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Latest Media Releases
ROYAL BAFOKENG CONSOLIDATES BUSINESS INTERESTS WITHIN ROYAL BAFOKENG HOLDINGS
Johannesburg, 9 March 2006. The Royal Bafokeng Nation today announced that its wholly owned commercial entities are being merged. Royal Bafokeng Resources (RBR) and Royal Bafokeng Finance (RBF) are combining to form one holding company, Royal Bafokeng Holdings (RBH). RBH's investments include significant interests in Implats, the BRPM joint venure with Angloplats, Merafe Resources, Astrapak, SA Eagle, Fraser Alexander and Senwes.
RBR was established in 2002 to manage the community's mining interests. In order to diversify the commercial portfolio, RBF was formed in 2004 to develop the non-mining assets. "While it was initially important for the two entities to focus and establish momentum in executing their respective mandates, that phase of development is now over", says RBN Corporate Planning Executive Boitshoko Senne.
RBH will be responsible for the management and development of RBN's commercial portfolio across all asset classes. Niall Carroll, CEO of RBF since formation of the company, has been appointed CEO of RBH. All current employees of RBR and RBF will be retained within the new RBH structure. According to Carroll, "The combination of the two entities into a single structure should improve the efficiency of capital allocation and enable us to harness more effectively the skills and experience within the RBR and RBF teams."
The creation of RBH is an important milestone in RBN's Vision 2020, a multi-decade, people-centric development plan. RBH has no individual shareholders and its primary purpose is to generate income for the developmental needs of the current generation, as well as to protect and grow the asset base for future generations. RBH's investment objectives are therefore closer to those of an inter-generational trust or endowment fund than a normal commercial company.
Income generated by RBN's commercial interests has been invested in developing the infrastructure and people of the Rustenburg valley. In excess of R2 billion of RBN funds have been spent on roads, utilities, schools, clinics and other public amenities over the past decade. The majority of the users of these amenities are non-Bafokeng residents of and visitors to North West Province.
RBN's developmental initiatives over the next decade will focus on major interventions in the areas of education, health care, job creation, food security and housing. In addition to its commercial activities, RBH will seek to work with its business partners on specific projects addressing these needs.
"We are excited about the formation of RBH, which marks another step in the attainment of Vision 2020", Senne concludes.
For further info contact:
Niall Carroll
Chief Executive Officer
Royal Bafokeng Holdings
17 Fricker Road, Illovo
Tel: 011-219 6000
niall@bafokengfinance.com
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ROYAL BAFOKENG AND GOVERNMENT BUILDING SAFER ROADS
Sadly known for accidents which have claimed many lives to date, the notorious road between Phokeng and Boshoek is to be rehabilitated and upgraded before the end of this year. This emerged at the recent signing of an agreement between the North West Provincial Government and the Royal Bafokeng Nation in Phokeng. Apart from the accidents which happen on the road from time to time, the upgrading and rehabilitation project, which is to start around June this year after the completion of the tender process, was also prompted by the forth-coming Fifa World Cup to be staged in this country in 2010. This was according to North West MEC for Transport, Roads and Community Safety Department, Jerry Thibedi at the signing ceremony.
The R110.3 million project will be financed jointly by the two partners and will be done in four phases. Phase one of the project will be the construction of a 9.1 dual carriageway road from Phokeng to Boshoek and the erection of street lights along the road. The 9.1 carriageway road will be followed by the construction of a 4.1 km two lane single carriageway. Phase three will be the construction of a 10.8 km carriageway road from Boshoek to Ledig while phase four will be a construction of a 5.2 km road from Ledig to Sun City.
Speaking at a media briefing after the signing ceremony, MEC Thibedi described the agreement between his department and the Royal Bafokeng Nation as an indication of a success between government that worked with its people, especially traditional leaders, in major projects. He further said that they would be meeting each other half way in this project adding that the road would also help in facilitating the movement of platinum.
