Human rights

Securing its assets and ensuring the safety of its employees is not only a right of the company, but a responsibility – to employees, to their communities, to shareholders and to the countries that have entrusted the exploitation of their natural wealth to AngloGold Ashanti.

The traditional approach to security in most mining companies focuses specifically on securing assets, particularly as the product reaches further down the processing, smelting and refining end of the process stream, and as its value increases exponentially. This was the case too within AngloGold Ashanti. But, increasingly in recent years and in various locations, the security of people and non-product related assets (from cables to building materials) has also become important.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Colombia, for example, it has been necessary for the company to work with host-nationality military or police, along with specialist security subcontractors, for the company to be able to safely engage in exploration activity. Similarly in Ghana, a police contingent supports the security forces at operations at Obuasi, where in November 2008, an additional deployment of military personnel was required to secure the site. (See box on Dealing with illegal mining at Obuasi in the Community section).

One of the most significant challenges facing the group is that of dealing with artisanal and small-scale miners on the one hand and illegal miners on the other. This is a material issue at the company’s operations in Ghana, Guinea, Tanzania and, to a lesser extent, Mali, as well as at the exploration sites in the DRC. Illegal mining is also an issue at underground operations in South Africa. In these countries, AngloGold Ashanti has to work closely with the state to be able to exercise its legal title to its operations, while at the same time being mindful of traditional values, norms, and access to land. A feature of the year under review has been the increasing tension between AngloGold Ashanti’s operations and illegal mining, trespassing and acts of theft. This is dealt with extensively in this report, including a report on the security incidents that were recorded during the year.

In its endeavours to ensure that the company acts in compliance with its business principles, AngloGold Ashanti is a signatory to both the UN Global Compact and the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights. A toolkit for the implementation of the Voluntary Principles was developed in 2007, but its full implementation was delayed pending a security review.

Given the increasingly complex situations relating to security on the one hand, and the need to ensure compliance with both of the above on the other, the company undertook a global security review between May and July 2008. The purpose of this review was to assess the group’s existing security operations, its security needs and the way in which the various disciplines – from asset protection, to production, to environment and community – can work together. The review was undertaken by Mike Faessler, formerly Director of AngloGold Ashanti’s security operations in Colombia, and now Vice President of Global Security. Faessler undertook interviews with stakeholders and visited a number of mines and exploration sites and completed an in-depth review of security in the DRC.

Security operations have been aligned with industry ‘best practices’. A two-to-three-year plan was approved by the Executive Committee for implementation in November 2008. The major recommendations of this review are described below.

• The creation of a global security department to consolidate, centralise and oversee all aspects of security management. The current security department structure is, Vice President: Global Security, Mike Faessler; and his two deputies, Carlos Guzman, Manager: Global Security – Americas and Australias; and Brian Gonsalves, Manager: Global Security – Africa region.
• The enforcement of threat and security risk assessments for all parts of the portfolio. The risk assessments process justifies the proper security resource mix, and communicates to executives where and why security risks are increasing at business units.
• The security department will champion the crisis management process for the company. This will include drafting and rehearsing plans to manage incidents and crises as they occur throughout the company.
• The creation of an operations centre at all the corporate offices to provide improved duty of care, security oversight to travellers, and provide first response capability for crisis management.
• The existing asset protection discipline becomes the base of a new global security department, with a broader mandate. At the same time, a greater degree of outsourcing to security contractors is being considered as security is not the company’s core business. Greater use will also be made of technology to support the security activities in the future.
• To commit resources to better quantify theft of ore and other mining equipment; and to understand the structures and relationships between artisanal miners, gold dealers and ‘black market’ operations.
• An increase in efforts by the social and security departments to better understand and deal with aggressive and illegal behaviour being committed by actors within the local communities and to engage with NGOs on this matter.

Says Faessler, “The company has around 4,000 security professionals supporting its operations globally. These include company employees, host-nationality military or police, and subcontractors. Their efforts will now be co-ordinated by corporate security experts so that they may have a common understanding of what their roles are, and the boundaries (moral and legal) within which they operate. Their actions will be guided by industry best practices.

“While the security arrangements with the police and military are very common in the countries in which we have these arrangements (Colombia, DRC and Ghanahttp://rair-web/aga2008/ReportToSociety08/f/security-review.pdf), we recognise that we need to take special care in ensuring that our relations are transparent and without prejudice. Contracts in these cases must be open to scrutiny, and compensation paid directly to authorised governmental authorities. Units deployed are trained and educated regarding the Voluntary Principles. While we hold them accountable for the high levels of compliance that we expect of our own personnel, we often lack jurisdictional authority or operational control over them. Notwithstanding this, when and where we suspect violations occur, we insist on thorough and transparent investigations.”

The appropriate level of training, too, is vital to achieve excellence in security operations, says Faessler. “In a series of workshops planned for security managers in early 2009, training will be done based on the nine pillars of the new AngloGold Ashanti security management framework – corporate security, asset protection, crisis management, resource management, risk management, policy standards and compliance, training and education, technology management and the Voluntary Principles. This is scheduled for January 2009 in Johannesburg, South Africa for the Africa region, and February 2009 in Bogota, Colombia for the Americas region. The framework provides for common corporate definitions of every aspect of security management, as well as giving specific benchmarks for improvement. Implementation and improvement of security management will be tracked and measured quarterly.”

At the same time the group is implementing a human rights grievance management process. “Excellence in security enforcement does not have to come at the expense of respect for human rights. Both objectives are complementary,” says Faessler.

Building upon the process that was started in 2008, AngloGold Ashanti will roll out its new security standards to all operations during 2009, with a view to ensuring that all operations will be compliant with the Voluntary Principles by year-end and will be audited against these commitments.”