De Beers Consolidated Mines has sold its remaining mines to Petra Diamonds and Ekapa, without consulting with workers and the National Union of Mine Workers. About 600 workers are now facing a bleak future as a result of possible retrenchment. The reason advanced by DBCM is that it is not profitable for them to continue mining in the area and instead of closing the mine, they have decided to sell it to smaller mining companies who have low cost operations. On the other hand NUM is crying foul and intends to challenge this deal which was concluded in 2015. It is really surprising that NUM was not aware of this process, taking into consideration the number of years that they have been involved in the mining sector. One conclusion that can be drawn from this is that they were party to it, but were instructed by the big capitalist bosses to keep quiet.

The march to De Beers headquarters in Kimberley was just another one of those futile exercises that the workers had to go through. What is the point of protesting a deal that is signed and sealed? In addition, this might be another way of directing the anger of the workers in the wrong direction , away from  the real culprits and beneficiaries of the deal.

Petra Diamonds is no better than De Beers. They are also in the business to make super profits. Therefore they can only provide a bare minimum of a required number of vacancies. Other workers are the unfortunate casualties of the way of the mine owners maximise their profits.

The community of Greenpoint, which is very close to the Petra operations, belong to one of the oldest townships of Kimberley and it is facing a number of problems, including a high unemployment rate, lack of development, bad infrastructure, substance abuse, teenage pregnancies; an endless list.  The Corporate Social Investment strategy of Petra Diamonds seems to be non-existent and the community is accusing the company of hiring people from outside the Northern Cape Province. The protest march was led by the Frances Baard Business Forum, which claims that Petra Diamonds is not giving them opportunities and also not reinvesting any value into the community. They are demanding that the company give recognition to the Greenpoint Community Forum as the authentic representative of the people. Their demand includes other issues such as infrastructure improvements, youth development programmes, hiring of local people, community shareholding and to assist in social cohesion. At the centre of the dispute is the issue of the transformation of the procurement process.

These demands are in line with the reviewed mining charter, which set clear targets on categories such as capital goods, services and consumables. A spokesman for Petra Diamonds indicated that they have mechanisms in place to deal with community needs but these were not being implemented. The community has given the company seven days to respond to their demands.