Kgosi Leruo Molotlegi described the agreement as a continuation of a partnership which dates back to 1997 between government and Bafokeng. Kgosi said they had 2010 in mind when they agreed to the partnership. Our stadium is one of the venues that will be used to host some of the 2010 World Cup Games and as such the Boshoek road would be used by some of the teams and soccer supporters that will be staying at Sun City during the tournament, he added.
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SPEECH DELIVERED BY KGOSI LERUO MOLOTLEGI AT THE LAUNCHING OF RBN MASTERPLAN AT THE ROYAL BAFOKENG SPORTS PALACE ON 01 SEPTEMBER 2006
Introduction of guests
Members of the Royal Family
Representatives from:
Office of the MEC - Public Works, North West Province
Bojanala Platinum District Municipality
Rustenburg Local Municipality
Moses Kotane Local Municipality
Dikgosi from neighboring villages
RBN Supreme Council
Surbana International Consultants
RBN Entities
Business Associates
OFFICIAL GREETINGS
Good afternoon and thank you all for coming to this event. As many of you know, I have been closely involved with the Master Plan project over the past year or so, and I am very proud of the work we have done to date.
You'll hear more about the nuts and bolts of the Master Plan in a minute, but I would like to set the stage for its unveiling, so to speak, by sharing with you some of the thinking that led us to this point. The Royal Bafokeng Nation is a community facing a number of serious challenges, including unemployment, underperforming schools, health crises, and numerous social issues. It is conventional in a developmental context like ours to take baby steps towards growth, to remain ever conscious of the social, economic, and political limitations to change. Well, the Master Plan has been conceived within a completely different paradigm, of perfecting THE ART OF THE POSSIBLE. It is founded on the idea that if you want to achieve big things, you have to dream big, and take big calculated risks to reach beyond your limitations.
The Master Plan is a dream, pure and simple. However, it is a Plan that has been meticulously researched over the past five years, and very carefully thought through by some of the best town and urban planners alive today. Knowing that we were going to think big on this project, we knew we had to hire not only the most competent and experienced planning team, but also the most creative, bold and visionary professionals available. We talked to a wide range of firms with these criteria in mind, and found the perfect fit in Surbana & Associates from Singapore. We did not take the decision to partner with a firm from Southeast Asia lightly, but the fact is, the South African firms we approached were unable to think beyond certain boundaries. It is my fervent desire that over the next few decades, our own community will inspire a new generation of South African architects, town planners and designers who, dare to think big and think out of the box, all in the context of indigenous rural African communities.
The Bafokeng-Surbana partnership formally began in the middle of 2004, and I am truly pleased to be able to show you the work we have done to date. If this is a dream, it is a professionally-designed, and expertly-engineered dream. Gone are the days when we built a road or a school or a pipeline in response to an immediate need without thinking about the entire community's development, and without a long term strategy. This plan signals a more integrated, more coherent, and more holistic approach to land use and our built environment than we have ever had. That will remain true whether or not we realize every aspect of this plan. The Plan takes available resources into account, but it stems from the needs and the desires of the community, rather than being restricted by the current bottom line. Financing is one area where we can be quite innovative, partly because we have shed the planning mentality that is rooted in poverty: Which means, that we will not be restrained from dreaming, planning, and addressing our greatest challenges just because we haven't identified the precise sources of funding yet.
Another limitation we've decided to cast aside is the paradigm of "rural development." Yes, we're a predominantly rural community, but we're not all farmers and we co-exist with some of the biggest mining operations on the planet, and many of us commute and migrate to jobs outside the community. We have a communal system of land tenure, an administrative structure that is practically unique in South Africa, and a specific set of social issues that reflects our history, our heritage, and our future objectives. We see ourselves as a community with needs, resources, and vision. We intend to steward our resources according to a specific vision that will allow us to not only meet our immediate needs, but to grow and flourish and become a vibrant community celebrating life. In light of this, the term "rural development" seems a little bland, and almost defeatist in its expectations, for I want much more than that for the Bafokeng people.
