AfriForum today expressed its serious reservations about the mining licence application that Tenbosch Mining (Pty) Ltd submitted and claims that there is a snake in the grass with this application. The civil rights organisation also instructed its legal team to send a letter to this mining company’s newly appointed environmental consultancy, Kimopax Group.

AfriForum presented its comments to Kimopax regarding its environmental impact study in October 2023 already. In the feedback AfriForum highlighted several worrying issues in relation to the application and compliance with relevant legislation and guidelines. To date, Kimopax has not yet responded to AfriForum’s concerns about Tenbosch Mining’s misrepresentation. AfriForum therefore now demands that a written explanation must be provided as to why the said application is still being pursued.

Tenbosch Mining intends to set up a coal mine on the southern border of the Kruger National Park.

In its letter to the Kimopax Group, AfriForum points, among other things, to a critical notice from Tenbosch Mining’s previous environmental consultancy, Myezo Environmental Management Services. According to this notice, dated 19 October 2022, Tenbosch Mining withdrew its application for a mining licence and environmental approval. AfriForum emphasises that this notice relates to the same mining licence application for which Tenbosch Mining has now had an environmental impact study undertaken.

In the Myezo notice, it was confirmed that the application for the mining licence and the environmental approval processes had been cancelled and that further work by the consultancy had been suspended.

In addition to writing to Kimopax, AfriForum also notified several other relevant parties of the worrying developments regarding Tenbosch Mining’s application.

“According to unconfirmed rumours, approval has already been granted for a mining licence, but this approval is still being kept secret. Either way, there are strange developments in this process. From what we already know about Tenbosch Mining, it is clear that this company cannot be trusted. Precisely because of this, mining licences can never be granted to such a company. Their application and impact study are also extremely flawed and a further reason why this process should be scrapped and started from scratch instead,” says Lambert de Klerk, AfriForum’s Manager for Environmental Affairs.