Scores March against Anglo American owned Greenside Colliery Mine

The number of unemployed graduates in Emalahleni is continuously on the rise as evidenced by the Tuesday morning march where approximately one thousand unemployed graduates gathered outside the Emalahleni offices with their CV’s in hand and protested against Anglo American owned Greenside Colliery over the recent posts advertised by the Emalahleni Local Municipality. According to one of the unemployed graduates and the Sinqobile Organisation the matter alleged is that the Emalahleni Local Municipality is using Anglo American for its own benefit including the deploying of its own people to the company all this whilst Sinqobile Organizational Development (SOD) is in possession of a growing data base consisting of the young and unemployed residents of Emalahleni.
The protest was addressed by the former Nkangala ANCYL chairman Mduduzi Nkosi who is also the current Emalahleni MMC in the Technical Department who calmed the crowd and appealed to them with regard to having an appropriate meeting for clarity on the matter at Emalahleni Civic Centre hall. Present in the subsequent meeting were the Executive Mayor of Emalahleni Local Municipality Cllr Linah Malatjie, Mduduzi Nkosi, Environmental Waste Management Cllr Thabang Mathebula, Sipho Mabuza along with two HR officers from Greenside Colliery.
The Sinqobile Organizational Development which was previously known as Kenako Youth organised a job summit on 19- 21 August 2014 following an aftermath of unrests by the Emalahleni youth with regard to employment. One of the outcomes of the 2014 summit was the arriving of Kenako youth and Greenside Colliery at a working arrangement with regard to employment, job and business opportunity procedures for the youth of Emalahleni. The protest was birthed due to the fact that instead of aligning with the 2014 working arrangement between Kenako and Greenside Colliery, the mine approached the Emalahleni Local Municipality to recruit employees. This then led to the protest and SOD stopping the recruitment process, the Emalahleni Municipality responded by issuing a statement on their official Facebook page citing the suspension of the Greenside recruitment process following threats made towards the executive mayor. The statement issued just after midday on Tuesday read “The Greenside recruitment process has currently been suspended due to threats made to the Executive Mayor by a group from Vosman. We are advised to stop the process and assess the situation”.
Nhlanhla and colleagues who spoke for SOD aired similar sentiments and their disgust when they found some of the CVs of graduates that had been submitted in dustbins, he further added saying “Anglo American owned Greenside should give us the number of people required by the mine, as SOD we have waited long enough for Greenside and we put forward and seven-day timeline for a response. We are tired of continually being referred to the speaker of Emalahleni Municipality Busi Hlumbane when we have our own database”. The group proceeded to state that they are now waiting for the Emalahleni Municipality to convene a meeting between the structures and the mining houses that will forge was way forward following the encounters and the meetings of the day.
Sipho Mabuza from Greenside issued a concern on the matter at hand and indicated the willingness of Greenside to corporate with a drive that will see proper processes being adhered to, he pledged to ensure that a meeting about the recruitment process took place. Whilst without flinching SOD toured the line indicating that they would construct a list from their database with the names of candidates who would stand an opportunity to be employed by Greenside Colliery.