaki cohorts of the Afrikaner Weerstandbeweging (AWB) threatened war in protest at the mine’s moves to accommodate senior black employees in the town. It also made a name for itself as a “dirty tricks” base for the South African Defence Force, and the launch pad for cross- border raids into Mozambique in the years South Africa backed Renamo.
The verdant town and its two townships — Namakgale and Lulekani, a Verwoerdian 15km away — have since developed a serenity untypical of the Northern Province, with its widespread poverty and racial conflict.
The military presence has wound down, and any obvious racial tension has evaporated. Fauna Park school, where a principal 14 years ago instructed his white pupils to beat up any black child seen wearing their uniform, is now worthy of a new South Africa postcard.
Hanging over Phalaborwaians until four months ago, was the fear that PMC — the town’s major employer and a crucial player in its political and social development — would pack up and leave when it had finished mining its open pit in 2002. But after years of feasibility studies the company, controlled by British mining giant Rio Tinto Zinc, finally decided to go ahead with a 20-year underground- mining project.
Property prices have doubled, there are no vacant houses, contractors are moving in to develop the massive project, and entrepreneurs are lapping up the boom-town spirit. Tourism is up 30%, shopping centres are being planned and a Malaysian consortium has bought a patch of land on which it intends to build a five-star hotel.
The town’s other major employer, Foskor, is expanding and its owner, the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), has expressed interest in piping gas from Mozambique’s Pande Fields to Phalaborwa to fuel a steel plant.
One of the race runners’ water stops was staffed by Joe Mathebula, a manager at PMC and Phalaborwa’s first black mayor. A local businessman said Mathebula was “excellent at public relations for the town”; a teacher called him “Phalaborwa’s Madiba”.
Mathebula’s political career began when he chaired local government negotiations between the town and the two townships. He says PMC’s then-general manager Bruce Farmer made people aware of the potential for local government in the new dispensation and encouraged the negotiations. Two other PMC employees were elected to the Greater Phalaborwa Town Council.
It was after Mathebula’s chairmanship resulted in the town and the townships agreeing to become one that he was asked to stand for mayor.
“I didn’t want to stay as mayor after negotiating. I wanted to go back to my relaxed life. But they showed how much trust they had in me and I was honoured by that.”
Mathebula has baffled his white colleagues by remaining in namakgale and not moving into town. “I have a natural instinct of siding with the weak,” he says, and that staying in Namakgale has made him a more effective mayor. “Being an industrial-relations officer working for PMC, and working with these communities, I felt it was better for me to stay with these communities. I would then hear some of the things that they would not tell managers … [if there were] a strike I could come up with a solution because I will know what is happening.”
He adds his family is well established in namakgale, where his children can play in the street. His parents, he says, would be reluctant to visit him in Phalaborwa itself. “They are from the old generation. After a few beers they like to get out the drums and sing and dance. You can’t do that kind of thing in town until people change their attitude.”
Mathebula believes the area’s apparently smooth relations between races are not merely skin deep. “No, I do not worry it is superficial. I spend a lot of time in the white community. I go to many functions, sporting events and business meetings where I can see that they [whites] really respect me. It is not only with me. I can see it happening with the rest of the community.”
A University of the North graduate who has been with PMC for 20 years, Mathebula does not like to see himself as a politician. “I am a humanitarian. Politics gives me the opportunity to speak to people, to talk and to listen, and to see if I can help them. In the mine, when I was in industrial relations, I derived a lot of satisfaction from that job.”
He believes the key to Phalaborwa’s racial success is the decision to form one town. During the negotiations, the whites initially wanted the status quo to remain intact. They swung around, he says, because he asked them what their fears were — and was told a lowering of standards, subsidising those who did not pay their rates, a black takeover of town. Not only did Mathebula and other African National Congress negotiators guarantee these fears would not materialise, but they also secured the backing of Northern Province premier Ngoko Ramathlodi.
In other areas, the attitude was: “We are in the most powerful position and we take over. Of course, those whites who had their own fears are now surprised that it has worked well.”
So where did the AWB vanish to? “All of a sudden they are no longer there. We don’t ever hear from them.” He says it is too much to hope any whites will vote ANC in 1999. One prominent businessman, Manie Kriel, has however already made the switch — – from the National Party — and is affectionately described as a “turncoat” by another businessman.
The streets where Mathebula’s children like to play are not like those of the average South African township. There are many destitute patches, but money from PMC — and the other two main employers, Foskor and Fedmis — has alleviated poverty in some areas. Some mine houses boast lush, attractive gardens on substantial plots. And, by South African standards, there is little crime.
Phalaborwa police Commander Wanda van Zyl, based in Phalaborwa, says there are about four murders a year in the area — all in Namakgale and Lulekani, where the quotidian crime is assault. An inspector in Lulekani confirmed her statistics. Van Zyl says most Phalaborwaians own guns — not so much for self-protection, but to use at shooting clubs. “It’s their hobby.”
Mathebula’s wife works across the road from their Namakgale home in a preschool funded by the Palabora Foundation, set up by the company to fund projects in Namakgale and Lulekani. The company pumps 3% of its annual after-tax profit into the foundation, which has built new schools, added classrooms to existing schools, built libraries, and set up small business-development schemes. The foundation also funds the Palabora Reef Training Centre near Johannesburg, which provides training for young people from undeveloped communities.
The foundation has borne criticism for a paternalistic approach — that it rushes into plans without adequate consultation with the people it is supposed to help. There were also criticisms during the sanctions era that the foundation was more interested in developing showpiece projects — – after Rio Tinto decided to stay in South Africa – — than in effective development work.
Ingrid Mphele, a government social worker working in Namakgale, says the foundation is becoming better at consulting on the best way to spend its money — about R11-million last year. Like Mathebula, she acknowledges it has played a crucial role in improving conditions in the township. Her main gripe is that people rely too much on the foundation as the great provider.
The foundation’s small business scheme is likely to become increasingly important as the mine switches from open-cast operations to the underground project. PMC currently has 2 800 employees, but, says Rory Kirk, project director of the underground project, the new operation will need only 1 800 workers. Nobody will be fired — the workforce will shrink through natural attrition. Unlike most South African mining houses, Rio Tinto did not bring in migrant labourers which, says Kirk, means it has an unusually old workforce.
The National Union of Mines (NUM) is happy with the project and has accepted the need for sophisticated automation. PMC has struck an agreement with NUM in terms of which wages will be linked to inflation until 1999. It is regarded as one of the most progressive mining operations in the country. A comparison with most other South African mines is a matter of “chalk and cheese”, says another employee.
But despite the three substantial employers in Phalaborwa, unemployment is rife, and is exacerbated by the influx of refugees from Mozambique.
As the computer-controlled haul trucks scrape the immaculate pit and contractors dig out the underground project, there is a strong realisation that Phalaborwa has to start cutting its dependence on mining. Tourism tops the list of alternatives and there are grand plans for expanding Phalaborwa as a hub for the Kruger National Park. There is even excited talk of the proposed “Gaza Peace Park” — a massive slice of Mozambique earmarked for a huge game park.
The race is now on to pull off this transition. Irrespective of whether Phalaborwa’s entrepreneurs succeed, the town’s identity will change fundamentally when PMC finish mining underground in 2025. The Copper Pit race itself has only six more years until PMC stops open-cast mining.