Heritage Cases

PERMITS AND PERMISSIONS The farm Turfspruit 241 KR is state land under the management and control of the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform and is allocated to the Ndebele Vaaltyn Tribe in terms of Government notice no. LG16/1974. The Department of Rural Development and Land Reform have been informed of the intended relocation of graves and have no objection (Appendix E). The Local Tribal Council has been met with over a series of meetings (Appendix B) to discuss the traditions to be respected as well the logistics surrounding the exhumation and relocation process. The Honourable Kgoshi L.V. Kekana has agreed that he is aware of the process and has no objection to the proposed relocation of the graves (Appendix C and D) The Local South African Police Services were informed of the proposed relocation, and the station commander is aware that the process is underway (Appendix F). According to the newly promulgated health regulations (published in May 2013), a member of the SAPS must be on site during the exhumation of the remains. The Mahwelareng Police Station will be informed of the date of relocation at least 7 days in advance in order to avail a police officer. We are in the process of applying for permits and permissions from the following institutions: • The Mogalakwena Local Municipality • The Waterberg District Municipality • Department of Health and Social Development Limpopo • The South African Heritage Resources Agency (SAHRA) as required by Section 36 of Act 25 of 1999. (Graves older than 60 years). Of the 84 graves included in this application, 3 graves are known to be older than 60 years and the age of 80 of the graves are unknown. • Limpopo Cooperative Governance, Human Settlement and Traditional Affairs (CoGHSTA) UNDERTAKER APPOINTMENT PGS Heritage will be assisted on the project by a local registered undertaker, BM Dynamic Funeral Service and Those stones (Appendix G). The undertaker was appointed after a call for quotes was advertised to the service provider in the area. The undertaker is required to fill the following criteria: • Registration with local municipality; • Certificate of competence for funeral undertaker premises as stipulated in Regulation 363 of the National Health Act (61 of 2003); SOCIAL CONSULTATION The Ivanplats team has conducted an intensive process of social consultation in order to identify the buried individuals and to obtain requests for exhumation and re-interment from from the affected families. The grave identification process on the Platreef project began in March 2014 (Appendix B). The local community was invited to the site to identify their graves and the Platreef community Liaison officers recorded their information. In some cases, where possible, the families were visited personally to register the graves their family had within the project area. From this process, 181 graves were registered of which 84 fell within the fenced project area (Appendix A). The families of these 84 graves were continually met with during the first half of 2015 as part of a focused social consultation process. Coupled with this, the Chief of the wider Mokopane region, the local headmen of the four affect villages as well as the graveyard committees were all met with and included in the focused social consultation process. Meetings were held with the families on an individual basis to record the details of their graves and to obtain signed consent to relocate each grave (Appendix H and I). Of the 84 graves included in this application, 3 graves are known to be older than 60 years and the age of 80 of the graves are unknown. The entire social engagement process has been recorded in the attached social engagement register (Appendix B). All the graves included in this application have been identified and claimed by corresponding next-of-kin who have given permission for PGS Heritage to relocate their graves (Appendix I).   Site Notices At the request of the next of kin site notices were not placed at any of the graves or at the entrance to the property until consent for the relocation was received. Following the Heritage Act, Multi-lingual site notices (Appendix J) are required to be placed at the location for 60 days prior to the permit application being submitted. The details of when site notices were placed at each cemetery can be found in the cemetery descriptions bellow. Newspaper Notices This process commenced on Friday 18 September 2015 with the publication of multi-lingual (English, Sepedi and Xitsonga) newspaper notices in the Daily Sun, a national newspaper (Appendix K). A local newspaper Die Bosvelder published the notices in the 18-24 September 2015, edition as the recommendation of the client. DESCRIPTION OF CEMETERIES This application contains the details of 84 graves, situated in 23 cemeteries, within the project area (Appendix A) that will be affected by the construction of mining infrastructure. PGS Heritage requests permission to relocate the bellow mentioned graves. All the NOKs / Family representatives listed bellow have given permission to relocate all 84 graves to the new cemeteries as requested (Appendix H and I).