Sibanye-Stillwater, one of South Africa’s major mining companies, has announced that it will secure its own supply of Covid-19 vaccines, as government procurement is taking too long.
CEO Neal Froneman told eNCA that he believed the company had the legal right to source vaccines itself.
Sibanye, the largest private-sector employer in the country, with 84 000 employees, said it would also be willing to fund vaccines for communities around its mines as well as for its employees’ dependants.
The company believed it could source the vaccines for its staff by the end of March.
Froneman has been heavily critical of the South African government in recent times and was quoted last year as saying: ‘The problem is ideology. It prevents decisions from being made. The government is not stupid. It knows what the answers are, but (it) will not make the decisions.’
Sibanye-Stillwater is the world’s largest producer of platinum and rhodium, and the third-largest producer of gold, and has a presence on three continents, with operations in Africa and the Americas.
[Image: torstensimon from Pixabay]