Special Hearings — Business Hearings — 1997-11-13

UNKNOWN: Chairperson, that question has actually occupied our minds to a very great extent and one finds one self as an organisation trapped within the interpretations and the perceptions that can't be given on an incident of this nature.
 Would any extension or showing of good hand by Tongaat-Hulett group be considered and seen as an admission of guilt, which there is a good body of people who would interpret that the Tongaat group felt it was clean, his hands are clean on this issue, it would have not have extended this hand.
 The human side in terms of our value systems also is saying, so what if there's those kinds of interpretations.  The position where we find ourselves right now is that we don't know whether the matter has been concluded or not, because we are still expecting that those people who came to confess to the TRC might be called upon to say more about this issue and also to the question that Cedric answered as to say are we absolutely sure that this was an isolated incident?
 One can only say with the information that is available to us right now, in terms of the investigation that we carried, we are absolutely sure that that was an isolated incident, but being in South Africa and knowing South Africa to what it has been, I would not be surprised and we would not be surprised if anything came up.  
 We don't know.  We were appalled and it was the first time that we become aware of that activity.  So it is a vexing question.  We would like to assist - seek assistance in seeing our way through the question.
 Are we expected to extend a word - I mean a hand to the Neweni family?  We are not sure what to do.

DR BORAINE: Chairperson, just a comment on this.  I have to say that I find the reply totally unacceptable.  I'm astonished at the quality of the presentation and the framework of which I know this company to be working in;  that there should be any hesitation at all in extending a hand of assistance to people who suffered grievously, not at the hands of your company, but on your property.
 I would hope very much that there will be, in the spirit of your own presentation, a reaching out without any delay.  Thank you.

MR SAVAGE: Dr Boraine, thank you for that comment and it has been noted.

BONGANI FINCA: Just to move onto a different area.  Your company has depended in the past, if I'm correct, on the labour of - drawn mainly from Pondoland.

MR SAVAGE: Sorry, I didn't hear on that.

BONGANI FINCA: I was just checking if I'm right in saying that the bulk of the labour that you've used in your sugar plantation has come from Pondoland.

MR SAVAGE: Migrant labour?  Yes.

BONGANI FINCA: Can you perhaps sketch us - sketch for us just very briefly a picture of how you recruited the people from Pondoland, the working conditions under which they laboured and the housing conditions in particular under which they lived whilst they were in your employ?
 A person who grew up in Natal, there is a general perception that the people who came in to work at the sugar plantations, they worked under very terrible conditions.

MR SAVAGE: Thank you, Chairperson.  It is the sole question of migrant labour and either one of us could answer it, but JB Makwasa was involved in industrial relations for many years.
 JB, could I ask you to deal with this?

UNKNOWN: Thank you, Chairperson.  I mean once again the question of migrant labour is a question that has applied the gross mind for a number of years and perhaps it is important to understand how we come to have migrant labour.
 The sugar industry by its very - by the very nature of the raw material that it requires, operates in the rural areas, one, and then secondly, we have found that the local people are reluctant to work in agriculture and we have therefore been forced to go and recruit outside KwaZulu Natal as it were.
 Over the years one of the vexing questions have been the conditions of employment in agriculture.  One of those conditions of employment in agriculture has been housing.  We are coming from a history of hostels if a - which we would not be ashamed to admit that if you go back in the early '60's, the early '70's, the conditions were not the conditions that we would be proud of and through that realisation we have tried to improve the conditions of housing for the employment - for the employees in agriculture.
 We would not sit here and say that we have the best conditions, but we will be saying that there are efforts in terms of trying to improve these conditions.
 One must also bear in mind that it was not just the housing of the employees in hostels are not just in agriculture only.  It was in the industrial sector as well.  We're sitting now, we would say we have done it far better than perhaps we could have done in agriculture and besides that some of the houses that we are now putting on the land are in a - would be occupied by families as time goes on.
 So we are making a lot of improvements as far as housing within the Tongaat-Hulett group is concerned.
 We wouldn't say here that we are perfect, but we are putting a lot of effort in that regard.

MR SAVAGE: Yes, can I just add to that to give a slightly different perspective.  This migrant labour is seasonal labour.  It's therefor six to seven months maximum a year.  So, then they go back to their areas of origin, mostly Northern Natal or Transkei.
 Transkei is a big provided of seasonal migrants to the sugar industry.  It does raise this issue of single sex hostels, by enlarge they have been phased out into flats, but on the other hand it has in the past been a convenient way of providing accommodation for seasonal migrants.  
 It's not permanent.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.  I'll take one more question from Dr Ally.

RUSSELL ALLY: Thanks, Chairperson.  Your submission raises again the classic dilemma that this hearing has been faced with throughout.  That's on the one hand businesses which have made submissions to say repeatedly that Apartheid was actually negatively (indistinct).  It was deleterious and you say that yourself.
 Yet, we have an economic system which is dominated by Whites and a social economic system in which Whites enjoy a very high standard of living.
 So there is a need to try and understand that situation now.  That is - that dilemma is capture, I think, in a statement which you make in your submission, now which I'm going to ask you to comment on against that back drop.
 You say the core business of your group depends on land, especially in its earlier stages and you needed to acquire land over the years in order to grow and to secure your status as a leading sugar producer in a globally competitive arena.
 Today the group owns more than 45 000 hectares of agricultural land and industrial land which is quite substantial, but then you say it is not owned land in an unfair manner within a racial discriminatory framework of legislation.
 Now, how's it possible to make that statement if it's not owned land in an unfair manner, within a racially discriminatory framework against the back drop of the colonial wars, because your company stretched way back.
 Against numerous other laws that were passed with regard to land ownership, the 1930 land act, the 1936 act again, the group areas act and the Bantu stand policy.
 What challenges that pose then for the future with regard to reparation and redress?