Makgomo Chrome is a valuable community asset

The Makgomo Chrome project, close to Burgersfort in the Limpopo province, is innovative and unique – there is no other mining project in South Africa that is quite like it, having been created specifically to preferentially benefit the local mine host communities.

Implats owns the mining rights to all the platinum group metals (PGMs) and the chrome found within the Marula mining area, which is made up of four farms: Winnaarshoek, Forest Hill, Clapham & Driekop  (commonly known as the Four Farms).

The chrome project generates revenue by extracting, marketing, and selling the chrome which is produced as a by-product from the Marula Mine tailings.

The Makgomo Chrome project, which was approved by the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) in 2007, is intended to accelerate and enhance socio-economic development in the six host communities, who live across the Four Farms. This is over and above what is already being done in these six communities through Marula mine’s social and labour plans, in line with the country’s mining laws.

The project was specifically designed with a three-tiered shareholding to enhance and preserve value generation – ensuring the host communities benefit in three ways.

Firstly, the communities have direct ownership in Makgomo Chrome through Marula Community Chrome (MCC), which has a 50% shareholding in the chrome project and is 100% owned by the six communities. Community ownership in MCC was decided through an agreement signed by the six mine host communities in February 2008. The decision was made based on the chrome footprint of each community across the Four Farms on which the chrome resource is found, as well as specific interventions and concessions by the Tswako Mohlala community, where most of the chrome is found. This arrangement means that the majority shareholder in MCC, Tswako Mohlala, has a leadership role, but also enables broader participation and shared benefit for the other communities through the principle of ubuntu.

Secondly, various socio-economic development projects, funded from Marula mine’s 20% shareholding in Makgomo Chrome, are implemented in the six communities.

Thirdly, the communities benefit from the voluntary contributions to community development from Implats, which owns the remaining 30% shareholding in Makgomo Chrome, having made the chrome resource available, provisioned infrastructure access, and funded the construction of the chrome plant.

Through competent and responsible management, Makgomo Chrome has already generated substantial profits which have benefited the mine host communities through various projects as well as through dividend payments to the various Community Trusts.

Makgomo Chrome is a valuable community asset that is bringing about positive change in an underdeveloped region of our country and is helping to create a better future for the six host communities, which is more than what can be realised from PGM mining alone.