Rio Tinto’s Richard’s Bay Minerals, like a number of other companies, had suffered reputational damage among community members regarding community trusts linked to RBM where the trustees, all traditional leaders and their colleagues, had failed over many years to spread benefits in those communities.
Rio Tinto had commissioned Tshikululu Social Investments (TSI) to carry out a study on the governance of community trusts. The TSI report was comprehensive and contained a number of valuable recommendations.
Communication response / outputs
Rio Tinto approached R&A to advise the company on how the Community Trust Benchmarking Report could be brought into the public domain in order to ensure that this valuable document would be well understood and used by key parties, and that Rio Tinto and RBM would be recognised for the initiative taken to commission the report.
R&A recommended that there were three distinct groups that should be targeted:
- The mining industry and community trust practitioners;
- The media; and
- NGOs, particularly those with an interest in mining and who had criticised the way community trusts have operated as empowerment institutions.
Between May and October 2023, an industry round table (held at the Minerals Council offices), a media briefing (accompanied by the publication of the report) and an NGO session were convened.
In each case, Werner Duvenhage – MD, Rio Tinto Iron and Titanium Africa Operations –set the context for the report’s commissioning, Tshikululu CEO Tracey Henry provided an outline of the report’s findings and recommendations, and this was followed by an interactive discussion facilitated by R&A.
Outcome
There was near unanimity from participants in each and every session, all well-attended, on the high quality and value of the Tshikululu report, something for which Tshikululu as the researcher, and Rio Tinto/RBM who took the initiative to commission the work, were able to take credit.
We believe that the Tshikululu report has been well aired in the public domain. The company (and other companies too) should have no hesitation in using and citing it in future endeavours.
