Anglo American plans to invest about R26-billion in South Africa, demonstrating its confidence in the country, the company said on Tuesday following a weekend spat with President Thabo Mbeki.
”Anglo currently has new approved investments in South Africa of some R26-billion and has reinvested over R100-billion in this country since January 1999,” said Anglo spokesperson Michael Spicer in a statement.
”The company reasserts its commitment to South Africa and its full confidence in the country’s political leadership,” he said.
On Monday, African National Congress spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama issued a statement, reportedly after Anglo American’s chief executive Tony Trahar and Mbeki had spoken on the telephone.
”The ANC appreciates that Anglo American has used its international road shows to make a case for investment in South Africa, and that it has ‘repeatedly and systematically corrected negative perceptions about South Africa’,” Ngonyama said.
In response, Spicer said: ”Anglo American appreciates Monday evening’s ANC statement accepting Anglo American’s bona fides in the matter of correcting negative perceptions about South Africa.”
On Friday, Mbeki lashed out in his weekly letter at Trahar for his comments in the Financial Times that there is still some political risk associated with doing business in South Africa.
Mbeki asked: ”What is this risk that has started to diminish, but has not gone? Is this the risk that persuaded Anglo American that it should list and re-domicile in London, while speaking to us only about the size of capital markets?”
He added: ”The poor and the despised who worked for Anglo American and other companies that made it during the years of white minority rule, paid a pittance for their labour, are today’s voters … Do they deserve to be computed as a political risk, when everything they have done and said has made the unequivocal statement that they are ready to let the past bury the past?” — Sapa