The civil rights organisation AfriForum’s legal team on 5 February 2020 directed a letter to Singo Consulting (Pty) Ltd after it came to light that the company was applying for prospecting rights for coal in the Dullstroom area on behalf of Gadebe Investments. AfriForum also registered as an interested and affected party (IAP).
AfriForum queries the process seeing as there are already just as many incongruities like last year with the process followed by Singo Consulting. AfriForum laid a criminal charge at the Komatipoort Police Station on 14 August 2019 after it was revealed that Singo Consulting allegedly committed fraud in the form of plagiarism in its environmental impact study (case number: 109/8/2019).
Lambert de Klerk, Manager of Environmental Affairs at AfriForum, says the letter was directed after complaints were received from the community that Singo Consulting published the notice in the Middelburg Observer. “This newspaper is not even distributed in Dullstroom and the law requires that the direct community needs to be informed.”
According to De Klerk, those people who registered as IAP’s have up until now only received a location chart while the law requires that all necessary information that are of importance must be supplied to registered IAP’s.
“We would really like to encourage community members and interest groups to register as an IAP to be able to submit commentary against the intended application for prospecting rights,” says Hennie Bekker, AfriForum’s District Coordinator for the Lowveld.
AfriForum will submit commentary regarding the matter as soon as Singo Consulting has supplied all the necessary information.