The Royal Bafokeng Nation (RBN) is a 300 000-strong community of black South Africans, predominantly Setswana speaking, based largely in North West Province. The RBN owns 1 200km² of land which hosts the world-renowned Bushveld Complex, the richest known reserve of platinum group metals and chrome. The RBN leases portions of this land to, or conducts joint mining operations with some of the world’s largest mining companies such as Impala Platinum, Anglo Platinum and Xstrata.
In 2002, Royal Bafokeng Resources was established to manage and develop the RBN’s mining-related assets. Two years later, Royal Bafokeng Finance was formed with the aim of establishing a non-mining investment portfolio so as to diversify and stabilise the nation’s investment income over time. In 2006, these two entities were merged to form Royal Bafokeng Holdings (Pty) Limited (RBH) which manages the nation’s portfolio holistically. RBH aspires to be the world’s leading community-based investment company.
The RBN is a legal entity, led by their king, Kgosi Leruo Molotlegi. The RBN, who are part of the Sotho-Tswana people, trace their origins to central Africa. They migrated southwards over more than a millennium to settle in the valley between the Pilansberg Mountains and Rustenburg in the North West province of South Africa.
Throughout their 800-year history, the RBN prevailed over many hardships, rivalries and battles. In the mid-1850s the Bafokeng were displaced from their ancestral lands by European settlers. It was the visionary Kgosi August Mokgatle who in 1866 began securing the Bafokeng’s patrimony by purchasing the land they occupied historically. He bought land through the Lutheran Mission Society who held it in trust for the Bafokeng people. In 1869, when diamonds were discovered in Kimberley, Kgosi Mokgatle sent young men to work on the mines and repatriate their earnings to enable the Bafokeng to buy more land.
Today the RBN comprises 300 000 people and inhabits an area of about 1 200km². The RBN has a well-established governance structure that incorporates both traditional leadership and democratically elected representatives. The land owned by the RBN forms part of the Bushveld Igneous Complex which is the world’s largest single source of chromium, vanadium, and platinum group metals (PGM).
The RBN holds various mineral and mining rights and investments, mainly in PGMs and base metals. The RBN’s main source of income for the past six years has been an annual royalty received from Impala Platinum Limited for the lease of the Impala Lease Area. The royalty funds have been used to provide certain municipal, medical and educational services for the Bafokeng community. This royalty was converted into equity in Implats in 2007.
This changed in 2007 with a BEE agreement to terminate royalty payments by Impala Platinum in exchange for an issue of shares that increased RBH’s shareholding in Impala to 13.4%. In the process, RBH became the largest single shareholder in Impala. RBH’s income from Impala s now in the form of dividends.
To date, the RBN – through its various corporate agencies – has undertaken and overseen infrastructural development (roads, water reticulation, sanitation, electricity and street lights) valued at more than R2 billion. Some 49 schools have been built, as well as a sports stadium, municipal buildings, and the Bafokeng Plaza shopping mall. Informal settlements have been formalised.
The Bafokeng, ‘people of the dew’, are descended from the Sotho-Tswana who travelled south from central Africa to settle in the Rustenburg valley in the 12th century.
In the 1860s, Kgosi Mokgatle began a land buying programme, assisted by the Lutheran Church and funded by young men who were sent to work in the Kimberley diamond fields. A significant portion of land had been purchased by the 1920s. In 1926 substantial reserves of platinum were discovered by Hans Merensky on RBN land.
During the height of the apartheid years in the 1970s and 1980s, an acrimonious relationship with Lucas Mangope, the leader of the then homeland (Bophuthatswana) to which the Bafokeng were assigned, resulted in underinvestment in the region with the RBN leadership either being imprisoned or going into exile. With the change to democracy in South Africa in the 1990s, the RBN regained autonomy over its land. Agreements were signed with the major mining companies for their use of this land in exchange for royalty payments to the RBN.
Royalties paid to the RBN by mining companies operating on RBN land have traditionally been used to uplift the community. The current king of the RBN, Kgosi Leruo Molotlegi, is the 36th king of the Bafokeng.
“The RBN has always sought to use its resources proactively to build capacity rather than relying on public sector funds.”
