Heritage Cases

This application deals with twenty-nine (29) graves located on the Farm Turfspruit 241 KR which will be affected by mining activities within the Ivanplats project area. The graves in the current application formed part of the previous grave relocation process in 2017 and 2020 (Phase 1 and Phase 2). During this process, several graves were exhumed and relocated by PGS Heritage with all the required permits as per the Health Act and the Heritage Act. However, not all the graves were relocated as many of the families requested either further investigation after no remains were found during the previous exhumations or the families were unavailable during the previous relocations. The graves are to be moved to existing formal cemeteries or informal traditional areas as selected by the next of kin. PGS Heritage will be assisted on the project by a local registered undertaker, Mankwana Funeral Home (Pty) Ltd. The Ivanplats team has conducted a stakeholder engagement process to identify the buried individuals and to obtain requests for exhumation and re-interment forms from the affected families. The grave identification process on the Platreef project began in 2015. The next-of-kin of the affected graves was contacted by Ivanplats (Pty) Ltd and the need for the graves to be relocated has been explained to them. They consequently gave written permission (in the form of affidavits) for the graves to be relocated. In addition to this, the following action was taken: • A graves register was compiled; • As per the original stakeholder process from 2015 and 2017 at the request of the NOK site notices were not placed at any of the graves or the entrance to the mine property until consent for the relocations had been obtained from the families. Following the National Heritage Resources Act (No 25 0f 1999), multi-lingual site notices are required to be placed at the location for 60 days before the permit application is submitted; • Bilingual newspaper notices announcing the intention to relocate the graves were published in the Daily Mail on 18 September 2015, and in the Bosvelder on 18-24 September 2015. It must be mentioned that Ivanplats has been in continuous contact with the next-of-kin of the affected graves and they are fully aware of the relocation process.