Our starting point for the Master Plan, then, was to address the need for optimal land use and development of the physical infrastructure in the Bafokeng Nation through the next 30-35 years. Alongside that, we sought a plan that is not only conducive to socio-economic growth but that also actively preserves some of the unique aspects of our heritage and lifestyle. The way our leadership structure is organized according to wards, for example, and how, at our best, we observe the principles of "botho" in our interactions with each other, whether as family, neighbors, or just fellow members of the community. The Master Plan honors those values and seeks to preserve them in new ways.
Additionally, we seek to enhance the physical sense of "place" in the Bafokeng community. Visually, we want you to feel like you're somewhere special, somewhere unique when you are in Phokeng and the surrounding villages. Towards this end, we will erect gateways and other visual cues that tell you where you are, and even a little bit about our culture and values. This will be achieved through a unique Bafokeng design vocabulary visible in our architecture, our landmarks and other tourist attractions, our products, and even our dress. Our people are part of a long history, much of it now obscured from our own memories, a history of visual art forms and motion, through dance, that integrate the natural environment (earth, clay, grasses, stone, natural pigments) with our ritual symbols and beliefs and the physical environment we live in. We will recapture some of those forms and incorporate them into a new Bafokeng design language that celebrates who we are.
Less visible, but even more important, is our goal of reversing the environmental degradation that has occurred in our community since the advent of mining. We plan to take aggressive steps to restore water and soil quality, and rehabilitate some of the areas that have been damaged by the extraction of granite and open cast mining. In the area around Kanana, for example, we see the possibility of reclaiming the hills scarred by mining and turning them into sites of historical and cultural interest though the use of large-scale sculpture and the introduction of new bodies of water. The eco-system will be restored be re-introducing various species lost to mining activities. This all fits into our plans for enhancing tourism, as well as expanding local recreational facilities. You'll hear more of these details shortly.
In closing, let me emphasize the scope of collaboration that has gone into the Master Plan project. Since 2000, I have been listening to what our people have been saying about their lives, their villages, and their dreams. They talk about surroundings, about water and electricity; about education, health, and community facilities; and about roads, and street lights, industrial parks and much more. But they also talk about their creative aspirations, their desire to put the Bafokeng Nation on the map as a hub of artistic and athletic excellence, their hope that we will better showcase our history and in particular our contributions to the struggle against apartheid. We have listened carefully to what people have said at Kgotha-kgothe, at Dumela Phokeng, within their dikutle, and on the many other occasions I have had to talk to people throughout the community. We have also conducted our own research on the economy, health, education, and the socio-cultural aspects of our life here. We have investigated models of growth from all over the world and we have read extensively on what works and what doesn't in various contexts. The bottom line is that my job as a leader is to listen to as many people in the community as possible, gather as much relevant information as I can, and sponsor a plan that brings state of the art approaches to the issues that are of highest priority to the community. The Master Plan, therefore, is largely inspired by what I have heard from the Bafokeng themselves; in other words, it is a context-conscious and context-informed plan that recognizes the inevitability of change. And the dialogue doesn't stop here. We will soon be mounting an exhibition of the Master Plan that will give people an opportunity to respond to its features, and offer feedback and suggestions. The nerve center of the Master Plan will work to channel this feedback into the planning loop, such that the Plan will continue to evolve and adapt to the needs of the community. Every three years, we will assess our progress and our plans, and make necessary changes.
I know you are eager to hear more of the details of the Master Plan, so I will end my remarks here. If we are willing to work hard, stay focused, and take some calculated risks, I believe we can achieve truly impressive things in and for the Bafokeng Nation and ultimately in our country, South Africa. In conclusion, Ladies and Gentlemen, remember that it costs us nothing to dream, and it is no more expensive to dream big than to dream small.
THANK YOU.
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