The wheels of politics grind slowly and nimble-footed commercial interests will often take the gap to exploit loopholes before they are closed.

The wheels of politics grind slowly and nimble-footed commercial interests will often take the gap to exploit loopholes before they are closed.

And that's what is happening in Limpopo. Premier Sello Moloto, the Department of Minerals and Energy, the Department of Land Affairs and local authorities have heard from countless disaffected villagers being displaced by voracious, land-hungry platinum mines.

But hearings continue and nothing has yet changed to alleviate their plight.

Up to 10000   people will be displaced to accommodate an expanding platinum mine outside Makopane. The trucks are at the villagers' doors, but the politicians were still talking to the community about it yesterday.

Scores of similar meetings have taken place with simmering communities for the past few years. All the people want is justice, far less than the rights spelt out for communities in the mining charter.

But nothing ever happens.

Villagers of Maandagshoek met politicians and bureaucrats last week to discuss the drilling rigs that pitched up in their front yards without so much as a "good morning" or a "by your leave ma'am".

Nothing happened.

Little wonder they destroyed three this week.