Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane has called on business operating in Africa to take the moral and ethical high ground. He said as much as the continent needed “government officials with clean noses where anyone corrupt is unceremoniously booted out”, it needed ethical businessmen who took moral decisions and were not just driven by profit margins. “No one is saying there should not be returns on investment or that business should not have high levels of profitability,” he said. “But it does not mean either that profitability should be the driving factor at all cost with no care of the impact on the human or environmental elements.” Ndungane said mining houses and other role-players in the project sector had a major role to play in the development of Africa. “We must not forget that many western nations’ economies were developed during the colonial era on this very continent with very little or no regard for the people of Africa.” Ndungane said if mining was to be sustainable then it would have to take moral principles into consideration.
