My name is George Thapedi Mthombeni, and I am a resident of Seraleng Extension 1, near Rustenburg in the North West.

It has been over 12 years since Anglo American (“Anglo”) undertook to build approximately 1000 houses for my community, comprising former Anglo employees. Anglo ultimately only built around 350 houses, most of which were sold to community members. However, shortly after our community moved into our new homes the houses began to show signs of defect, including cracks, falling ceilings and leaking water. Many of the houses are in a state of collapse, and are increasingly un-livable.

Our community made numerous attempts to try and resolve these issues with Anglo including face-to-face meetings and countless letters, but these attempts were met with inaction from the mining giant, which simply plastered over the symptoms without addressing the cause of the failing houses.

During 2017, our community took the initiative of approaching the Constitutional Court directly for legal relief and vindication of our right to adequate housing. The Court dismissed that application and advised us to consult with the Centre for Applied Legal Studies (“CALS”), a public interest law clinic based at the University of the Witwatersrand. On behalf of our community, CALS consulted with a structural engineering expert who concluded in 2019 that the construction of our houses’ foundations was incompatible with the clay soil prevalent in the area, resulting in serious defects in the houses.

In response, from 2020 Anglo commissioned their own engineering experts to assess the cause of our defective houses. Anglo received a preliminary engineering report in February 2022, but has not yet completed the investigation or shared any preliminary findings with our community. We believe that that the investigation and report contain important indications as to whether the community can hold Anglo properly accountable for the sub-standard construction of our homes, and accordingly access justice for the rights violations we continue to experience.

We are appealing to you to please sign this petition to support our call that:

1. Anglo delivers on their decades-old commitment to provide adequate housing for our community in Seraleng;
2. Anglo finalises the engineering investigations and shares their expert engineering report with the Seraleng community, so that our community may understand the nature and cause of our defective houses; and
3. Big business – especially those which extract so much from our land and people – not be allowed to violate communities’ rights with impunity. We demand justice and safe, reliable and sustainable housing!

The Seraleng Extension 1 community shall deliver this petition to Anglo’s head office in Johannesburg on 1 August 2022.