Stakeholder engagement software for mining and resources
Your Social and Labour Plan is a five-year set of promises, made in public, reported on annually and binding as a condition of your mining right. This is where you keep the record of who you promised what, and whether you delivered.
Trusted by organisations delivering complex projects across South Africa, the UK and Europe
Why SLP consultation, not the compliance report, is the legal exposure
South African mining has no shortage of reporting tools. What it lacks is a record of the engagement those reports are supposed to summarise.
An approved SLP is a binding condition of the mining right, and non-compliance can trigger suspension or cancellation under section 47. It runs on a five-year cycle with annual compliance reports to the department, and it has to be consulted on with mine communities and interested and affected persons within 180 days of notification of acceptance. Regulation 45 requires at least three meetings a year with mine communities and I&APs to report on implementation. Regulation 46A requires publication in English and one dominant local language within 30 days. And the obligations reach labour-sending areas, not just the host community.
Then there is the harder half. The 2020 amendment to the MPRDA Regulations defined meaningful consultation, expanded interested and affected persons to include traditional councils, land claimants, lawful occupiers and holders of informal rights, and allowed the Regional Manager to attend as an observer to verify the quality of the consultation.
3 meetings a year minimum with mine communities on SLP progress, under Regulation 45.
180 days to consult meaningfully on SLP contents, from notification of acceptance, under the MPRDA.
30 days to publish the approved SLP in English and one dominant local language, under Regulation 46A.
5 years the SLP cycle, revised and resubmitted for the right's life, with annual reporting to the DMPR.Why 'we consulted' is no longer a defence
In 2018, in Baleni v Minister of Mineral Resources, the Pretoria High Court held that where a community holds informal or customary land rights under the Interim Protection of Informal Land Rights Act, the Minister may not grant a mining right without the community’s consent, not merely after consultation. Xolobeni is why the courts and the department now look for evidence of who was engaged, when, with what information, and what changed as a result.
The South African Human Rights Commission’s 2016 national hearing report on mining-affected communities found that SLPs lack binding content and enforcement, that municipalities are frequently excluded from licence applications, that access to information is inconsistently observed with agreements undocumented in accessible languages, and that there is an immediate need for effective complaints mechanisms. Ten years on, most of that is still true, and it is being tested through the courts rather than through the department.
Almost all of it comes down to whether the record exists.
Mapped to the frameworks alongside the statutes
South African mining is governed by South African law and financed against international standards, and the same record has to satisfy both. Your lenders will ask for the grievance mechanism as a covenant, not as good practice.
Start with your next SLP round
Bring us the SLP you are consulting on, or the annual report you are compiling, and we will show you what the record looks like when the system holds it.
Ready to evidence your engagement?
Organisations in South Africa, the UK and Europe use Tractivity to hold the register, record every engagement against the party it relates to, and produce the reporting a regulator asks for.
Book a personalised demo or start with the compliance question and read POPIA and your stakeholder database.