The Department of Co-Operative Governance and Traditional Affairs has announced that it will furnish all mining communities their financial reports of the D-Account. This is the account in which the royalties of mining communities are paid. It is administered by the provincial government. The department met with traditional leaders recently in Rustenburg, North West.
Some mining communities have been accusing the provincial government of misusing their royalties. The D-Account was established in the early 1990s by the provincial government for mining companies to deposit mining royalties into it. But there have been accusations of corruption in relation with this account. Government has committed to avail financial reports of all mining communities.
“We have said to different traditional leaders that they can go to the Department of Finance and get information about their accounts, what is in those accounts, what are the interests if the money was used, it was used for what and so on. So, it is up to them to go to the department to get that information,” says MEC of Co-operative Governance and Human Settlement and Traditional Affairs Nono Maloyi.
Leaders of mining communities have welcomed the decision by the department.
“We have all agreed that the Treasury of the province will print and disseminate information to every traditional leaders community not audited financial statements but the history of inception of the account and what interests have been incurred, how movements have been happening, how much money did you put in and how much do you have today. All those answers will be coming from Treasury very soon,” Motheo Mamogale, Bakwena ba Mogopa.
Meanwhile, the department says it has requested mining companies to expand their investments to other areas.
“Some of the mining houses, they want to invest in areas where they do mining, or where they are mining. We have said to them one of the things which we’ll want them to present in our next session, is to indicate to us what is it that they can do, in areas that are outside their mining areas, and they have agreed to do so,” Maloyi added.
The department says it will monitor the process of availing financial reports to communities closely.
