Billionaire-Backed Kropz’s National Park Mine Plan Blocked

The Langebaan Lagoon within West Coast National Park, South Africa.Photographer: Rodger Shagam/Getty Images
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South African National Parks has blocked a bid by a company controlled by billionaire Patrice Motsepe to tap South Africa’s second-biggest phosphate deposit in one of the nation’s most important wetlands.

Kropz Plc, which is 90% held by Motsepe’s African Rainbow Capital Investments Ltd., applied last month to extract the raw material used in making fertilizer from a section of the West Coast National Park.