A DMR tender announcement has revealed Minister Gwede Mantashe plans to come for the third time on Thursday 25 April to the Xolobeni sports ground by the Amadiba coast.
On Tuesday morning, no request or announcement from DMR has been made to the Umgungundlovu Traditional Council or to the Amadiba Crisis Committee (ACC).
ACC only knew about Mantashe’s plan when a DMR tender for catering surfaced on Friday.
The tender for 300 quarter chicken to “Xolobeni Sportsground” on 25 April was issued to local business end of last week. When contacted yesterday, the DMR official responsible for the tender could only say there is a “Ministerial meeting”. When we requested to speak with any one in charge, she ended the call.
There is so far no explanation why Mantashe’s wants to make a third unwanted visit to Xolobeni in a short while. Mantashe’s visits on 23 September and 16 January were both dissolved by the police by means of stun grenades and blank shots being fired.
After the 16 January DMR chaos, the ACC invited the Department of Economic Development and of Tourism. A high level delegation from them both visited us in the middle of March, led by the Department of Economic Development. At the successful meeting we explained to the delegation what kind of development the community wants. We now have a very good communication.
Gwede Mantashe has nothing to do here. This community doesn’t want the “Xolobeni Mining Project”. We have said no to mining for 15 years and in November we won the Right to say No to mining in a landmark judgment.
DMR is not welcome to our development meetings and they are NOT welcome to Xolobeni
What is driving Mantashe? On 4 December, DMR registered an appeal against the Xolobeni Judgment. DMR has however not yet filed a proper appeal with the Judge.
The case against DMR and for Free Prior and Informed Consent of rural communities is therefore right now been stalled by DMR.
We can only speculate why Mantashe both wants to drag out the Court process and is so stressed with his politics.
