Passop Protests Old Mutual’s Zimbabwean Holdings

Posted in News by Admin on November 18th, 2009

Local civil rights nongovernmental organization (NGO) Passop is planning to approach the South African human rights commission to lodge a complaint against insurance giant Old Mutual. Passop is objecting to Old Mutual’s stake in Zimbabwe’s state-owned newspapers and its interest in a South African company mining diamonds in the Chiadzwa diamond fields, where rampant human rights atrocities have been reported.

The Cape Argus revealed that Old Mutual holds a 19 percent share in Zimpapers, the official publishers of The Herald newspaper. Shortly afterward, it emerged that the financial group is also a part owner of the South African company Grandwell Holdings that has secured a mining deal at the contested diamond fields.

Old Mutual’s involvement in mining the fields has further outraged civil and human rights groups, which have started campaigning for the insurance corporation to cut its ties with The Herald, Mugabe’s propaganda machine. More than 1,200 people have signed the online petition demanding that Old Mutual withdraw its stakes in the Zimbabwean. Braam Hanekom of Passop said the group believed that Old Mutual’s response to the allegation undermined basic human rights.

“The next appropriate step will be to take the matter to the human rights commission,” he said. Clearly, Old Mutual does not abide by any self-imposed moral standard, so we will seek intervention.” Hanekom said it appeared as though the company did not see the need to respect human rights in its investments.

Old Mutual’s corporate affairs director, Crispin Sonn, said today that the company held a 19 percent stake in Zimpapers — “held entirely by Zimbabwean policy holders. Zimbabwean Old Mutual is independently constituted, with an independent board, and no South African money is involved. We’ve also had no objections from the Zimbabwean people,” he added.

Sonn said the subsidiary had held the investment since the 1970s and it remained crucial for shareholders’ money to be invested in Zimbabwe profitably for their benefit. Of the shares in the mining operation, he said Old Mutual held only a 5.2 percent interest and the mining was being conducted by a joint venture between various other parties.

“We are investigating right now,” Sonn promised.