How does the mine’s location within a metropole affect your planning? It is a rather unique situation and does impact on our approach. We accept and believe that the operations of any mine, including ours, should first and foremost benefit its most immediate stakeholders, which are the communities in which we operate. Giving effect to this has many facets, which includes ensuring that we recruit locally, providing local households with a stable income, focussing on procurement of local supply to boost local business, especially SMMEs, while contributing to their development, social investment programmes that are aimed at effectively addressing the needs of our communities and more. Our core operations also have impacts on the community, such as environmental impacts (the potential of dust, noise and vibration) as well as the naturally occurring scaling of the pit. All of these are closely monitored, mitigating actions are taken and we maintain open communication with the community around these issues.
supporting the private tourism industry in various ways, not least of which is by being the only underground mine allowing underground tours as part of its tourism offering. This support further extends to financial and promotional contributions, and we are excited to see the effect that these initiatives are having on the growth of tourism in the town. The Covid-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on everything we do. How did it impact Cullinan Diamond Mine? When the news broke, Petra proactively put controls in place to implement a Mandatory Code of Practice for the prevention, mitigation and management of Covid-19. This included various controls for screening, social distancing, sanitising and wearing of masks, which allowed us to continue our operations at sustainable levels soon after the initial lockdown. Realising the impact of the pandemic on our communities, much of our focus also went into distress relief within our communities, in conjunction with partners such as the City of Tshwane, through the employee-funded Petra Hardship Fund that contributed foodstuffs and other relief materials. This included the distribution of more than 700 food hampers and 500 cloth masks to the community, assistance to health workers, schools and the Tshwane Metro Police with supplies such as surgical masks, sanitiser, disinfectant and sterile gloves, all to the value of more than R500 000. ■
Apart from the mine, the town of Cullinan is also somewhat of a tourism destination. What is the mine’s involvement in that? Cullinan is indeed a little town with a colourful history, much of which relates to the mine, and it is rightly a tourist favourite. From Cullinan Diamond Mine’s side, we believe that tourism will become an increasingly important contributor to the local economy and we are therefore
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GAUTENG BUSINESS 2022
