DA welcomes criminal charges against Alexkor
21 January 2022
Note to Editors: Please find attached English and Afrikaans soundbites by Veronica van Dyk MP.
The DA welcomes the criminal charges the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment has laid against the Gupta-linked Alexkor Richtersveld Mining Company Pooling and Sharing Joint Venture (PSJV) for building cofferdams along the Northern Cape coast.
We have been raising concerns around Alexkor’s operations for many years and have written letters to Forestry, Fisheries and Environment Minister Barbara Creecy, to whom we also submitted a Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) application for the environmental notice issued to Alexkor, and submitted parliamentary questions to the Minister of Public Enterprises, Pravin Gordhan, who investigated Alexkor in 2018 for the non-compliance with environmental legislation.
The communities that were meant to benefit from Alexkor’s partnership to mine diamonds along the Northern Cape coast after the Land Claims Court awarded them the land and mining rights, have instead seen themselves exploited and their environment terribly damaged.