Mining
1 717 houses now owned by employees
and other individuals).
This year, 1 372 learners (974 primary
school, 398 secondary school), 39 educators (24 primary, 15 secondary) and
10 support staff (seven primary, three
secondary) are benefiting from the new
schools.
The 1 717 Sunrise View housing development includes two and three
bedroom units which were purchased
for between R225 000 and R265 000.
These assets have since grown in value
and currently sell at between R450 000
and R550 000.
The development of a second homeownership project, Platinum Village
in Rustenburg, has progressed well.
Phase 1, scheduled for completion in
December 2014 will deliver 557 units
at a cost of R210 million.
At the refining operation in Springs on
the East Rand the R37 million Tswelopele
h o m e o w n e r s h i p d e ve l o p m e n t ,
comprising 108 housing units, has been
completed. A total of 104 units have already been sold to employees.
By December 2013, 58 of the planned
122 units at the Marula operation had
been built and a contract to build an
additional 30 units had been awarded
to a local community based company.
Project completion is scheduled for
December 2014.
Additional land in the Rustenburg
suburb Geelhout extension 8 has been
secured for further housing development, but this will follow an in-depth
analysis of the current initiatives and the
lessons learnt.
“In addition to the significant socio-economic value-add resulting from our core
activities, we believe that our proactive
accommodation strategy contributes to
the establishment of communities that
are viable - economically, socially and
environmentally – beyond the life of our
mines,” Goodlace concludes.
Implats’ innovative Employee Home
Ownership Assistance Programme
is the cornerstone of the group’s
long-term sustainability strategy. It
encourages the principle of ownership
and engenders a sense of belonging on
the part of the people who live in these
developments.
“Our approach has empowered our
people and through a combination of
proactively engaging with financial institutions, limiting transactional costs
in the purchase of these assets and
by providing hands-on management
throughout the development phase, we
have been able to make these houses
affordable for Implats’ employees,” says
Goodlace.
Implats is offering interest-free loans
up to one-third of the value of the house
have been negotiated effectively providing the initial deposit while reducing
the risk to banks and increasing their appetite to grant bonds.
september 2014 — PM Africa Magazine
49