Samson Mokoena. Photo: Tom Pearce
Obituary
and othersLast Friday, Samson Mokoena, coordinator of the Vaal Environmental Justice Alliance, died of pneumonia in his hometown of Vanderbijlpark in Gauteng. He was 47 years old.
Mokoena has spent most of his adult life as a local environmental justice activist in the Vaal Triangle, one of the most polluted areas in South Africa. The Vaal Triangle air area, which consists of Vanderbijlpark, Vereeniging and Sasolburg, about 60 kilometres south of Johannesburg, was designated a priority area for air pollution in 2004.
Here, Mokoena dedicated his life to fighting big corporations that had polluted the area for decades and continue to pollute it, and to demanding that government address the massive air and water pollution that was damaging the lives and wellbeing of hundreds of thousands of people who live in the area.
I met Mokoena in the early 2010s, when the Vaal Environmental Justice Alliance (VEJA) became one of the first clients of the newly formed Environmental Rights Centre, and he came to CER with a shocking story of injustice.
Mokoena grew up near ArcelorMittal's (formerly Iscor) Vanderbijlpark steelworks, where his father and brother worked. Initially, the area was home to a thriving, vibrant and diverse community, but over time, that community was devastated by pollution from the plant. Animals became sick, wells became unusable and crops failed. ArcelorMittal, and before it Iscor, have staunchly denied responsibility.
Mokoena, unlike many others who could afford it, never left the area; Iscor bought land from many of the area's landowners. Instead, he became an activist. VEJA was formed and began mobilizing to force the authorities to act and force the company to clean up the pollution.
Around 1999, in response to VEJA's work, the then Minister of Water Resources, Kader Asmar, forced ArcelorMittal to carry out a comprehensive Environmental Impact Assessment, which resulted in what became known as the ArcelorMittal South Africa (AMSA) Masterplan.
The Master Plan, which took around four years to complete, was a costly and comprehensive strategy document that included the results of numerous specialist environmental tests on contamination levels at Vanderbijlpark and AMSA's plans to address this contamination and remediate the site over a 20-year period.
The plan was intended to address all of the environmental impacts of the Vanderbijlpark plant, as well as to determine whether and to what extent contamination from the plant has spread. During the public hearing, AMSA promised to make the master plan available to the community so that everyone could understand the remedial measures AMSA would take.
However, when the plan was finalised in 2003, residents were given only a summary report – their questions went unanswered, leaving them frustrated and angry.
For the next eight years, local residents and VEJA continued to demand that the plans be made public, but to no avail. During this time, ArcelorMittal carried out few remediation measures, and air pollution from the plant continued unabated.
CER submitted a request under the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) on behalf of VEJA in December 2011. At that stage, requests for information from private parties were not common and companies generally ignored or simply rejected such requests, knowing that if a request was rejected, the only remedy available to them was to go to court, whether it was justified or not.
As expected, AMSA rejected VEJA's planning request, stating that it could not prove that the document was necessary to enforce or protect its rights. It also argued that after refusing to release the document for eight years, the Master Plan was now outdated and scientifically flawed. However, AMSA did use the plan as information in its negotiations with government agencies issuing licences.
In one of CER's first cases, the organisation sued on behalf of VEJA to enforce VEJA's rights under PAIA and the Constitution. AMSA opposed the allegations. On the day of the trial, VEJA members, emboldened by having forced the AMSA management to defend them in the High Court, packed the courtroom. Outside, they raised toy-toy and VEJA flags, celebrating that they had made it this far before the verdict was handed down.
VEJA won the case and the High Court ordered AMSA to submit a master plan, but AMSA was not satisfied with the decision and appealed to the Supreme Court.
On the morning of the Court of Appeal hearing, while it was still dark, VEJA members left Vanderbijlpark and took minibus taxis to Bloemfontein to attend the hearing. Outside the modest, velvet-curtained courtroom, members demonstrated and danced.
Victory was swift: in a harsh judgment handed down on 26 November 2014, the court ordered AMSA to disclose the master plan and other records to VEJA and to pay VEJA's legal costs.
The court's words regarding AMSA's lack of good faith in its contract with VEJA and the inconsistencies between its communications to shareholders and its actual actions at the time still ring in our ears today: “Companies operating within the borders of our country must be informed beyond a shadow of a doubt that in the circumstances under discussion there is no room for secrecy regarding the environment and that constitutional values will be enforced.”
The AMSA-VEJA judgment has since been cited in numerous decisions by our country’s courts, but it would not have existed without Mokoena’s tenacity and commitment in taking on the AMSA giants.
In many ways, this case embodies everything Mokoena has stood for: never stop challenging companies that harm communities and the environment; that valid claims should be brought fearlessly in court and before the boardroom; that companies must be transparent and accountable; and that no company is immune from the law.
Hundreds of thousands of people continue to live in the highly polluted Vaal Triangle, where, as in the Mpumalanga Plateau, people are deprived of the clean air their bodies need to survive and thrive. Over the past two years, South Africa's biggest air polluters – Eskom, Sasol and AMSA – have applied for and been granted extensions to compliance with some of the minimum health-based emissions standards.
When governments do not protect their citizens from rights violations, but instead fully support corporations that continue to pay dividends to shareholders, who will stand up to protect us? It takes activists like Samson Mokoena and the public interest lawyers who represent them, at great cost to the courts.
After Mokoena left us last week, VEJA's latest challenge to AMSA's attempts to circumvent these standards was still pending in the High Court.
In the Vaal Triangle, Mokoena's transition is complete, but the work he started is far from finished. His vision and courage will be remembered as we pursue our battle in the courts.
While Mokoena's work has changed the law and benefited us all, it has not brought him and his family financial security. If you are moved by his story, please consider supporting his children's education fundraising campaign. Every donation counts.
Melissa Foley is the Civil Society Commissioner for the South African Climate Commission and former Executive Director of the Centre for Environmental Rights.
