Tribal hands in acts of God

Oh, for those innocent days a decade back when the word of the year – selected by international dictionary compilers – was egocentric ephemera like “selfie”, “youthquake”, “geek” and “binge-watch”.

In SA – not yet but soon – look out for force majeure. Admittedly, it’s a linguistic migrant.

But still, this bit of French legalese is a concept that ordinary South Africans, especially on the eastern seaboard, are becoming uncomfortably familiar with.

A loose translation is “act of God” and it’s inserted in contracts to excuse the parties of liability for natural catastrophes.

The July insurgency was the first time it emphatically impinged on the public consciousness. In short order, the ports and rail operator Transnet declared force majeure on all contracts relating to the port of Durban, as did refining and pipeline operator Sapref.

So did Assmang, on its ferromanganese production. So, too, Transalloys. So too, for a second time, did Transnet, following a cyber attack.

But the trend had started marginally earlier. In May, Richards Bay Minerals (RBM) justified the closure of its entire operation, which contributes R8 billion a year to the KZN economy, on force majeure, when its general manager was gunned down and equipment set ablaze in ongoing friction with local tribal leaders.

Even earlier, in 2019, just across the border from the mutinous Zulu kingdom, an Austrian-South African joint venture used force majeure to abandon what was to be the longest, highest bridge in the southern hemisphere – the Mtentu bridge meant to link KZN, Port St Johns and East London.

The reason? Violent protests by the locals.

In much of rural SA, communities are playing a dangerous game of blackmail and intimidation. Corporates are held hostage and forced to make massive payoffs to criminal gangs masquerading as tribal chieftains and local leaders.

The ANC government is unable, or unwilling, to intervene forcefully, so these feudal bandits are thriving. The RBM experience is a case study in this game of economic roulette.

Its force majeure paused the implementation of a R6.7 billion project. Operations could only be restarted after RBM restored the “flow of funds”, in this case, R130 million to the amakhosi, the traditional leaders in the regions that RBM operates.

Business Maverick editor Tim Cohen wrote: “The mine reopens, which satisfies the company and shareholders, the government gets its tax and the ‘community’ groups get their payoffs.

“But I think it’s pretty clear that if you put R130 million on the table, there is a pretty huge incentive to create havoc to get it. Or to create havoc to ensure that other people don’t get it.”

There is little sign that the government understands this. Ramaphosa’s administration seems to live in a parallel universe where mere wishing something will make it so.

This week, Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma announced that the ANC had been secretly working on a plan for a spanking new city, “somewhere” on the coast between Port St Johns and Margate.

The city will promote new black industrialists – read ANC cadres – while “capturing the imagination of the people in asserting the ANC as leader of society”.

This is barmy stuff. On past experience and given that destructive “acts of God”, perpetrated by humans rather than the elements, are becoming frequent along our eastern seaboard, it’s probably safe to predict that the ANC’s city is not going to be built soon.

And that you won’t be able to access it by taking the Ramaphosa Bullet over a world-class engineering marvel spanning the Mtentu River.