Tshipi é Ntle to create 500 jobs at new manganese mine

Mokgosi Nkoana, general manager of Tshipi é Ntle Manganese Mining, has announced the company will create some 500 new jobs at its new Tshipi Borwa mine in the Northern Cape.

Approximately another 100 additional jobs will be created during the mine’s construction phase.

“This is really good news for the people of the Northern Cape, especially around the Joe Morolong Local Municipality, which is one of the poorest municipalities in South Africa,” said Nkoana, 34, “The mine is near Kuruman, an area where even one new job is good news, so the mine is going to be beneficial to a lot of people in the area.

This becomes even more significant in light of the fact that every employed person helps support several other people.

“The Tshipi Borwa mine is a truly South African project and we do everything possible to create employment opportunities in the Northern Cape. Apart from directly creating jobs through the establishment of the mine, we are using local suppliers for goods and services whenever we can. This will create opportunities for entrepreneurs.”

He said one example of this is that the company is in negotiation with a local BEE company for it to manufacture bricks for the mine, creating even more job opportunities.

Tshipi é Ntle is committed to training and developing young people from the Northern Cape and this too holds promise for the region. “One of our shareholders is the John Taolo Gaetsewe Development Trust which is based in Kuruman. “It offers bursaries for young people in the area. This provides an opportunity to increase the local skill base,” said Nkoana.

Tshipi is an open pit operation set to commence production in 2012. The mine is designed to produce 2.4-million tonnes of top quality manganese ore every year for the next sixty years. It is majority owned by broad-based black South African entities and has a strong international shareholding, through Australian-listed Jupiter Mining and Singapore’s OM Holdings.